Allo all...

I think you've hit the nail right on the head with the ridicule / reticule / reticle connection since she reached into it to get a poem.

Based on the rest of the dialogue in the book it seems quite appropriate that she would mispronounce the word as ridicule. She fairly butchers several other words...i.e. she often uses the word consarn. It took me several different sentences in which she used it to realize she was saying concern. Some I never figured out.

There is a lot of regional dialect used which made the characters seem all the more real.

I really liked the book - it created a vivid verbal picture of life in the era, warts and all.

The man-killer description from 1925 would seem to fit the bill. It is only some 75 years after she wrote the stories so the word could still have been in use at the time.

Also, what with all the layers a woman had to put on at that time, one where you could see a woman's legs or ankles would certainly have been considered daring.

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of Troy...what a poetical description of my, um, personality .

Don't worry about it etaoin, the moniker does seem to give the impression of masculinity though a visual inspection - even from afar - would quickly dispel that notion.