Wednesday afternoon and JD had never seen Buck so clean or so happy. From his impossibly shiny boots, his stiffly starched trousers, pristine shirt, glowing face and gleaming hair, Buck practically gave off his own sunbeams.
"Hey Buck - what's going on? Miss Lily finally said yes?"
"Better than that JD - better than that!" Jumping up onto the boardwalk, Buck grabbed JD and practically danced him around in a circle. "Inez!"
"Inez what?" JD asked. Buck waggled his eyebrows and JD snorted. "Right. Inez said yes? I think you got so clean you washed your brains out."
"Ah ah ah. Don't judge so fast young'un. You didn't hear the talk I heard Inez having with Miss Nettie this morning." Buck let go of JD and waltzed himself around in a circle. "Oh that poor girl just couldn't say enough about me. She has got herself a serious case of Bucklin."
JD instantly knew what had happened.
"What was this conversation about exactly?" He asked.
"Oh - it was mostly Miss Nettie talking." Buck stopped dancing to answer JD. "She was saying how 'Bucklin' is 'so brave' and 'so concerned." He put his hand over his heart as he recalled the conversation. "Talking about how much the ladies depend on me and never wander far from me. Inez - well she called me a 'rooster' but then she said -."
"Uh Buck?" JD interrupted him.
"What?"
"You do know that Nettie has a rooster she calls 'Bucklin', don't you?"
"Hunh? What? What are you talking about?"
JD shrugged and shook his head and walked away. "Nettie has a rooster she calls 'Bucklin'."
This was apparently too much for Buck. He followed after JD, asking plaintively,
"So when Inez said she wanted to eat me - ?"
the end