up, before she was really ready.  “The firecracker” told her ma and pa everything that had happened at the creek, about the fun, as she set the table.  Ethel kept dunking John, she said, underwater a million times, Polly and Seth got into a big splashing fight, and Elmer had swung on the tire, attached to a tree, near the water, and how he didn’t let go when he was supposed to, and landed on the shore where he had started.

     At supper, Dessie reached for a second piece of bread, buttered it, and used it to sop up the thick brown gravy of Christine’s delicious stew.  She loved her ma’s stew, and it clearly showed, as she gobbled down each biteful, and crammed the gravy-dripping bread into her mouth.  Dessie’s table manners, everyone’s table mann...

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