Garters

Esme Crabb has spent a lifetime in the mountains trying to stir up good gravy from watery “poor-do”. And she’s had no help from her ne’er-do-well father or silly sisters. The family lives rough and gets by beholden to their neighbors.

Esme was hoping the twins could marry well, but like everything that needs doing in her family, it seems she has to do it herself.

Cleavis Rhy, Vader, Tennessee’s prosperous storekeep hardly takes notice of the raggedy hill girl. That is until she asks him to marry her.

That will never happen.

Cleav, a would-be gentleman, has been all the way to Knoxville for study. And as self-taught pisciculturist he corresponds with some of the best academics in the field. He has a love of reading and an enjoyment of stimulating conversation. His romantic ambitions lie, much more reasonably, in the direction of the quiet and refined charms of the pastor’s daughter.

An ignorant hill girl in a shabby dress and sagging stockings holds no interest for him. Nothing on earth could ever bring those two together.

Never underestimate the power of a pair of garters.