Excerpt day! I hope you enjoyed Monday's feature, but if you haven't read the story yet, maybe this will get you off the fence and into reading On the Grass! 

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But here, on the final afternoon of the town’s three-day affair, the crowd presented slim pickings. Malden sat in his folding chair on one side of the tent and eyed the prospective sitters. There were pinch-faced church women, who wandered over from the food-judging events, wearing their blue, red, and yellow ribbons – but the photographer knew they were not going to open creaky coin purses to shell out for “frivolous” picture-taking displays.

That being said, the prim gray-hairs did put Malden in mind of the first time he’d laid eyes on the girl, his girl, for she was in the company of her grandmother.

Events once more played themselves out behind the shutter of his eyes . . . .

 

He could see and smell the summer of 1881 as if it were yesterday, while through the lens of recollection, those few warm-weather days with her took on a particular, golden light.

The young woman had shown up on the first day of Bay City’s early-summer Strawberry Festival to have her picture taken with her grandma. And although the twenty-four-year-old Malden Cass was busy dealing with all the sitters waiting in line, he noticed her right away. She carried her own special chiaroscuro – or, picturesque light-in-dark energy. It seemed to halo her wherever she went, and little did Malden suspect this young laurel’s bloom revealed more of a “bad girl” free-spirit than she might first seem to possess.

Finally the pair of sitters made it to the front of the line. The photographer’s assistant tried to rein in his attraction to the girl. “Family picture?”

“Oh, yes!” the younger one replied, linking her arm with the senior lady’s. “My Nanna, Mr.—”

“Malden. Just Malden.”

“—Malden, hasn’t had her portrait made since she left Dearborn ten years ago. That’s when she moved in with her daughter here – my mother, you understand.”

The young man glanced with warmth at “Nanna,” but the older woman merely replied with an even grimmer-set frown.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” he replied to the both of them. Then he held up his pencil and pad of claim-tickets. “Your name, miss?”

“Tess. Tess Foster, 216 North Grant Street.”

“And which mounting board did you select?”

“The cheapest one!” the gray-hair insisted.

“Oh, Grandma, they’re all the same price.” Tess guffawed, bonding for a wordless moment with Malden’s lopsided grin. “We’d like the Excelsior model, Mr. Malden.”

The young man had to swallow a lump, so taken was he. “Malden Cass, but just Malden, if you please. . . . ”

The silent locking of eyes which followed was only broken by Nanna’s throat-clearing.

“ . . . Here’s your claim-stub”—Malden felt his face and neck turning red as we wrote—“kindly wait in this area until your number is called, and Mr. Clackson will show you around back to make your portrait.”

He tore the top one away from his pad and purposefully placed it in the hands of the older woman.

Tess asked, blushing herself now, “And when shall I come around to collect it?”

“Tomorrow morning, or anytime after that. Our homebase is a mile south of town.”

The girl’s face went blank. “Home-base?”

“Oh. It’s a sports term – from baseball. It means that’s where we take the rig and camp after closing shop for the day.”

Malden flicked the pad of claim-tickets against his finger, already anticipating encountering this beautiful young laurel again.

Consequently, he was in his best breeches, and on his best behavior the next day, expecting to see her beaming countenance at any moment. But, Tess disappointed, and as the hours dragged on towards the time they’d pack up and head for “home-base,” Malden realized he most wanted to meet with Tess again to simply exchange a few more words; perhaps a few more illuminating words.

 

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