I don't remember that Laurel and I ever ASKED Pearl directly why Miss Mary Francis, our piano teacher, never got married.  I think it just came up in the idle conversation of two twelve year olds, wiling away a sultry summer afternoon drinking lemonade at the kitchen table.
 
Pearl was standing at the sink cutting the kernels off corn cobs.
 
"Miss Mary Francis got her reasons for not marryin.'  Pearl said suddenly.

My eyes and Laurel's locked across the table.

"What reasons?"  Laurel said quickly like a cat stuffing a bird into her mouth before it got away.
 
But, Pearl just stood there, scraping the juice off of the naked cobs with the back of a knife.

Laurel and I scrambled up from the table and ran to the sink.  Each of us grabbed an arm and we dragged Pearl back to the table.  All of us laughing the whole time.
 
When she sat down and started drying her hands on her apron, we knew she was going to give.  Laurel and I stared hungrily.  We had been wanting to know this for years.
 
Pearl looked us straight in the eye.  First one, then the other.

 "Now."  She said seriously.  "I don wont you to be telling you mammas I tol you bout Miss Mary Francis."  She said, pointing her finger at each of us.
 
"We won't."  "We won't."  We promised eagerly.
 
Pearl turned her head toward me.  "Specially not Miss Sarah Ward.  Ummmmmm, she'd cut my lips off if she knowed I's tellin this on Miss Mary Francis."
 
[Whining] "Telling WHAT on Miss Mary Francis?"  Laurel whined impatiently.
 
Pearl turned her head in Laurel's direction.  "I'm gettin' to that.  You jes be patient chile.  Ya'll wanna hear this story or not?"
 
Laurel and I fell silent.  We were, as usual, entirely  in Pearl's hands.  We held our breaths, hoping she wouldn't change her mind.
 
Pearl leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest resting them on her rather ample belly.
 
"Well.."  She began.
 
"Ole Ms. Lanier, Miss Mary Francis and Miss Weasy's mother, died when they was just little gurls.  You know Miss Weasy don't you chile?"  She asked Laruel.
 
Laurel nodded.  "She was our Sunday School teacher."
 
Miss Weasy was Miss Mary Francis' younger sister and just as beautiful as Miss Mary Francis, only instead of being tall, willowy, and elegant, she was short and petite, with red hair and the figure of an eighteen year old debutante.  Jeeze and the clothes she wore were out of this world.
 
"Well,"  Pearl continued.  "After Mrs. Lanier died, ole' Mr. Lanier decided Miss Mary Francis was gonna take her place."
 
"Take her place?"  I said.  "What do you mean?"  .
 
Pearl looked at me and carefully.  She puckered up her lips up as if she was trying to calculate something.  "He put Miss Mary Francis in charge of everything.  And her jes a little  gurl, younger than ya'll.  From the day her mamma died, she was put to keeping all the household accounts, planning all the meals, planning the marketing, and managing all them servants."
 
"Miss Mary Francis had servants?"  I asked, surprised.
 
"Oh, Lord honey, yes."  Pearl said.  "You don think she ran that big ole house all by herself do you?"
 
I had never really thought about it.  I couldn't even imagine anybody else being IN that house.
 
"Why Miss Mary Francis?"  Laurel asked.  "Why not Miss Weazy?"
 
"Because she was the oldest, nitwit."  I said.  Laurel flashed me a nasty look across the table.
 
"Sound to me like you two wants to fight not listen to a story tellin."
 
"No, no."  We protested, grabbing at Pearl' arms.  Petting and cooing at her.  "Please tell us, Pearl.  We'll be quiet."  And she did.