Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt Page B

fever and her eyes glazed and unseeing. The heat, the stench, and the closeness of death made the place so unbearable that I wanted nothing so much as to break away and run from it. Somehow, however, I managed to walk closer to the bed and speak to the girl who lay there.
    I really think that I half expected to see Aggie grin again, to hear her call me “Kid” and declare that we were friends. But Aggie was another person that day; she was a part of the dignity of a solemn drama, no longer the phony “queen” seated in the center of a mocking circle of her subjects. Aggie was as indifferent to my presence as if I’d been one of the houseflies crawling along the edge of a spoon that lay on the table beside a bottle of medicine.
    I was awed and unsure of what I should do. “Is she going to get well?” I finally whispered to the shadowy woman who stood beside me.
    â€œNo, she ain’t a-goin’ to git well. She’s a-goin’ to die,” the woman said without emotion.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said, and Mrs. Kilpin answered in the same dead voice.
    â€œNo, you ain’t. You ain’t sorry. Nobody’s sorry that my girl’s a-goin’ to die. Not even her pa’s sorry. Nobody.”
    I couldn’t answer that. “I guess I must go, Mrs. Kilpin,” I said miserably. “I guess I’ll have to go.”
    â€œYes, you go,” she said, and I saw her eyes studying me from head to foot. “Them clothes is too fine for this place. You go ’long.”
    I turned toward the bed with agony in my throat. If I could have kept Aggie from dying by ignoring the stench and the ugliness, it would have been such an easy thing to do; it would have been a privilege to put my cheek next to hers and to tell her that yes, I was her friend. But Aggie would not look at me, and her mother’s look held only sullen hatred for me.
    â€œI know that sometimes I’ve been mean to Aggie. I’m sorry, Mrs. Kilpin; I wish that you’d believe me. I’m really sorry.”
    â€œI said that you’d best be gittin’ on,” Mrs. Kilpin said, without looking at me. She pointed toward the door.
    When I was out of the house, I ran to the cart where Carlotta was waiting. “Hurry, Julie,” she said, her doll-like face pink with anticipation. “We’re going to go north at the corner. The boys just went that way, and I almost know they’re hiding to surprise us. We won’t even speak to them,” she added, the instincts of the born coquette asserting themselves more strongly by the minute.
    â€œTake me home, Lottie,” I said desperately, as I climbed into the seat beside her. “Please. Just take me home—then you can do whatever you like.”
    â€œDon’t be silly, Julie. For goodness sake, was it that bad? I didn’t know you liked Aggie so much.”
    â€œWill you take me home?” I asked her once again, my voice sharp because of the tumult inside me.
    â€œNo, I won’t. Your old aunt had to spoil things by making us come up here. My mother didn’t say that I had to come and see Aggie, but I just brought you up here because I supposed that Miss Cordelia would have a fit if I didn’t. Now, I’m going to go wherever I please, and I just don’t please to take you home.”
    It wasn’t the first time we had quarreled. Lottie and I were at swords’ points as often as we were bound together in friendship. And beside the fact that our friendship was not very deep, the day was ghastly hot and beyond the discomfort of heat I was sickened by the glimpse I’d had of “something terribly wrong in this world.” I jumped from the seat into the dusty road.
    â€œGo right ahead,” I told her. “I’ll walk.”
    â€œVery well, Miss Trelling,” Carlotta said loftily, and off she drove, her pony and cart, her blonde curls and organdy dress as beautiful as a