A Modern Country Girl

Dale McMillan

Description

MaryLou Williams began her life as an abused child before her grandmother, Lou Hardin Harris, stepped in and sought and obtained full custody of her. This happened after Marylou was brutally beaten by her mother’s drunk, abusive third alcoholic husband. Lou found the husband passed out on the couch in their cheap apartment, so she woke him up and beat him half to death for abusing her granddaughter. Lou obtained full custody of MaryLou two months before her 6th birthday.
Unfortunately, all of MaryLou’s problems were not solved by Lou receiving full custody. The gossip mill in the little town of Galway, championed by a bank president’s socialite wife, made life miserable for MaryLou. Almost everyone ostracized her and ruined her reputation in the little town. Her mother’s lifestyle precipitated this attitude toward MaryLou.
Fortunately for MaryLou, her grandfather was an intelligent farmer and rancher who took MaryLou under his wing. He taught her all the ins and outs of farming and ranching, preparing her to become successful herself before he was kicked in the head by an irate Angus bull. This all occurred just before MaryLou’s 15th birthday. Fortunately for MaryLou, her grandfather could impart his Christian faith to MaryLou before his accident. Much of that was also imparted to her grandmother, Lou Hardin Harris Lou was a direct descendent of the infamous outlaw, John Wesley Hardin and still harbored a few of John Wesley’s traits, mainly his explosive temper. Marylou proved that all is well that ends well.

Sujets

• McMillan and Wife
• Dale
• McMillan
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 07 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669865735
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Modern Country Girl







Dale McMillan



Copyright © 2023 by Dale McMillan.


ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-6574-2
eBook
978-1-6698-6573-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.





Rev. date: 02/07/2023





Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
848942



CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23



Dedicated to Laura Parker
Hospice nurse, encourager, counselor and friend



CHAPTER 1
MaryLou Williams was a unique individual. She graduated from high school in the spring of 2016. She had not been an outstanding student but had a good solid A average throughout her high school experience. MaryLou surprised all her teachers with her SAT and ACT scores. She had surpassed both the Valedictorian’s and Salutatorian’s scores on both tests. This was a scandal in Galway, Texas.
John Duckworth, the valedictorian’s father, was a successful lawyer in town, and James Blumenfeld, the salutatorian’s father, was the mayor and a real estate broker. As word spread throughout the town that MaryLou Williams had outshone their daughters on her SAT and ACT scores, both girls’ mothers were infuriated. A high school counselor, innocently wishing to encourage MaryLou to consider attending college, had revealed MaryLou’s test scores to other teachers in school. That news spread like a raging wildfire.
Since MaryLou was six feet, one inch tall, the girls’ basketball coach tried diligently to entice her into the girls’ basketball program, but she showed no interest. She was congenial and had a ready smile for anyone who chose to portray friendly, but she knew precisely what the townsfolks in Galway thought of her. She was born during her mother’s third marriage but looked nothing like her mother’s third husband. Her mother had been a beautiful woman, but now in her sixth marriage, her alcohol abuse and hard living had taken their toll on her in many ways.
In a drunken rage, her stepfather had beaten and slapped MaryLou down, threatening to kill her. After her mother and stepfather became inebriated and passed out, MaryLou snitched her mother’s cell phone and called her grandmother. MaryLou’s grandmother extracted her from her mother two months before she was six years old and obtained custody of her from her mother at that time.
Grandmother Harris went to the rented apartment where her daughter lived. Mrs. Harris had told MaryLou to watch for her and let her in when she got to the apartment. Lou Harris walked in and checked the bruises on her granddaughter’s face and body. She went to the kitchen and filled a boiler with water. She went to the living room and splashed the water on Jake Owens’s face. Since Jake was passed out on the couch with his mouth open, water went down his windpipe. He started choking and fighting for breath.
Lou gave him time to sober up. He jumped off the couch, intending to slap Lou, only to be slammed in the head with an old sock housing an inch and a half stone dropped into that sock. He was knocked senseless to the floor momentarily. As he was sobering up and recovering from the blow to the head, he discovered that Lou Harris had her foot on his throat, and she told him that if he moved, she would crush his throat. She called him every foul name she could think of, and she knew a few.
With her hands on her hips, she told her daughter, “I am taking MaryLou with me. We can civilly do this, or I will take it to court; it is your call. She is not living in this mess any longer.
Grandmother Harris had tried diligently to correct her daughter’s ways. She had been a rebellious teenager. She did not choose her friends wisely and wound up pregnant at 15. The young man who was responsible talked her into having an abortion. That began a downward spiral of alcohol abuse because of her self-imposed guilt from aborting her baby. The guilt intensified after MaryLou was born.
MaryLou lived with her grandmother and grandfather after that episode with her stepfather. Her mother, Evelyn, did not attempt to take her away from her grandmother after that despicable event. Her grandfather became barely functional when MaryLou was 15. He was knocked down by an Angus bull and kicked in the head. His injury was severe.
Grandmother Harris was the prime mover in this family. MaryLou came to live with her grandparents permanently two months before her sixth birthday when her grandmother sought and obtained full custody. The doctor who examined MaryLou after her stepfather beat her up, Dr. Charles Edmonds, testimony at the custody hearing was eloquent. He revealed to the court that MaryLou had been severely beaten when Lou brought her to him as a safety measure to ensure that she had no hidden injuries.
Grandmother Harris was Lou Hardin before she and Robert “Bob” Harris were married. Bob was intelligent and an excellent farmer/cattleman before his Angus bull encounter. Part of his brain was damaged by brain swelling due to the injury.
Lou was a descendant of the infamous Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin, who taught Sunday School when he was not out robbing banks, etc. John Wesley was notorious for his explosive temper and had been accused in some history books of shooing a man for snoring. Lou inherited some of that Hardin temper. Lou always insisted there was more legend than fact in history’s account of the kind of life that John Wesley lived.
MaryLou tried to date three times in high school, but that all ended in disaster. Boys who tried dating her assumed she had loose morals like her mother. The date always ended with MaryLou having to sock them in the nose, and she was not averse to doing that.
She got out of the car on her last date and walked home. It was only five miles, part of which was through a river bottom. The young man exhibited some small measure of class. He made two passes down the road to entice MaryLou to let him take her home. The first time she heard his car coming, she hid in a deep ditch beside the road. The second time, MaryLou had taken a shortcut across a pasture on a neighbor’s property to save about a half mile.
Lou Harris was waiting for her granddaughter, and she was getting somewhat anxious because of the late hour. MaryLou was dressed in a lovely dress, wearing dress shoes, certainly not outfitted with field-ready attire. When MaryLou came in, Lou questioned, “I didn’t hear a car drive up?”
“Nope. I sent him home early.”
“Why?”
“He tried to get in my pants.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t, Grandmama. All boys think I am like my Mama. You can’t blame them for that, can you?”
“Oh, MaryLou. That is so unfair to you.
“Where did you walk from?”
“Just the other side of the river bridge.”
“MaryLou, that is over five miles.”
“I cut across Mr. Jenkin’s field. I am sure he didn’t mind. I will tell him when I see him.”
“I’m buying you a cell phone.”
“Don’t need one. That will buy cow feed.”
“It is not for you. It is for my peace of mind.”
“Well, you don’t need it because I have no intention of dating again. Three times is enough for me. I may be a slow learner, but I learn.”
“This one I trusted because we were once close friends. That makes it hurt even more.”
“Oh, MaryLou, this breaks my heart.”

This happened when MaryLou was a sophomore in high school. MaryLou followed through on what she told her grandmother, but her grandmother also followed through on what she said to her granddaughter. Lou researched cell phones and settled on an Apple phone. MaryLou took to that like a duck takes to water. Soon she was using all the apps available with that phone and kept up with new features. She soon discovered that she had a whole library at her fingertips. She invested the money she had saved over the years, and she was learning the ins and outs of the stock market. She did all of that on her Apple phone.
The phone became an extension of herself. She did not often text because she had no friends. She quickly learned that helpful information was available in her hand. Soon she was keeping up with cattle prices, grain futures, and other information needed to plan for maximum profit from the farm.
Lou soon learned that MaryLou was like a library of information, and by the time she finished high school, Lou was leaning on her granddaughter and consulting her before she made any drastic moves concerning the farm.
MaryLou suggested to her grandmother they needed to sell some timber and use that money to build commercial broiler houses. Lou consulted with MaryLou before she contracted with a timber buyer to sell timber to him.
Even before sh