The Path Was Steep by Suzanne Pickett

from a pantry shelf.
    “Rode a freight. They found us at the state line and throwed us off the train. Said if hit wasn’t fer the children, they’d a throwed us in jail.”
    Irene swept the kitchen floor, then carried water to wash the clothes. They hung them up on my lines and stayed until dark; then the aunt said, “You mind if we sleep in yore yard?”
    “We’ve plenty of room for all of you,” I said, my throat dry.
    “Just make us a pallet,” she smiled listlessly.
    But I crowded Sharon and Davene into bed with David and me, so the women could have a bed. Perhaps it was the first they’d slept in for many nights.
    Irene spread their bedding on the floor. It was dirty and mud-stained. I offered my only clean sheets for cover. “I mean to pay,” her eyes were fierce gray. “I’ll sweep yore yard in the morning.”
    She had watched as I put the girls to bed, first kneeling with them for their prayers. She knelt and whispered, and I saw tears falling from her hands between her fingers.
    I fought back tears. How had she kept her pride? Her mother, aunt, and the smaller ones had the very smell of the Depression about them. Pride, if they ever possessed it, and most mountaineers do, was gone and there was a trapped, animal look—I couldn’t describe it, but when David came in from work the next day, I knew. It was the look of cheap, shoddy, used goods.
    There was two dollars in my purse. I didn’t even dare look at the fireplace, but slipped the money to Irene’s mother and gathered corn and tomatoes, found half a box of crackers and some cheese, and put them in a bag just before they left the next day.
    Irene washed dishes, swept the floors, and was sweeping the yard when her mother called. “Time for us to git on.”
    “I done what I could,” Irene told me.
    “You did more than you should,” I stooped to kiss her.
    She threw her arms around me and gave a big, gasping sob. “You are so good, as good as any angel,” she wept.
    “Oh, no,” I whispered and held her close. “Why don’t you visit with us for a week or so?” I asked. I’d bathe the child, cut her hair, make her a dress. “All right?” I asked her mother.
    “You can have her fer good if you want,” indifferently.
    I looked at Irene, dreading to see the blow strike. But her eyes grew luminous and she ran to her mother. “I have to go with Mommie! I have to!” Her face grew protective, tender, burning with love, and suddenly I understood. The mother was whipped, cowed. Nothing was left to her, not even love for her children; but this child was not whipped. Somehow, Irene would get them through this Depression, if it ever ended, as a golden voice over our $14.50 portable radio promised over and over that it would end.
    As they started away, Irene darted back to whisper fiercely, “Don’t think Mommie wants to give me away. She just wants to get a good home fer me.”
    “Of course she does.” I kissed her, and her face lighted at my words. I offered them as a sacrifice to the child, and if He will accept a lie as a sacrifice, I offered them to God, for I knew the words to be a lie. Irene’s mother would be happy to be rid of the child. But no earthly power could make Irene believe this. Her love was so overwhelming that she wrapped it like a warm blanket around her mother. She was a swamp blossom. Pure gold, growing from black swamp mold. Perhaps her love would be strong enough to save her mother.
    I scalded all the bedclothes against possible contamination from our guests. David, coming in from work, told that the women were prostitutes, plying their trade in mining towns.
    A few mornings later, he went to work and returned just after lunch time. “Mine’s closed for repairs,” he announced as if he had just inherited a million dollars. He whistled “Dixie” and poured water into the tub for his bath. Hanging his clothes behind the stove, he knelt beside the tub to wash face and hands, head and shoulders; dried them; and