My Old True Love by Sheila Kay Adams Page B

who will glove your hand?
Oh, who will kiss them red rosy lips
When I’m in some foreign land?
    The crow is black, my love,
It will surely turn to white
If ever I forsaken you,
Bright day will turn to night.
    Bright day will turn to night, my love,
And the elements will move
If ever I forsaken you,
The seas shall rage and burn.
    So fare you well, my old true love,
So fare you well for a while.
If I go I will come again
If I should go ten thousand miles.
    Every girl in that room give up hope right then. But even with the giving up, they was still wishing he was singing to them. Oh, Lord, Iwished I’d not even looked at Larkin’s face. He was staring at Mary like he was just going to die, and I thought to myself,
Don’t show everybody here where your affections lay.
And Julie was staring just the same way at Larkin. But it was Maggie’s look that caused that cold finger to lay itself at the bottom of my spine. They was a longing in her, too, but there was way more pure old mad. They was the eyes of a woman what has been scorned, and I thought,
Oh, Hack-ley, what a mess you have made for somebody to get to clean up,
because that is just the way my brother was.
    T HEY WAS NOTHING I could do about any of what was going on, so I did not worry about it. I just kept dancing and dancing. Sometime after everybody had come back in from hollering and shooting in the Christmas day I realized that Maggie and Larkin were both gone, and Julie was setting off by herself looking like a dying calf in a hailstorm. Somebody hollered out that it had started to snow and since I purely love to watch it snow I went back out on the porch. It was plumb hot in the cabin and the cold air on the porch felt good. I was just standing there taking in some of that sweet air when I heard Maggie’s voice from out in the yard. “Talk was worse than we thought,” she said. I weren’t a bit surprised when Larkin answered her, “Does Mary know?” and my heart squeezed at the foolish hope I could hear in his voice. What little bit was there was dashed I am sure by her reply. “She knows but is acting like she don’t. She’d have to quit him if she let on like she knew. So, the virgin Mary won’t say nothing.” I knew right then that Maggie was exactly right. Mary did know but would never say it. And then she said, “You want to walk an old widder woman home?” And there was a world full of promise in them words. I wanted to holler out and remind her what shehad said to me about not hurting him, but I did not. About then Julie opened the door and called out, “Are you out here, Larkin? They’re starting up the next dance.” She didn’t see me standing there at the end of the porch ’cause the light didn’t reach that far. But I could see her face and I want you to know that she might not have been the looker that her sister was, but she was not bad looking either. They was not a sound from the yard and she stood there just a minute then closed the door.
    By the time my eyes had lost the light from the door, they was nobody out there but me.

8
    T HERE WOULD BE NO broom jumping for Mary Chandler. She let on that it was on account of her religion, but I believe she figured that if she finally had Hackley hemmed up and headed in the right direction she was going to make sure that everything was done right. She did not even want much drinking to go on, but I told her she might as well put that to rest. I had seen it where the man what was getting married had to be held up on either side and poked in the ribs when it was time for him to take the vow. They was nobody what got married that didn’t do it in front of folks what had been drinking. That is just the way it was done. She did raise enough hell with her daddy and brothers and with Hackley to where nobody got really drunk until after the church service, which I told her was four steps beyond what I would have thought Hackley would agree to anyway.
    I have never in all my life seen such a