“He can’t!” Leota winked at herself in the mirror.

“No, siree, he can’t. If he so much as raises his voice against me, he knows good and well I’ll have one of my sick headaches, and then I’m just not fit to live with. And if I really look that pregnant already—”

“Well, now, honey, I just want you to know—I habm’t told any of my ladies and I ain’t goin’ to tell ’em—even that you’re losin’ your hair. You just get you one of those Stork-a-Lure dresses and stop worryin’. What people don’t know don’t hurt nobody, as Mrs. Pike says.”

“Did you tell Mrs. Pike?” asked Mrs. Fletcher sulkily.

“Well, Mrs. Fletcher, look, you ain’t ever goin’ to lay eyes on Mrs. Pike or her lay eyes on you, so what diffunce does it make in the long run?”

“I knew it!” Mrs. Fletcher deliberately nodded her head so as to destroy a ringlet Leota was working on behind her ear. “Mrs. Pike!”

Leota sighed. “I reckon I might as well tell you. It wasn’t any more Thelma’s lady tole me you was pregnant than a bat.”

“Not Mrs. Hutchinson?”

“Naw, Lord! It was Mrs. Pike.”

“Mrs. Pike!” Mrs. Fletcher could only sputter and let curling fluid roll into her ear. “How could Mrs. Pike possibly know I was pregnant or otherwise, when she doesn’t even know me? The nerve of some people!”

“Well, here’s how it was. Remember Sunday?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

“Sunday, Mrs. Pike an’ me was all by ourself. Mr. Pike and Fred had gone over to Eagle Lake, sayin’ they was goin’ to catch ’em some fish, but they didn’t a course. So we was settin’ in Mrs. Pike’s car, it’s a 1939 Dodge—”

“1939, eh,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

“—An’ we was gettin’ us a Jax beer apiece—that’s the beer that Mrs. Pike says is made right in N.O., so she won’t drink no other kind. So I seen you drive up to the drugstore an’ run in for just a secont, leavin’ I reckon Mr. Fletcher in the car, an’ come runnin’ out with looked like a perscription. So I says to Mrs. Pike, just to be makin’ talk, ‘Right yonder’s Mrs. Fletcher, and I reckon that’s Mr. Fletcher—she’s one of my regular customers,’ I says.”

“I had on a figured print,” said Mrs. Fletcher tentatively.

“You sure did,” agreed Leota. “So Mrs. Pike, she give you a good look—she’s very observant, a good judge of character, cute as a minute, you know—and she says, ‘I bet you another Jax that lady’s three months on the way.’”

“What gall!” said Mrs. Fletcher. “Mrs. Pike!”