Anonymous

Experiences of a Country Girl

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER 1: I MEET MR. RALEIGH

I had just come from the woodshed, where I had been given a sound whipping with the strap by my dad and was rubbing my extremely sore and smarting bottom, when I saw Lester Raleigh for the first time. Later events have proved that meeting under such circumstances was very symbolic. Mr. Raleigh drove up to our farmhouse in a sport roadster, tooted his horn to attract my parents, and when they came out of the house and looked and looked at him curiously, he introduced himself. He explained that he had just bought the farm adjoining ours and was driving around getting acquainted with his neighbors. He was not at all like the sort of people we were used to, being free-spoken and quite affable, and looked to be expensive make, indicating he had money. His about thirty. He was well-dressed and his car an agreeable manner even brought my mother out of her usual reticence to talk to strangers, and she smiled and seconded Father's invitation that he remain for dinner which she was just getting ready to put on the table.

“This is our daughter, Lucille,” said Father, motioning toward me.

I didn't know whether to drop him a curtsy or extend my hand in greeting, and in confusion tried to do both at the same time. I was then eighteen years old, that complex age when a girl is trying to drop adolescent manners for adult ways. I tried to stammer some word of greeting, but I spoke incoherently and blushed furiously.

My blush caused Mr. Raleigh to smile with interest, and he commented on it in a complimentary way to my mother.

“You'll have to excuse Lucille, Mr. Raleigh,” she said. “Her paw had to take her out to the woodshed and give her a licking a while ago, and I guess she's still smarting from it.”

That remark, spoken in such a casual manner by my mother to indicate that trips to the woodshed for a whipping were not unusual for me, brought an even deeper flush to my cheeks, and caused Mr. Raleigh to look at me with renewed interest.

From the way he acted at first, I thought he was going to question me about the punishment. But he restrained himself and passed over the subject by remarking something to Mother about naughty girls needing a spanking once in a while.

During dinner, in reply to questions from Father, he laughingly admitted that he didn't know a thing about farming and had no intention of learning. He explained that he was an artist and, feeling that he would like to have a country retreat where he could get away from the noise and confusion of the city whenever he liked to go there, he had purchased the adjoining farm as a sanctuary. He willingly offered to let Father use as much of the farmland as he wished. When he left that evening, he smiled at me in a most peculiar sort of way as he pinched my cheek.