The Morning and the Evening by Joan Williams Page B

fudge,” came back the answer. “Eloise says leave that.”
    Mary Margaret carried them out onto the porch. “No sense leaving them here for him to get sick on eating them all up at once.”
    She came back into the house and when her somewhat broad expanse had cleared the doorway, Jake saw the two being carried away as the others had been. The little tin pan of fudge caught a last glint of afternoon sun and shone for a second like silver. The succotash was tasteless in his mouth tuned for sweetness. The two women, who had looked around their dead friend’s house to see that everything was all right, came back now, bustling themselves together, ready to go. “Well, boy,” Wilroy said.
    â€œWell,” Mary Margaret said.
    â€œThere’s milk in the box,” Ruth Edna said. “ Milk .”
    â€œI hate to leave him,” Mary Margaret said. “Dark coming on. You think he knows how to light the lamp?”
    â€œSure,” Wilroy said. “He knew about them chickens, didn’t he? Don’t forget to feed the chickens tomorrow now, boy,” he said, louder. “And if you don’t know what to do with that cow, put a rope around her neck and bring her into town. Somebody’ll help you.”
    â€œHe can’t understand all that,” his wife said.
    â€œShoot,” Wilroy said, as if somebody were deaf, “that boy can understand more’n we think he can. Come on. We got to get home, woman.”
    The women stood at the table, looking down at the last two cakes. Between them, Jake looked up at them and then down at the cakes. “You reckon we ought to leave one?” Mary Margaret said.
    â€œOh, I reckon one,” Miss May said. “It seems so funny giving all those others back like that.”
    â€œWell, we couldn’t have left them here for him to eat all up at once,” Mary Margaret said.
    â€œNo,” said the other. “And wasn’t there a lot! Wouldn’t she have been proud?”
    â€œBless her heart,” Mary Margaret said. “Do you want to leave yours or mine?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” Ruth Edna said. They studied the two. “Mine’s not much. Just something I did up as quick as I could when I heard. Fell a little. Didn’t give it good time to cool.”
    Mary Margaret put her head on one side. “Hmn, a little,” she said. “Not your best.” They looked at hers; angel food with a perfect rise, and sworls of white icing lapping each other all over it: all the ladies had exclaimed. “I did put a little into mine,” she said. “I tell you. I could take mine on up to the cake sale at the Baptist church tomorrow.”
    â€œWell, go ahead,” Ruth Edna said. “Mine’s littler anyway. Here, Jake. Here, honey. Eat this nice cake.” She cut him a piece and put it on the side of his plate. “I’m going to put the rest up here,” she said, and put it in the top part of the cupboard.
    â€œHe’s watching,” Mary Margaret said.
    â€œWell,” Miss May said, hesitantly. “Oh come on, they’re blowing the horn.”
    Mary Margaret took her cake and followed her out of the room; then she suddenly came running back in and said, “Bye-bye, Jake, honey. Bye-bye. You come uptown soon now, you hear.”
    It was going to be evening. There was quiet in the chicken yard and quiet out over the garden. Beyond it, dark had come into the gullies, and a row of little wild persimmon trees stood out black on the horizon. He could see all the way across to them from where he sat in the kitchen, and two birds, black as ravens against the red-and-gold sky, hovered over them an instant, then settled out of sight. In the silence of outdoors, he heard a walnut fall from the old tree in the side yard and break open against the hard ground. And in the silence of the house he heard only the clock in the bedroom and the sound of his