The best laid plans of mice and men . . . (or in this case, women) . . .
My name is BessieJune Pruitt, and I aim to tell you a story. Miz Suze, my teacher, and the person I admire most in all the world, give me an assignment for the class I’m takin’ now that she calls Creative Writing — she said I was to tell you MY story, just the way I wanted to — she don’t believe in censorin.’ So that’s what I’m gonna do. In a way, my story is Miz Suze’s story, too, or at least the way I understood the part of her story she’s been livin’ since I met her.
I first met Miz Suze when she rode into town — we live in a town called Yella Rose, Texas — on the train. She was comin’ to be the new schoolmarm, in fact, the only schoolmarm since we never had one before. The preacher, he’d been a’tryin’ to teach us some, but it was a lost cause seein’ as how he just couldn’t keep from preachin’ and the kids couldn’t stand that. And I’ll havta admit we played all kinds of tricks on him to get him to quit. And he really hadta quit, he got real nervous-like and took to his bed, and he’s still there.
Well, anyway, Miz Suze, she was kinda surprised to find we didn’t have a schoolhouse, or any kinda buildin’ to use except what usta be Miz Trixie’s Finishing School. In fact, it still is Miz Trixie’s Finishing School, since the girls what work at that place didn’t have anywhere else to rightly go, and Miz Suze wasn’t about to run ’em out on the street. So she just moved right in, and became one of the girls right along with ’em. The other kids and me kinda like it since we’d never been allowed inside Miz Trixie’s unlessin’ we sneaked in. And Miz Suze, right away she renamed the place The Yella Rose, after the town, you see; she said it was more “in keepin’ with things.”
The girls are still tryin’ to figure out if they’re still in business, so to speak, cause Miz Trixie, she done took offta California with that tall, dark stranger (I read that description in one of the penny-dreadful books I found in Miz AutumnGlory’s room) that come into town not too long ago. I’m thinkin’ they probably still are at their trade, altho’ Miz Suze has been workin’ on ’em to think better of themselves, and is even havin’ classes for ’em, too. Since she also lives here in Miz Trixie’s Finishin’ School — whoops, I mean The Yella Rose Schoolhouse — oh, by the way, The Yella Rose Schoolhouse is how Miz Suze calls it, but the mayor, he said it hadta be called the Yella Rose Saloon since the other saloon burned down, just about the time Miz Trixie and her feller left town — there was some said she was gettin’ her revenge for all the town had done ta her, an’ if that is true, I am on Miz Trixie’s side since people were real mean to her sometimes — but back to my story. And also Miz Suze’s story.
I think Miz Suze mighta been promised a lot more than was delivered by the town uppities, so to speak, since I don’t think she was expectin’ to run her school outa what also serves as a saloon, and I heard her mutterin’ to herself one time about how was she gonna work out of a saloon downstairs an’ a whorehouse upstairs an’ a schoolroom in the corner, but as we learned, she ain’t one to let life get the better of her. And the girls, the ones that have stayed, they mostly ‘ve come to like her a lot, too. And gettin’ to know the girls has been real good for me, too. I ain’t got a mama, you see, just my daddy who works down at the livery. He works real hard, and ain’t home much, so I really like hangin’ out with the girls. And that’s how I got so close to Miz Suze, too.
So all that kinda tells you how this here story that I’m a’gonna tell you came into bein.’ I don’t rightly know much of Miz Suze’s story before she come here, but I think there’s some mystery and some sadness and some secrets there, stuff she don’t tell any of us. But that sad look she gets in her eye sometimes, it don’t keep her from teachin’ us real good. An’ this here story, my Creative Writing assignment, is gonna be the best story ever. I’m a’gonna tell you the story of each one of the girls’ lives who live here— that is, if’n they’ll tell ’em to me first. I know AutumnGlory will, she’s really nice and jolly and she said sure, she’d go first. And after all, the girls here, they already done a lot of livin’, and me, I ain’t done any yet, so my story woulda been kinda boring.
I’ll begin with AutumnGlory, but that’ll have to be a little later. I still gotta do my chores, and while Miz Suze is right nice, she don’t countenance laziness. So I’ll talk to you later.