Wallace West

“ Aunt Ellen more and more ceded her place before the mirror as she helped Annette and me do the lighter chores and even some of the cooking.
Bill Pailey came over every day now—Maw never paraded her shadows when he was around, knowing that the bluff farmer was somehow not to be trusted with such dream stuff. And the money which aunts and uncles contributed, willingly or grudgingly, was more and more needed to fill the gaps in our finances.
"Tommy," Annette said to me one afternoon as we were plodding home from school along the muddy dogwood-bordered road. "What happens to people when they die?" ”

“ Dickie was a wry-necked pin-feathered rooster that Paw had taught to come when we called, dig fishing worms for us and jump through a barrel hoop. "I went to look at Dickie's grave the other day. A dog had dug him up. There were just feathers—and bones."
"Aw," I said. "Chickens don't have souls. But Maw says that when Miz Pailey died last year she was there and she saw—"
"We're going to be awful lonesome, though," my sister sighed. "And you'll have to get up and make the fire every morning." ”

“ Aunt Ellen was out of the house on one of the chores to which she now condescended to put her white hands and Maw was occupying the old rocker before the mirror. But what frightened me was the chatter in two distinct voices which still continued.
"Maw," I gulped. "Who—who you talking to?"
"Why, with Mrs.—Mrs. Jones here, of course." She laughed although her eyes refused to meet mine. "Mrs. Jones, this is my grandson I was telling you about. Take off your cap, son, and say—"
"But Maw," I gulped. "There's no one there. It's just your reflection in the looking glass." ”

“ When the hours of tension had set my whole body aching with what folks who don't know call "growing pains" and when the half-opened door had made the room almost as chill as the night, we would actually hear the faraway mournful creak of wheels on the gravel road, the jingle of trace chains, the rumble of a half-empty jolt-wagon bed. ”

“ Annette was sobbing. My face was badly cut—I still wear the scar—and the mirror was shattered in its frame.
"Maw!" I struggled to get up. "She...."
"I know," said Aunt Ellen in just the thread of a voice unused for years as her plump white hands continued to apply the compress. "I understand."
When Uncle Bill arrived next morning there was a great to-do and the neighbors organized a search of the surrounding woods and the creek bottom. Of course they found nothing. I knew they wouldn't. Annette and Aunt Ellen knew they wouldn't. ”

“ Just don't worry about things."
"But Uncle Bill," I protested. "I heard what I saw."
"I know—I know." His lean shrewd face had a worried look, I noticed with an upward glance. "You're a highstrung youngster. Write me often, though. And I'll come down every time I can. Say—look!" I could almost hear him sigh with relief at an opportunity to change the subject. "There's a patch of violets already. Let's pick some and take them back to Maw and Ellen. It'll make them happy."
After that, of course, I had to carry on the fight with only Annette to help. ”

“ He knew every bird by its call, could lead us unerringly to the best raspberry patches and made marvelous popguns, slingshots and "fly killers" out of elder bushes and bits of string. When he tired of such things as the sun went down his tales about Napoleon and Hannibal crossing the Alps would hold us spellbound. ”

“ I still have nightmares about those childhood years. The Brown murder was a recent memory—Patriarch Brown and his blind wife had been slaughtered by "persons unknown" in a hemlock-shrouded farmhouse half a mile from our cabin. Repercussions of the trial had hardly died away.
There was talk of another investigation and the persons—well known to everyone but the law—were prowling the countryside, flashing dark lanterns under doors and shouting threats of what would happen to neighbors who dared tell what they knew. ”

“ And I think Uncle Bill knew it too after he heard my story, although of course he wouldn't let on.
The rest of them patted my head and said, "Too bad, poor boy. He's under an awful strain," when I tried to tell them.
Several months later a woman's body was found in White River, full fifteen miles away. People said it must be grandmother, that she must have wandered that far before she died of exposure. Our aunts, uncles, cousins and nephews had a big funeral at the New Harmony Church over the hill.
But Annette and I wouldn't go. ”