St. David's Day 1848 #6
Summary:Wednesday, March 1, 1848
It's the dark and early morning hours of St. David's Day and Griffith Williams, nestled and cozy next to his dear friend, Gwyn, is abruptly awakened by a man who calls out in a strange voice.
"Great-grandfather?"
Griffy is startled to see the shimmering form of a handsome man with bright and shining eyes. And they're a color of brown he's not seen before.
The face, however, is more than a little familiar. With a dimple in the chin, it brings to mind memories of his late father, his tad, David.
Is it evil or is it good which has brought forth this ghostly vision?
Beyond the veil and away from the rivers of time, Paul Williams is organizing a small party.
A luncheon, if you will.
He has summoned Nicholas, his great-nephew, and Janet, his great-niece, and has asked their beloveds to join in the festivities.
The main course of their other-worldly meal will be a plain but sumptuous cawl cennin, a leek and potato soup, the perfect dish for a Welsh holiday.
And the guest of honor?
His very own father, Griffith Williams.
Paul has a message and the time, as it were, has come for him to deliver it.
On St. David's Day, no less.
This is a short story, set mostly outside of time, and containing about 5,100 words.
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 #7
Summary:Saturday, March 17, 1945
Nick Williams is in the U.S. Navy and working as a hospital corpsman. He was recently transferred to the Navy's Base Hospital 13 at Milne Bay, New Guinea, right on the edge of the jungle and pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
He's about to head over to Port Moresby for 24 hours of leave with his buddy, Hospital Apprentice First Class Reynolds, so they can fool around in private and in their own room at the Moresby Hotel. Nick is hoping they keep the place over there nice and clean and free of the snakes and bugs he runs into in his quarters at the base.
Friday, March 16, 1945
Carter Jones is working as a fireman at Station 3 on Polk Street in San Francisco. He's living on Turk Street in the apartment he and Henry shared before Henry, his first lover, joined the Army and shipped out to Europe.
He's having a hard time figuring out what to do with himself on a Friday before he begins his next shift. He starts the day by watching Meet Me In St. Louis for the third time at the Castro Theatre over in Eureka Valley. Then he runs into a new acquaintance he'd rather not see again. Can the day get any worse?
Easter, 1929 #8
Summary:Sunday, March 31, 1929
Mrs. Wilson Jones (Louise) of Albany, Georgia, wakes up on yet another Sunday morning to discover her husband didn't come home after carousing down at Louray's by the river.
But she doesn't have time to worry. Easter dinner will be at her sister's house and Mrs. Jones has biscuits to bake. So, she turns on the radio, begins to sing with The Chambers Family Quintet, broadcasting over WSJ in Atlanta, and gets the buttermilk out of the icebox. There's work to be done and Mrs. Jones is a good cook, keeps a clean house, and always delivers on her promises.
St. David's Day, 1848 #6
Original Review March 2022:
Again, having not read any of Nick and Carter's journey previously, I felt like there might be a question or two that went unanswered for me but they were "holes" that didn't effect this short story. I was never lost. Truth is, St. David's Day, 1848 is outside the era parameters in the series descriptions done in a way that is both dream and fantasy.
I won't say too much for those who like me have yet to discover Frank W Butterfield's Nick and Carter saga but I will say, I loved the uniqueness of St. David's Day, 1848. The blending of dream, fantasy, historical, and family really worked here and has furthered my hunger to one day read Nick and Carter from the beginning. Short, sweet, and highly entertaining.
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 #7
Original Review March 2022:
Once again I have read an entry in the Nick & Carter Holiday series before I have had a chance to read the "bulk" or "meat and potatoes" of their journey. Once again I loved it! I think I was less "on the fringe" in St. Patrick's Day, 1945 than the others. I use "on the fringe" because "lost" doesn't sound quite right as each one seems to have a beginning and end, there are characters that I'm sure are mentioned in more detail in their full journey but I don't feel I need to know that information to fully appreciate this short.
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 is what some might call "dual narration" as it is before the two men meet and we see where each man is that March. I don't know just when they actually met but I felt a better label would be "prequel to merging of fate's intention", yeah I know that's a bit over the top but hey, what can I say? I'm still new to this universe. However you choose to label it, this is a look at the two men before they their paths crossed and I have a feeling it explains a lot into their lonely hearts leading to that future meet.
I do want to take a minute to mention how I loved the scene where we see the internal heartache of Carter not having joined up. It's not an ache we see much in fiction because I'm afraid too many people today don't realize that not every able-bodied man was allowed to join. My grandfather and his youngest brother-in-law were told they were needed more on the homefront as they were farmers. As for my grandfather, he was also 4F due to a bout of rheumatic fever as a child but his BIL carried a fair amount guilt for not having served according to one of his daughters. I just wanted to applaud the author for accurately describing Carter's internal guilt, it was spot on.
Yet again, this snippet series has bumped the men's journey up another notch on my TBR list. I doubt I'll get to it before reading further holiday gems in Nick & Carter Holiday world but each one takes me closer and closer to jumping in. I also want to say another Thank You to Frank W Butterfield for spotlighting so many holidays that rarely get touched on in fiction, that aspect alone makes this series worth exploring so to have each one be so incredibly intriguing is just icing on the cake.
Easter, 1929 #8
Original Review April 2022:
Although this is an entry in the Nick & Carter Holiday series, Easter 1929 is a snapshot in the life of 8 year old Carter, long before meeting Nick. Having yet to read the Nick Williams Mystery series, I have only seen snippets of the characters both as a pair and individuals through these short stories so I imagine, like the other 3 I've read, we see reasons why Carter, in part at least, feels the way he does in regard to family and childhood.
As for Easter, 1929 I can't help but be reminded of my own grandfather who would also have been 8 that year(though only 7 at Easter) and a year later his mother died from breast cancer and his aunt moved in to help his dad raise him and his 2 sisters. From the stories I've heard, I can see similarities between Carter's family members and my grandfathers'(although my grandfather utterly adored his mother and took her death very hard and his dad was an uber Dutch Reformed Church member not a drunk) and I couldn't help but picture a young Berdean Vande Vrede in Carter's place. So not only is this short a very intriguing and I imagine telling peak into events that helped shape Carter into the man who falls for Nick Williams but it also helped me play out that moment in time in my grandpa's life in my mind's eye. I find stories that help the reader connect on a personal level and absolute treasure and that's what Easter, 1929 is for me.
I don't know just when I'll get to read the original Nick Williams Mystery series(I will though and I already have the first 2 on my kindle) but believe me with each new holiday short, it moves up a few notches on my TBR list.
St. David's Day, 1848 #6
Along the River Taff
Rhydyfelin, Wales
Wednesday, March 1, 1848
Early morning
Nick walked aboard the boat tied up alongside the rickety dock and, ducking his head, made his way through the door and inside the cabin. He knew it was chilly inside. However, in the small kitchen on the forward end of the boat, he could see a bit of light coming from the stove. He figured there was some coal inside, doing its best to keep the place warm.
In the dark, the interior looked older than he remembered from when he'd visited in his dreams. There was more junk, for one thing, and he had the sense that a kind of dank smell permeated the place.
That made him think of Carter which, for whatever reason, seemed to light up the room for a brief moment.
Smiling to himself, Nick turned and went into the aft part of the boat and found a narrow bed there, pushed to one side. It was covered with a thick pile of wool blankets, none of which were very clean.
Under the heavy covers, he saw the blond head of the man he knew to be Gwyn Owen, his great-grandfather's close friend and lover. Gwyn was snoring, his head bent back a little and his thin nose pointing straight up. A little ball of spit was resting in the corner of the man's mouth.
Just tucked under his chin was the dark and tousled head of Griffith Williams, Nick's great-grandfather.
Neither man was clean, to say the least, and Nick knew the room smelled to high heaven. He was glad Carter hadn't come with him. If he had, his ethereal nose would have been twitching in disgust. Thinking of Carter made the room light up, again.
Gwyn frowned in his sleep and turned on his side.
Griffy (that was the nickname Gwyn had used when Nick had met them in his dreams) shifted as well. Doing so made the covers slip off his face. Reaching up from under, he used a grimy finger to scratch his nose.
"Great-grandfather?"
Griffy sighed to himself but didn't open his eyes.
"Great-grandfather?"
Taking a deep breath and then coughing, Griffy shifted in the bed again. That movement made Gwyn mutter to himself. Nick had no idea what the man was saying. He couldn't tell if it was Welsh or just the sounds that a deep sleeper made when he was disturbed.
"Griffy?" asked Nick.
"What be?" muttered his great-grandfather, his eyes still closed.
"Wake up."
Finally, the man's eyes opened. He took one look at the Nick's ghostly form standing by his bed and frowned.
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 #7
U.S.N. Base Hospital 13
Hospital Corpsmen Quarters
Milne Bay, New Guinea
Sat 17 March 1945
0730 Kilo Time
. . .
Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street
San Francisco, Cal.
Friday, March 16, 1945
2:30 p.m. Pacific War Time
Nick Williams opened his eyes and turned over on his cot with a sigh. He reached over to the little bamboo table next to the cot and found his pack of Camels and his Zippo lighter. With just his one hand, he pulled out a cigarette, stuck it between his lips, and lit it.
Holding onto the lighter, he took a deep drag and could feel himself waking up to the hot and humid morning.
"You up, Frisco?" That was Reynolds, a fellow Navy corpsman. He was from Louisiana and, by all rights, should have had a nickname like "Cajun" or "Dixie Boy." But, for whatever reason, everyone called him by his last name. Nick had never heard the kid's first name that he could remember.
As he exhaled a small cloud of blue smoke, Nick said, "Yeah. I'm up."
"How'd you sleep through everyone else bangin' around and makin' such a god-awful noise?"
Nick laughed, took another drag, and, on the exhale, said, "I must've been sleepin' the sleep of the innocent."
From across the small Quonset hut that made up their quarters, he heard Reynolds snort. "Right."
After a long moment, Nick clamped his lips tightly around his Camel, and picked up his left boot with his right hand. He turned it upside-down and shook it. Sure enough, a big shiny beetle fell out and made its wobbly way across the black dirt that served as a floor. Nick repeated the same action with his right boot, and was slightly disappointed when nothing fell out.
. . .
Carter Jones walked out of the Castro Theatre and blinked in the bright Friday afternoon sunshine. Looking up at the Twin Peaks above the Eureka Valley neighborhood, he could see that the afternoon fog was already beginning to crawl around the hills. The fog didn't always make it to the Tenderloin, where he lived. He looked at his watch and, after realizing it was half past 2 in the afternoon, he thought it just might.
He pulled his coat tight as the wind suddenly gusted around the corner. When it hit him the second time, he managed to pull his hat down before it was blown down the street like had just happened to the bald man who was about to walk into the Twin Peaks Tavern at the corner.
He'd just seen Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland for the third time. As he walked up Castro Street towards Market, trying to decide whether to walk home and have a sandwich there or to grab one on the way, he sidestepped a pair of twin blonde girls who came running towards him, both bundled up in rose-colored coats and both giggling.
Their mother, a blonde woman whose hair was bound tightly in a bun and who looked like she was on her way to work at the shipyard down at Hunter's Point for the second shift, smiled grimly at Carter and said, "Welcome back, soldier."
Carter nodded without replying and lengthened his gait as he walked as fast as he could to get away from the woman and her mistaken assumption.
. . .
The one shower that the eight corpsmen shared behind their quarters was in a shady spot protected by the wide leaves of some tree Nick had never seen until he'd arrived in New Guinea a couple of months earlier. Unlike the Quonset hut, the shower had a wood slat floor that sat a few inches above the ground and allowed the water to run off.
Like everywhere he went, the first thing he did when he pulled open the door to the three-by-three shower was to look for whatever might be taking a nap on the wood slats or hanging from the overhead plumbing. On that particular morning all he found was a bright green snake about four feet long who was hanging by its tail from the shower head. The snake turned its head and looked at him quizzically. Nick grabbed the creature just under its long chin and flicking red tongue, quickly yanked it from its perch, and casually threw it back into the jungle.
The trick to taking a shower at Milne Bay was not to get bitten or stung while doing so. Some of the guys, and it only made sense, would wear their boots. Nick liked to live on the wild side, so he only wore his boots as he walked from his cot, through the hut, and along the short dirt path to the shower but then kicked them off and left them just outside the swinging door before getting wet. The other guys, those who wore their boots, were always getting jungle rot on their feet since the boots never would dry out. That meant they had to deal with the wisecracking doctors every week or so but considered the infection and the pointed barbs better than a bite by something hiding under the slats. The doctors could afford to be assholes with the lowly corpsmen since their quarters had wood floors, wood walls, and glass windows while their shower rested on a small slab of poured concrete.
When taking a shower, Nick had a process he'd developed during his three years living and working on a big Navy hospital ship (which was where he'd been assigned before New Guinea). He pulled on the chain that released warm water from the overhead tank and got himself as wet as possible while counting to fifteen. He then let go of the chain and, using a handmade bar of saltwater soap, would lather himself up from head to toe. There was an old Australian lady who lived in a hut along the beach, just south of the hospital, who made the soap and sold it in small bars for an American nickel, four Australian pennies, or three British pennies. They had to use the special soap since Ivory didn't do much of anything in the water they used for showers because it was about half saltwater.
After lathering up, Nick pulled the chain again and counted to thirty while he rinsed off. He was fast at getting rid of the suds and usually had a whole ten seconds when he could just stand under the warm water and think about what it would be like to stand under a civilian shower for a good ten minutes or more.
. . .
By the time he made his way to Van Ness, Carter had finally relaxed. He hated it when someone assumed he'd been in the service. He'd wanted to go but, since he was a fireman in San Francisco, his captain had strongly suggested he not sign up back in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. The assumption at the time had been that the Japanese would strike California and all the policemen and firemen would be needed. Plenty had volunteered, and his station was definitely short-staffed, but Carter had done what his captain wanted and had regretted it ever since.
Just that morning, he'd read a story in the Examiner about how Churchill believed the war might be over by the end of the summer. Carter hoped so. He wanted it to be over and for life to get back to normal.
He didn't care about the rationing, which is what most people who complained about the war would talk about. He could happily eat beans and rice, with a fresh tomato thrown in every now and then, for most every meal. That way he saved up his red points for a good Porterhouse steak, well-done. He'd learned to tolerate fish, particularly if it was fried, but only when he was eating out. He didn't have a car, so he didn't have to worry about gas and tire coupons.
The truth was that Carter didn't like to complain about much anything, not even war-time conditions, so he didn't. There wasn't much use in doing so, anyway. The war was going to last as long as it was going to last, no matter what Carter thought about it. If he had been a complainer, he would have talked to those who were sympathetic regarding such things about finally getting to see his lover, Henry, who was a captain in the Army over in Europe.
Carter and Henry Winters had grown up together back in Albany, Georgia. In 1939, they'd driven cross-country to San Francisco and became lovers in the process. As soon as they arrived in the City, Carter had fulfilled his lifelong desire to become a fireman. Henry, for his part, had started school at Cal, going across the bay to Berkeley every day in pursuit of a degree in engineering. When the war started, Henry was told by the draft board to finish his degree. He graduated in 1943 and went to sign up. The Army took him on as a captain and, after boot camp and training school, sent him over to somewhere in Europe. In all the time he'd been gone, Henry had never been allowed to tell Carter where he was stationed or what he was doing. But the letters came and they were as regular as could be expected, so Carter was happy about that.
As he pushed through the door into Gene Compton's Cafeteria on Market, just past 11th Street, he sighed a little as he wondered about Henry and what he was doing and what life was like in the Army. Being the middle of the afternoon, the place was quiet. The only patrons were two sets of older ladies dressed for shopping and having coffee and a bite of something sweet. Being the middle of Lent, the smell of fried fish was in the air and Carter decided he'd get a plate of halibut smothered in tartar sauce, a bowl of tomato soup, and a wedge of raisin pie.
After he paid for his food and grabbed a cup of coffee, Carter found a table by the street-facing window and had a seat. He was halfway through wolfing down the halibut when he heard a sharp rap on the glass. Looking up, he saw Paul Downey smiling back at him through the window. In spite of himself, Carter smiled back and nodded. Paul then dashed towards the door while Carter sighed deeply, wishing he'd sat at a table that wasn't visible from the street.
. . .
Nick was sitting on his cot, reading Stars and Stripes for the third time that week, when Reynolds made his way back into the Quonset hut after taking his shower. Looking up, Nick noticed his friend was dressed only in his white BVDs and had wrapped his towel around his neck. Nick looked at his watch. It was a quarter past 8. He said, "You better get a move on. That Navy flyboy said we're taking off at 9 sharp and we still have to make our way through that bunch of overactive juveniles to get to the dock."
"I know, son, I know," drawled Reynolds as he threw his towel down on his cot and began to pull on his Navy blues. Nick watched the tall, muscular kid dress himself and could feel a familiar warmth move through his body.
He and Reynolds had twenty-four hours leave to head over to Port Moresby. They had to be back at Milne Bay by 0900 the next morning. The hospital commander was expecting the first wave of wounded from the remnants of the Iwo Jima battle to arrive by noon the next day and their unit had to be ready to handle them. Nick thought it was a hell of a long way for a bunch of injured sailors and marines to travel but, from what he'd heard, there were more wounded than had been expected. That was why the tiny hospital in the middle of nowhere New Guinea was expecting its largest contingent of patients since it had stood up back in '43.
About three hundred feet up the beach, there was a slightly larger U.S. Army hospital and, about half a mile further, an even larger facility run by the Australian Royal Air Force. The Army hospital wasn't much better than their digs, but the Navy doctors liked to fraternize with the Army nurses since, to a woman, the small group of Navy nurses were all known to be lesbians, although that wasn't the word the doctors used.
Nick had arrived at Milne Bay in January. It had taken about a week to figure out that he and Reynolds made a good pair. The kid was just Nick's type. He was blond, had bright blue eyes, and stood around 6'3". He'd worked in his daddy's factory back home, just outside of New Orleans, and was covered with muscles. Nick's only complaint was that Reynolds was hairless and smooth as a rock, except around his crotch. However, he knew how to use his equipment, which was always a good thing. They fooled around when they could get away with it and, as far as Nick knew, none of the other corpsmen were any the wiser.
Their leave in Port Moresby, a small town in the backwater of New Guinea, was their first chance to be truly alone and Nick was hoping Reynolds would finally go all the way to home base with him that night.
Easter, 1929 #8
Chapter 1
736 West 2nd Avenue
Albany, Ga.
Sunday, March 31, 1929
Half past 6 in the morning
Mrs. Wilson Jones (Louise) opened her eyes just as the sun began to flood the windows of her modest bedroom. Without looking, she tentatively reached out with her left hand and discovered that her husband was, once again, not in bed beside her on a Sunday morning. This was no surprise to Mrs. Jones, but she was disappointed that he hadn't bothered to show up before dawn on Easter Morning.
With a sigh, she threw back the covers, which consisted of a thin cotton sheet, a thin summer blanket, and her grandmother's handmade quilt. Granny Carter had made a quilt for each of her three granddaughters. Mrs. Jones happened to possess the one that was mostly green and blue, and she was always grateful it was that one and not the one that her sister Maria had insisted on which was an awful red and black pattern.
As she stood, she pulled on her cotton nightgown and cinched it tightly around her waist. She loved the feeling of security that the extra hard tug on the belt would bring her. Walking into the small bathroom that was included with the bedroom, she took care of her morning business. Once she was done, she picked up the new cake of Ivory soap and vigorously washed her hands. She'd read in The Atlanta Journal about how important washing one's hands was as a morning ritual, particularly upon rising. It helped get rid of deadly germs and Mrs. Jones was a firm believer that her attention to household cleanliness was the primary reason her two sons, Robert, age 9, and Carter, age 8, had both grown up free of the usual early childhood ailments, except for the chickenpox which, as Mrs. Jones well knew, every boy and girl needed to get as a child in order to avoid problems when they were young adults.
Once she had thoroughly rinsed her hands, Mrs. Jones left the bathroom, ensuring her hands were dry before depressing the electric light switch. She quietly made her way through the bedroom and out onto the landing. She saw that the doors to her sons' bedrooms and the bathroom at the end were all hygienically closed with the dormers open above them.
She made her way cautiously down the stairs, keeping a sharp eye out for toys that one or both of her sons might have inadvertently brought out during the night (something they had never done but it didn't hurt to check) and then confidently put her foot on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and made a right, walking through the living room and dining room and towards the kitchen at the rear of the house.
As she walked past the new sofa (all of Mrs. Jones's furniture was new, having been purchased in February when they took possession of the new house her husband had bought, all cash), she glanced to see if the sleeping body of her husband might be visible. It was not.
Mrs. Jones pinched herself on the inside skin of her left wrist in order to banish the passing hope that she might find his dead body strewn about somewhere out front or, preferably, in the backyard where the neighbors would be less likely to see it. Of course, Mrs. Jones considered, as she opened the radio cabinet door to switch on station WSB broadcasting from Atlanta, that, when the police arrived to take her statement as the grieving widow (Mrs. Jones liked that phrase—it gave her immense satisfaction), the neighbors would then have to know what happened. News would, as it always did in both white and colored Albany, spread like wildfire. The neighboring housewives, like Mrs. John Colbert (Roberta) who lived next door, would pick up their telephones (if they had one) and call their closest friends, making sure to speak loud enough for their colored maids to hear, like Ninny, Mrs. Colbert's maid who had also worked for Mrs. Colbert's mother until the poor dear passed in 1921. The colored maids would then tell the milkman or the butcher or the little colored boy who delivered the early-evening Atlanta Constitution all about it and the news would be off to the races.
As the radio began to warm up and she could hear the familiar voices of The Chambers Family Quintet singing "Bringing in the Sheaves," Mrs. Jones pinched herself one more time. She asked herself, "What sort of woman entertains such morbid thoughts?" Although, in her heart of hearts, Mrs. Jones well knew the answer, she was unwilling to look there. Instead, as she pulled out the pitcher of buttermilk from the icebox, she began to sing along with Hannah Chambers, the group's youngest member who was sweetly performing a solo on the second verse:
Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze;
By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
That song always cheered her up. Mrs. Jones remembered seeing a photograph of the entire Chambers family in the Albany paper. The oldest had been the father, Adolphus, then his wife, Mary. In the paper, Mrs. Chambers had looked very strict but, being a Methodist, she would be. The oldest boy was Jeremiah, age 17, followed by Ezekiel, age 14, and then little Hannah, age 9. That was the same age as her Robert, and she was just as cute as you please. She had black hair pulled tightly into pigtails. Mrs. Jones had, on occasion, dreamed of having a daughter of her own. She could see her own little girl, blonde perhaps, sitting at a perfect little dressing table and allowing her perfectly shiny hair to be brushed a hundred times each night by her adoring mother. If she were only allowed to have two children, and Mrs. Jones had thought about this at length, she would have preferred to keep Robert and send Carter over to live with her sister Velma, who was childless, so she, Mrs. Jones, could welcome a little girl into the family home. Mrs. Jones was convinced that, if she ever had a girl baby, her husband would probably not drink as much as he did or be as rough with the children or with her as he was.
The phone in the living room suddenly burst through her reverie with the familiar two long rings followed by one short ring that meant the operator was calling their house. Mrs. Jones carefully covered the buttermilk pitcher with a towel to keep any flying or crawling bugs from getting in and immersing themselves into the liquid and become undetectable until someone accidentally found one in a biscuit. As the phone rang a second time, Mrs. Jones turned down the volume knob on the radio and then picked up the black candlestick phone, removed the receiver, placed it firmly against her ear to make sure she could clearly hear the far side of the conversation, and then conscientiously said directly into the device, "This is J-73."
"Louise?"
"Good morning, Velma. Happy Easter."
"Happy Easter to you, Louise. Did Wilson make it home yet?"
"No," was Mrs. Jones's crisp and curt reply.
"Well, I thought I'd call and let you know he should be on his way. Roscoe just crawled through the front door and he smells like the inside of distillery. I don't know yet whether he'll make it to church or not."
"Velma! It's Easter Sunday! What will the preacher think if you're there without him?"
Velma chuckled. "Brother Wilkins was down by the river with the rest of the sinners, Louise."
Mrs. Jones simply couldn't believe that was possible. "There must have been some sort of mistake, Velma. Brother Wilkins is a teetotaler. Everyone in town knows that."
Velma chuckled at the other end of the line again. Mrs. Jones hated when her sister laughed at her. She knew that Velma didn't keep to the same standards as herself. Mrs. Jones always felt as if she had to hold up the Carter family pride, even if Velma didn't. And Maria, their third sister, had a stubborn streak a mile wide so there was no reasoning with her. But Velma could be reasonable when she decided to. However, there were some things her sister did that Mrs. Jones simply could not abide.
One example that always got on her nerves was how Velma was so familiar with Mattie, her colored maid. It was all fine and well to talk about how those people were members of the family, but it really didn't do to be going over and having tea in dark town. It just wasn't right. Mrs. Jones, of course, didn't have a maid. Wilson didn't like having colored in the house, even if they only worked in the kitchen and came in through the back door. Mrs. Jones thought it was all for the best, in any event. She was sure Wilson would have been rude to anyone who came in to help. Besides, she could do her own housework, thank you very much. She never understood why Velma kept Mattie on. She didn't have any children. Of course, she and Leroy did live in that big old house just outside of downtown. But still—
"Louise? Are you there?"
"Yes, Velma."
"You didn't answer my question."
"What question was that?"
Velma sighed. "Are you still planning on bringing your biscuits over for Easter dinner today? If not, I need to let Mattie know right this minute. Otherwise, I'll be in trouble again and she might not cook dinner."
"Really, Velma. The way you let that woman boss you around is just shameful."
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"Of course I'll bring my biscuits," replied Mrs. Jones with a sharp tone of irritation in her voice. "But how can I cook if I'm spending the whole blessed morning on the phone?"
With that, her sister hung up.
Nick Williams Mystery Series
In 1953, the richest homosexual in San Francisco is a private investigator.
Nick Williams lives in a modest bungalow with his fireman husband, a sweet fellow from Georgia by the name of Carter Jones.
Nick's gem of a secretary, Marnie Wilson, is worried that Nick isn't working enough. She knits a lot.
Jeffrey Klein, Esquire, is Nick's friend and lawyer. He represents the guys and gals who get caught in police raids in the Tenderloin.
Lt. Mike Robertson is Nick's first love and best friend. He's a good guy who's one hell of a cop.
The Unexpected Heiress is where their stories begin. Read along and fall in love with the City where cable cars climb halfway to the stars.
Long before the Summer of Love, pride parades down Market Street, and the fight for marriage equality, San Francisco was all about the Red Scare, F.B.I. investigations, yellow journalism run amok, and the ladies who play mahjong over tea.
Saturday Series Spotlights
Nick & Carter Holiday Series
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is a series of short stories with each centered around a specific holiday.
From New Year's Day to Boxing Day, each story stands on its own and might occur in any year from the early 1920s to the first decade of the 21st Century.
Saturday Series Spotlights
Frank W Butterfield
Frank W. Butterfield is the Amazon best-selling author of 89 (and counting) self-published novels, novellas, and short stories. Born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, he has traveled all over the US and Canada and now makes his home in Daytona Beach, Florida. His first attempt at writing at the age of nine with a ball-point pen and a notepad was a failure. Forty years later, he tried again and hasn't stopped since.
St. David's Day 1848 #6
St. Patrick's Day, 1945 #7
Easter, 1929 #8
Nick Williams Mystery Series
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Nick & Carter Holiday Series
