Bluebonnet Belle by Lori Copeland Page A

burial.
    Datha loved to hear stories about how her grandma had cried along with distraught wives and inconsolable mothers as they bathed and dressed their loved ones, then laid them out in the front parlor. Folks would come from miles around to view the body, offering words of comfort. Flora Lee liked to tell how she’d curl up in a corner, pulling her legs up beneath her, out of the way, but there to serve if anyone needed her.
    Friends, in an effort to share the grief, brought overflowing baskets of food, arriving throughout the day to mourn the deceased. The yard would fill with buggies and neighbors standing outside visiting as the deceased lay within.
    Datha hummed now as she dusted the mortuary entryway, remembering Flora Lee’s stories.
    Neighbors had ridiculed Owen for taking a personal interest in his household help, but anyone who’d known him would tell you that he was a good man. Gossip had never bothered Owen Ogden, God rest his soul. He’d gone about his business, serving the citizens of Dignity in their time of need, reading the Good Book and following its teachings.
    Never one to judge others, he’d made it clear that he didn’t intend to be judged by anyone other than himself and his Maker. When his health began to fail, Owen had turned the funeral business over to Riley, then up and died.
    Just like that.
    One minute he was sitting on the porch enjoying his nightly smoke, and the next he’d keeled over dead as a doornail.
    But things went on like always. Riley had the same goodness in him that Owen did. Datha knew the senior Ogden only through her grandmother’s memories, but Flora Lee said that when Owen passed on, Riley hadn’t treated them any differently. He’d told her that this was her home and Datha’s as long as they wanted it, and that’s how it was going to be. Datha could hold her head high, proud as could be because she wasn’t ignorant. No, sir. Mr. Riley Ogden had seen to it that she was schooled as good as or better than most folks.
    Grinning, Datha realized that she had just about everything she wanted, with the exception of Jacel Evans. Jacel was a fine black man who, because of Riley Ogden’s generosity, was about to go off to Boston to attend a university. Harvard, Riley called it. Real fancy school somewhere up there in Cambridge.
    Jacel’s family was dirt poor. The rich folks the Evans family worked for owned the sawmill, but they didn’t share their good fortune with others. Certainly not with their black help.
    Ellory Jordan provided meals and shelter for his servants, but that was all. If they needed more, they could just do without.
    Most did without.
    There was one young man determined to do more than just “make do.” He’d decided to pull himself out of that rut, and one man in the community saw potential in him. Jacel Evans, youngest son of Tully Evans, was a tall, powerfully built man who did more than his share of work in the sawmill. On his dinner break he read books, while other boys his age lay in the shade and dipped cool water over their sweat-drenched bodies.
    Pride nearly suffocated Datha when she thought about her man. Why, her Jacel could saw more logs than any two men put together. Work harder than a team of Kentucky mules.
    And he was smart. Real smart. Thought about things most folks never thought about. Things like how it wasn’t fair one man should be treated more poorly than another just because he had a different color of skin. Jacel would lie for hours, looking up at the sky, and say to her, “Datha, why is it the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?”
    Or he’d ponder why some folks were born with good fortune, while for others if it wasn’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all.
    Why did some suffer with bad health and others rarely see a sick day? Why did the good die young and the evil prosper?
    Why were death and senseless tragedy deemed to be the