The Hard Blue Sky by Shirley Ann Grau Page B

wreaths and bunches.
    She was never alone at night. Her family saw to that. After all, who would know if the old woman died during the night, or needed help? Every night one of her great-grandchildren slept there.
    There were plenty of them, half grown, from six to twelve. And they took turns. All day long they played and ate at their own houses. But at bedtime they headed for the little canvas cot in the corner of Mamere’s bedroom, next to the big old feather double bed that she slept in, the one that had belonged to her mother. And they would go home for breakfast.
    They were company for her too, those nights when she’d napped so much during the day that she wasn’t at all sleepy. Then she would put away her flower-making and take the lamp and go into the bedroom, where the kid was already asleep. She would wake him up, prop him up in bed, and talk at him. If he fell asleep in the middle she didn’t particularly seem to care.
    It made her family feel better to know that the old woman had somebody with her. And she got on a lot better with kids than with adults. They had more patience with each other.
    Mamere had had her first attack two winters back, when she fell out of bed and lay on the floor stiff as a board and not able to say a word. Steve St. Martin was sleeping there that night and he sat up, holding the cover around him, because it was a cold night in February and there was a little skim of ice on the fresh-water pans left on the back porch. He stuck out one toe and gave the figure on the floor a little prod. Then he hesitated for a minute, chewing on one corner of the quilt, not quite sure what to do. And anyhow he was so sleepy, his eyes kept closing. He lay down again but didn’t sleep. He kept seeing the figure half wrapped in the covers lying on the bare floor boards. He reached over and touched one hand. It felt cold.
    He got up, dragging his quilt with him, and lit a fire in the round barrel-shaped kerosene stove. The wick smoked; it was too high. And the crank stuck. He had to use both hands to turn it down. The quilt fell off his shoulders. Though he slept in a pair of cotton overalls and a sweater, he began to shiver. He pressed his hands to the outside of the stove. The tin was still cold; there was only a faint beginning tinge of warmth. He looked again at the blanketed figure alongside the bed. And backed out of the bedroom. The front door was closed and latched against the cold. He couldn’t manage it alone. So he climbed on a chair and opened a window and pushed back the shutter. He clambered through it and dropped down on the porch.
    It was so different at night. He stopped for a minute and looked around, trying to be sure of his directions. There wasn’t a thing stirring; it was only cold and dark. A single bright star was caught in the top of the oak tree.
    He ran all the way home. And inside of ten minutes there were flashlights and lanterns coming from all sides and somebody had started out to get the priest from Petit Prairie. By mid-morning, by the time the priest had come, Mamere was sleeping quietly with a little smile on her face. She had won. Only sometimes she muttered something about M’sieu Mort.
    That was the way it happened the first time. And the second time was just like it. Except that it was late summer. And the kid was Addie Monjure.
    He woke up when he saw that the lamp was still burning. And he took a good look at Mamere and went racing out of there. He’d always been a kind of nervous boy, and this upset him so that he began to scream. He had the whole end of the island up in no time at all. Some of the men came out with their shotguns; they hadn’t been exactly sure what was happening.
    Perique Lombas took his little launch, the Tangerine, and went off to fetch the priest, while the women did what they could for Mamere.
    And Addie Monjure, he ran right straight home, and got under his own bed, though it was so low you wouldn’t have thought that there was room for