Dinner on her first night back in Treeland started out as a quiet affair. Della was called to the table by her mother just as her father and youngest brother walked in through the door. Predictably, both did a double-take when they saw her coming down the stairs.

Trying to avoid an embrace, her sixteen-year-old brother extended his hand to her in a manly manner. Mr. Street, on the other hand, kissed his daughter on the forehead, and said in a hushed tone,

"Are you alright?" When she nodded, he continued gently, "Do you need any money to pay off your overdue rent, or to balance out your charge accounts?"

"No, thank you, Daddy," Della said, swallowing her pride and the lump in her throat as she thought of the twelve hundred dollars in savings that she had neatly tucked into her pocketbook at that very moment, courtesy of Perry's generous salary. Most people in Treeland, including her parents, had never even seen a thousand dollars in cash at one time, let alone legally owned it. Still, it was touching that her father was offering to help in spite of the fact that he had bitterly disagreed with her decision to go to Los Angeles. "I managed to pay all my debts before I left."

"Good. If you remember anything that you do need, let me know. Now that you are home, I want you to have a fresh start. I don't want my little girl hounded by creditors for the rest of her life for a few silly mistakes she made in her youth."

"I promise you that will not be the case," Della murmured, snuggling into his strong, protective arms and burrowing her face into his shoulder. There was one silly mistake that would surely hound her for the rest of her life, but it was not one that could be expunged by her father's small bank account. Jonah Street, unfortunately, could not buy her heart back.

They sat down to eat. Despite the fact that her mother's cooking was as delicious as she remembered it, Della had very little appetite and had to choke down her dinner. Thankfully, a welcome distraction soon presented itself in the form of Della's two other brothers, along with their families, arriving to see their prodigal sister for themselves, having been apprised of her return by phone calls from Mrs. Street.

Warm hugs were exchanged all around, Della's little nieces and nephews demanded her attention, and as they all started to partake of dessert, the conversation quickly turned to the farm, as it often did in the Street household. Sitting back in her chair, Della allowed the talk of sweet potatoes and irrigation systems to wash over her. There were so many facets to life that she had completely forgotten about. She silently prayed that, after a few weeks of such conversations, her life in the city would be a distant memory.

…..

Such hopes were promptly dashed the next morning.

As she sat down to breakfast, Della looked around the table and asked,

"Where's Maggie?"

"She's just run down the drive to fetch the morning papers," her brother Robert answered. "She does that every morning."

Sure enough, Maggie Street burst into the house not a minute later. Plopping herself down at the table, she passed one of the papers – the Treeland Gazette – to her father, while she eagerly unfolded the other and began reading it voraciously.

The front page of the second paper caught Della's eye, and in consternation, she turned to her parents.

"You subscribe to The Los Angeles Times?" she asked, shocked.

"We don't," her father retorted. "Maggie does."

"Spends her own allowance on it and everything," Robert put in, wolfing down his pancakes. "I'll never understand why. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of worthwhile farming advice in that paper."

"Let's not start that again," Maggie muttered, flipping through the pages with a disappointed look. "You have your hobbies, I have mine."

"What's the matter, sis?" Robert said in a teasing tone, as the youngest Street lay down the paper resignedly. "Not enough murders happening in Los Angeles for your liking this week?"

"He must be on vacation or something. This is the longest I remember not seeing a piece about him in the paper. Either that or I need to start subscribing to a better Los Angeles newspaper."

"Poor, poor little Maggie. How in the world will you survive if you can't read about every single objection which Mr. Perry Mason made in court yesterday?!"

Della's heart wrenched so hard at the unexpected mention of Perry's name that she could have sworn that the organ had suddenly rotated a hundred and eighty degrees in her chest. She stared at Maggie with wide eyes, and then faintly asked,

"You…you follow Los Angeles murder cases in the paper?"

"Yes, indeed, they are fascinating!" Maggie responded, with the eager air of someone who has just been asked about their greatest passion. "Especially those involving the defense attorney Perry Mason. You must have heard of him, living in Los Angeles all those years? He's a genius."

"Yes…I…I have heard something about him," Della murmured, staring down at her cup of coffee, desperately trying to figure out some way of changing the subject. "I just never thought…I never dreamed…that you, or anyone in Treeland for that matter, would care about the Los Angeles legal system."

"That's our Maggie for you," their mother chimed in. "Her fascination with mysteries started when she read the Nancy Drew novels about a year ago. Then she heard something about this famous defense lawyer on the radio, and decided that instead of being content with fictional mysteries, she might as well study up on real ones. I swear her friends are less obsessed over Cary Grant than she is over this Perry Mason. Day after day she reads the newspaper articles about his current cases, tries to guess why Mr. Mason called this witness or objected to that line of questioning. Give her an inch, and she'll talk your ear off about him."

Della forced herself to smile at her mother's playful warning, but inside she was panicking. At the moment, she could not think of a torture more acute and dreadful than hearing someone constantly chatting about Perry.

"Say, Della, did you ever walk past the Los Angeles Courthouse when you lived in that city?" Maggie curiously inquired.

"I suppose I did," Della mumbled uncomfortably.

"Just think – Mr. Perry Mason might have been inside as you walked past, defending a case, helping release a wrongfully accused person from jail!" Maggie exclaimed, a star-struck look coming into her eyes.

"Alright, that's enough, young lady," their father interjected, noticing the pained expression in Della's face. "I'm sure your sister did not spend a lot of time in that part of town. The only people who mill around that area of Los Angeles on a regular basis are celebrities or people with far more money than anyone in this family ever can hope to make."

"Very well," Maggie said with a sigh, folding the paper and putting it away. "But despite that, as soon as I'm eighteen and old enough to be allowed in a courtroom audience, I am going to take a vacation in Los Angeles and find a way to attend one of Perry Mason's cases!"

Della put her hands on her lap under the table, to hide the fact that they were violently shaking from emotion.

….

Every morning for the rest of the week, Della volunteered to go to the chicken coup and collect the eggs before Maggie came downstairs, and only went into the house to eat her own breakfast once her younger sister had left for school. It spared her from observing Maggie's morning routine of searching through the paper for information related to Perry Mason. It was a cruel twist of fate that her own sister, of all people, should choose Perry to be her favorite celebrity.

Della gently nudged the clucking chickens aside, and carefully picking up the eggs, slipped them one by one into the basket she held. Her hands remembered the work from her time as a child and teenager, but they did not enjoy it any more than they ever had. She could get by, yes, but she knew she would never excel at life on the farm.

Oh dear! Della finds herself living with a Perry Mason superfan. This was not part of her plan!

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