Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

Beulah went and got Silvaney up and took her over in the other side of the house to sleep. Silvaneys skirt was all muddy and twisted, who knowed where Silvaney migt of been? Beulah was as big as a house, she had to move real slow, and Curtis Bostick had not come up here courting since afore that big snow in Janury. Momma said it was just one more cross to bare. Beulah leaned way back when she walked, balancing her belly, you culd tell it was hard for her.
    They went off with Silvaney and I said Garnie, Garnie! This is not one of yor play funerals now Daddy is relly dead now. Will we sing? Garnie axed and I said no honey, I reckon not, we will berry Daddy, it is a good thing the thaw has come so we can do it. Then one day this summer they may be a funeral when the preacher comes it wont be for months you know this Garnie, get up now, and he done it at last but his face was so odd-like Ill never forget it, so serios and brigt-eyed like a funny little rat.
    Where is Daddy now? he said and I said, he is dead Garnie, he has gone to Heaven I reckon where his chest dont hurt no more and he can breth good, but I knowed in my hart this was not so for ever since he got sick he has not gone to meeting nor prayed, this is years now. I can scarce recall meeting myself, and Momma is not religios ether, she has not took us to meeting since Daddy got sick and she took up figting agin the world.
    Garnie looked at Daddy real hard. He aint in Heaven, Garnie said, and something about the way he said it given me the allovers and I shivered just like I was froze.
    Well he is too, iffen I say he is, I toled Garnie, and I says, who are you, such a crazy little old boy, to say any diffrent? Who are you to say whose in Heaven and whose in Hell?
    So Garnie shet his mouth then and never said another word, but his little eyes was shiny and dark as the buttons that go up the front of Granny Rowes good dress. Garnie is too intrested in dying and Heaven, it is not rigt Mrs. Brown, mark my words.
    Daddy layed ther real peacefull like a sleeping boy like he wuld of been so suprised at all of the hulla baloo. Go ring the bell, Momma said to Garnie, coming back, and he done so, and I heerd its ringing ever afterwards as I started down the mountain for Home Creek. Water was running everwhere, water water bounding offen ever little clift and shining in the sun, and the sky just as blue as a piece of cloth in Stoney Branhams store. Buds had busted out on all the bushes and trees. It was hard walking in all the mud. I got it clear up to my ankles I kept slipping on stones I was crying too, it was like I culdnt hardly stop crying.
    For Daddy had loved the spring. He used to plow and hold the plowed earth to his face, he loved how it smelled, I recall him doing that when I was not but a little thing, and him saying to Babe, isnt this good now? and dont this smell just like spring? and Babe rolling his eyes and snorting like Daddy had lost his mind. Farming is pretty work, Daddy said. But Babe hated farming, he run off as soon as he culd, and I for one was glad to see him go and hope he is gone for good. Daddy loved the dogwood and the redbud and the sarvis and how they looked blooming all by therselves up here on Blue Star Mountain afore everthing else got green. He used to take us way up on the mountain in the wee early spring to tap a birch and get the sap, he cut off a big piece of bark for us to lick the inside, it tasted so sweet, I recall he said to me one time Now Ivy, this is how spring tastes. This is the taste of spring. I rembered how he took us down to the creek to look for tadpoles, and how he played his guitar outside after supper, propped back in a chair on the porch playing fast tunes like Cripple Creek. By the time I got down there to Home Creek I had mud clear up my ankles and had tucked up my skirt all around my waist, I didnt care who saw what, I didnt care for nothing. Daddy Daddy was all I thogt. And coming down that mountain, sick with crying, I