The old man pointed a finger at the stranger. "DOUBLE-YOLKED eggs. By then they was all mostly double-yolked. I was famous for it."
"Sorry. How long were you in the double-yolked egg business?"
Jeremias looked out over his shaggy farm. "Years and years went by. Nothing changed for a long, long time. Days went by like second hands on a wind-up watch, then weeks went by that quick, then months. I didn't think much about time. I thought about this day going to Trustville, this day Birmingham and so on and the years passed by more or less unnoticed. One thing I knew, though. Them folks couldn't get along without Jeremias the Egg Man."
"Them what you like, you mean," said Esther.
The old man laughed. "Well, I was human too, and had my good and bad sides."
"That's hard for me to believe," I said.
"Umph," scoffed Esther.
"Well, sometimes, for whatever reason, somebody got on my bad side."
"But slightly, I might add," added Esther.
"Once they stepped over the line, they had a real hard time getting a word, much less eggs from old Jeremias. Some times I would charge them twice what the eggs was worth. Sometimes, if a uppity wife or cook didn't get the message, I could get the news that they were in need of eggs and they would go without."
"He's a proud man, don't you know."
"There was a many a rude woman who died without gettin' another egg from old Jeremias, I'll tell you," he explained with a sharp bob of his head.
"I told you he was proud...too proud if you ask me."
"What was your typical work week like?" I asked.
"Well, on Tuesdays I pushed my heavy cart all the way up the grade to the downtown area. I always took my best eggs to the city for the rich folks don't you know. These would be the ones laid by Rosy, or Aster, or one of my other favorites. One of them Tuesdays, June 8th, I had a hard time gettin' that thing up the road and was sweatin' somethin' awful. I kinda thought that strange, since it had always been so easy before."
"Good thing for me," smiled Esther with a wink toward me.
"That was the day you two met?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, it was the very day. I stopped to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my face."
"He was snortin' like a draft horse," said Esther with a laugh.
"I just had to rest is all, so I could get that thing to the top of that hill. I stopped at this shady place I knew that had a place to sit down, and right in one of my favorite spots was a girl."
I looked at Esther and Esther nodded.
"She was bawlin' her head off, like she had injured herself or somethin'. She's always been a bawler."
"It wadn't as bad as all that. I was just dismayed is all."
"Dismayed? You were scared out of your skin." The old man turned to the younger woman and leaned down toward her to emphasis his point. "I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she didn't want to go into Birmingham, cause the police done told her she needed one of them business licenses to sell stuff there."
"What stuff?"
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