One day about a week into it, Mrs. Horne confided to him that she wasn’t happy with the progress of the mural. “I feel so bad, Lucy has worked so hard, but there’s something troubling about it,” she whispered, leaning into Smash Dykes.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with them horses, now,” said Smash Dykes.

“It’s not the horses, it’s the background. It looks like something out of Desert Storm. Will you come with me when I confront her, Smash? I must be brave, but for this I need a man by my side.”

“I’ll be that man. Happy to.”

Smash Dykes stood in the doorway as Mrs. Horne began, “We love the horses, Lucy, but there’s something harsh about the background.”

Lucy stood with her brush held lightly in her fingers, looking at the rock she had just painted. Those shadows had not been easy.

“Could you just put a tree or two in there?” said Mrs. Horne. “Not necessarily a tree tree, but just a suggestion of trees. I think it needs the softness of trees. What do you think, Smash?”

“I like trees,” said Smash Dykes. “This whole town was built on the longleaf pine.”

So Lucy worked another day and a half, wishing she got paid by the hour instead of the job, painting out rocks and painting in trees, and at last it was done.

“I love it, Lucy, I absolutely love it,” said Mrs. Horne. “That is exactly what it needed, just that little touch of green.” She signed the check and hung a roll of toilet paper under the thundering hooves of the bay horse. She stood back and clasped her hands delightedly under her chin. “Just in time for the parade!”

Then it was the week of the festival, and the whole town was scurrying to get ready for the first annual Florinna Fall Parade. Mrs. Horne hung banners and bunting all over White Cat Books and set up a display of the new Christmas books in the window. On Tuesday afternoon Mrs. Horne got Smash Dykes to drive her all the way to Dothan to get a truckload of potted chrysanthemums. It was after eleven by the time they got back and got all the plants unloaded, and it was one a.m. when Smash Dykes’s truck pulled out of Mrs. Horne’s driveway and headed slowly down the street with the headlights turned off.

The next day Mrs. Horne was all over town delivering pots of chrysanthemums, and whispering and giggling.

In the coffee shop, alternating pots of bronze and yellow: “You know how courtly he is! Why, it was just like something out of a book!”

At the gift shop, pinching off broken flower heads: “Alice, I’m telling you, he was down on his knees! I said, ‘Smash, get up from there!’”