a lonely old man something to live for.”
“I’d rather not consider how,” interrupted Miss Tennyson primly.
“We just resent her, poor little waif,” said Miss Adele. “And she can’t help but know it. She’s got more resentment than we have. Resentment born.”
“If I’d just known Clint was casting around for somebody to take Becky’s place, I could’ve found him one a whole lot better than Fay. And right here in Mount Salus,” Miss Tennyson was stung to say. “I could name one now that would have leaped—”
“He didn’t find Becky in Mount Salus,” Miss Adele reminded them, silencing all but the mockingbird.
“And of course that’s one of the peculiarities Laurel inherited from him . She didn’t look at home to find Philip Hand,” said Miss Tennyson.
Laurel stood up.
“Laurel’s ready for us to go,” said Miss Adele, rising herself. “We’ve kept her out of the house long enough.”
“No, don’t ask us in, we’ll leave you to struggle through the rest without us,” said Miss Tennyson indulgently. She waved her way out toward the street. Old Mrs. Pease walked slowly away, folding her afghan, and turned through the gate that opened into her untrespassed garden.
As Laurel walked with Miss Adele toward her own opening in the hedge, there could be heard a softersound than the singing from the dogwood tree. It was rhythmic but faint, as from the shaking of a tambourine.
“Little mischiefs! Will you look at them showing off,” said Miss Adele.
A cardinal took his dipping flight into the fig tree and brushed wings with a bird-frightener, and it crashed faintly. Another cardinal followed, then a small band of them. Those thin shimmering discs were polished, rain-bright, and the redbirds, all rival cocks, were flying at their tantalizing reflections. At the tiny crash the birds would cut a figure in the air and tilt in again, then again.
“Oh, it’s a game, isn’t it, nothing but a game!” Miss Adele said, stepping gracefully into her own backyard.
2
L AUREL faced the library. This was where, after his retirement and marriage, her father had moved everything he wanted around him from his office in the Mount Salus Bank Building on the Square.
Perhaps a crowded room, whatever is added, always looks the same. One wall was exactly the same. Aboveone bookcase hung her father’s stick-framed map of the county—he had known every mile; above the other hung the portraits of his father and grandfather, the Confederate general and missionary to China, as alike as two peaches, painted by the same industrious hand on boards too heavy to hang straight, but hanging side by side: the four eyebrows had been identically outlined in the shape of little hand-saws placed over the eyes, teeth down, then filled in with lamp-black.
She saw at once that nothing had happened to the books. Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi , the title running catercornered in gold across its narrow green spine, was in exactly the same place as ever, next to Tennyson’s Poetical Works, Illustrated, and that next to Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner . She ran her finger in a loving track across Eric Brighteyes and Jane Eyre, The Last Days of Pompeii and Carry On, Jeeves . Shoulder to shoulder, they had long since made their own family. For every book here she had heard their voices, father’s and mother’s. And perhaps it didn’t matter to them, not always, what they read aloud; it was the breath of life flowing between them, and the words of the moment riding on it that held them in delight. Between some two people every word is beautiful, or might as well be beautiful. In the other bookcase, which stood a little lower—maybe because of Webster’s Unabridged and the McKelva family Bible, twin weights, lying on top—there was the Dickens all in a set, a shelf and a half full, old crimson bindings scorched and frayedand hanging in strips. Nicholas Nickleby was the volume without any back at all. It
“I’d rather not consider how,” interrupted Miss Tennyson primly.
“We just resent her, poor little waif,” said Miss Adele. “And she can’t help but know it. She’s got more resentment than we have. Resentment born.”
“If I’d just known Clint was casting around for somebody to take Becky’s place, I could’ve found him one a whole lot better than Fay. And right here in Mount Salus,” Miss Tennyson was stung to say. “I could name one now that would have leaped—”
“He didn’t find Becky in Mount Salus,” Miss Adele reminded them, silencing all but the mockingbird.
“And of course that’s one of the peculiarities Laurel inherited from him . She didn’t look at home to find Philip Hand,” said Miss Tennyson.
Laurel stood up.
“Laurel’s ready for us to go,” said Miss Adele, rising herself. “We’ve kept her out of the house long enough.”
“No, don’t ask us in, we’ll leave you to struggle through the rest without us,” said Miss Tennyson indulgently. She waved her way out toward the street. Old Mrs. Pease walked slowly away, folding her afghan, and turned through the gate that opened into her untrespassed garden.
As Laurel walked with Miss Adele toward her own opening in the hedge, there could be heard a softersound than the singing from the dogwood tree. It was rhythmic but faint, as from the shaking of a tambourine.
“Little mischiefs! Will you look at them showing off,” said Miss Adele.
A cardinal took his dipping flight into the fig tree and brushed wings with a bird-frightener, and it crashed faintly. Another cardinal followed, then a small band of them. Those thin shimmering discs were polished, rain-bright, and the redbirds, all rival cocks, were flying at their tantalizing reflections. At the tiny crash the birds would cut a figure in the air and tilt in again, then again.
“Oh, it’s a game, isn’t it, nothing but a game!” Miss Adele said, stepping gracefully into her own backyard.
2
L AUREL faced the library. This was where, after his retirement and marriage, her father had moved everything he wanted around him from his office in the Mount Salus Bank Building on the Square.
Perhaps a crowded room, whatever is added, always looks the same. One wall was exactly the same. Aboveone bookcase hung her father’s stick-framed map of the county—he had known every mile; above the other hung the portraits of his father and grandfather, the Confederate general and missionary to China, as alike as two peaches, painted by the same industrious hand on boards too heavy to hang straight, but hanging side by side: the four eyebrows had been identically outlined in the shape of little hand-saws placed over the eyes, teeth down, then filled in with lamp-black.
She saw at once that nothing had happened to the books. Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi , the title running catercornered in gold across its narrow green spine, was in exactly the same place as ever, next to Tennyson’s Poetical Works, Illustrated, and that next to Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner . She ran her finger in a loving track across Eric Brighteyes and Jane Eyre, The Last Days of Pompeii and Carry On, Jeeves . Shoulder to shoulder, they had long since made their own family. For every book here she had heard their voices, father’s and mother’s. And perhaps it didn’t matter to them, not always, what they read aloud; it was the breath of life flowing between them, and the words of the moment riding on it that held them in delight. Between some two people every word is beautiful, or might as well be beautiful. In the other bookcase, which stood a little lower—maybe because of Webster’s Unabridged and the McKelva family Bible, twin weights, lying on top—there was the Dickens all in a set, a shelf and a half full, old crimson bindings scorched and frayedand hanging in strips. Nicholas Nickleby was the volume without any back at all. It
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