The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

Lizzy snapped another picture, and then a third, because Bessie Bloodworth was squinting. “All right, ladies,” she said, “let’s have our refreshments now. We can finish the meeting while we’re eating.”


The Dahlias were much too ladylike to shove, but nobody tarried. They trooped inside, the heels of their Sunday pumps clacking on the wooden floors, and straight to the back porch, where the table was spread with an embroidered cloth and decorated with a big blue glass vase full of flowers from the Dahlias’ gardens: gladiolas from Aunt Hetty, iris and azaleas from Verna, cutleaf lilacs from Earlynne Biddle, Japanese cherry and dogwood from Lizzy, and lacy ferns from next to the back door for greenery. Times might be just a little difficult, but that didn’t stop the spring flowers from blooming or the Dahlias from gathering big bouquets to share with their friends.

They’d brought plenty to eat, too. Bessie Bloodworth had piled a big plate high with those little deviled-ham finger sandwiches that are so light and tasty you could eat a half dozen before you knew it. Mrs. Johnson had brought a sandwich plate that was probably made up by her cook, Lucretia, with stuffed tomatoes and stuffed squash blossoms arranged around it so that it looked like something out of Better Homes and Gardens, where Mrs. Johnson had won a dollar the year before (and kept it, too) for Lucretia’s butterscotch pie recipe. Most of the Dahlias didn’t have time to stuff squash blossoms, even for a party, but they had brought their usual dishes of pickled okra and watermelon pickles and pickled eggs, along with spiced figs, pear compote, and fresh strawberries. Verna Tidwell brought molasses cookies, Mildred Kilgore brought her famous ribbon cake with peach filling, and Lizzy brought some of those little thumbprint cookies filled with raspberry jam made from the berries from the patch behind her house. Ophelia Snow had brought a couple of gallons of cold rosemary lemonade. She had extra ice from Friday’s delivery, so she brought that, too, and the lemonade was frosty cold. When their plates were full, the Dahlias carried them into the parlor and settled down to enjoy their friends’ cooking.



You’re probably curious about the Dahlias’ new clubhouse and gardens, so while they’re eating and chatting, we’ll have a quick look around. The house isn’t very large, just two rooms in front, the parlor where everybody is sitting in wooden chairs, and the front bedroom, wallpapered in green and white roses. This room has been turned into a sitting room featuring photographs of old Mrs. Blackstone and her beautiful garden—the way it once was, years before—and shelves that now contain the club’s gardening library. On the wall is a big gold-toned plaque from the Darling Town Council naming Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone Darling’s Woman of the Year. She earned the plaque three years running, 1926, 1927, and 1928, which annoyed Mrs. Johnson, who has never gotten it even once.

Behind the front bedroom is the pink-check-papered bedroom, which the Dahlias are planning to use as a workroom. Behind the parlor is the kitchen, which has a gas range (installed just a couple of years before) and an icebox on one side, a sink under the window, and cabinets and a pine table with white-painted legs. The house, built sometime in the 1890s, is on city gas and water and there’s an indoor bathroom at one end of the back porch. It also has electricity, for back in the mid-1920s, Ozzie Sherman installed a Delco generator to power his sawmill just outside of town. A smart businessman, he talked the Darling City Council into installing streetlights around the square and letting him run electricity through the town. Last year, the council took over the Sherman Electric Company and bought two new generators. If the money held out, they planned to run electricity all the way out to the Cypress County Fairgrounds.