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Dumb Hillbillies
Sara Jane. You get up here right this minute, and help get them closes hung out ta dry. And how many times I got ta tell you ta stay away from there a gawking at Holbart Finch. Just cause he come here ta work for your Pa, don't mean you going ta be taken up with the likes of him. Mattie Ann Klump stood on the bottom step with her hands on her hips, giving Sara Jane one of her evil eye looks. Sara Jane took a long deep breath, and let it out slowly. It was all she could do ta keep from yelling back at her Ma. But being only fifteen she knew she wasn't to big ta get a strap took ta her back side. So she started walking up the path toward the old saw mill board house they called home. God I can't wait ta get away from here, she mumbled ta herself.

Sara Jane Klump and her family lived on Cumberland Mountain in Tennessee. Times was hard for ever body. No money was ta be had, if folks didn't grow their own food, they wouldn't had a bite ta eat. If a man could get a job, he didn't have away ta get to it. Cause if he had a car, he didn't have no gas for it ta run. So folks stayed home, The house would be over run with young ins, cause a healthy wife would be have one about ever year. The garden just kept getting bigger and the bed just kept getting fuller. Y there might be as many as five or six young ins a sleeping in one bed. Sara Jane was lucky, she was an only child. But Holbart Finch had ten brothers and sisters younger than him. And he had just turned seventeen. That was how he had come ta work at the Klump farm. When folks got more kids than they needed ta work their own farm, they would loan out one of the older ones to another family just ta keep from having another mouth ta feed.

Sara Jane's Ma had been haven a fit for the past month, since Holbart had come ta live there. She had plans ta see Sara Jane get as much schooling as she could. Being that there was only one school for all twelve grades. It was hard for a youngin ta get much learning there. Mattie Ann didn't like the fact that Holbart had quit school last year. She was afraid he would set his cap on her little Sara Jane. And she wasn't a haven it now. Holbart Finch had best watch his step around here.
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Well, what Mattie Ann Klump, "Miss high an might! Didn't know, was that it was her little Sara Jane that was a settin her cap for Holbart. Y she had come into the barn where he was brushing down that old plow horse and had kissed him right on the mouth, the other day. They was only one thing that kept Holbart from running as fast as his feet would take him. Was the fact that he had almost another year before he was to go to the army, and he hadn't eat so good in a long time. He wasn't about ta give up eating Mattie Ann's fried chicken for kissing no fifteen year old girl. So you just stay away from me, he had told Sara Jane. He had also told her, he didn't intend to waste his life a haven kids by the dozen and breaking his back ta put food on the table. He was leaven for the army next year, and wasn't ever coming back to this dumb Hillbilly part of the world.

Holbart had stayed true to his word. He had managed to keep Sara Jane at bay for the time he worked for the Klump's. When his birthday come the next year, he said his goodbyes to the Cumberland Mountains, and Mattie Ann's fried chicken "For ever.

Learn more about this author, Willie Higgins.
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