Unknown by Unknown

meeting of the ladies at the church at three o'clock to talk about the Coppages, 'cept I don't know what we're gone say about 'em, 'cept that they're all dead. If there was even one of 'em left alive, why then we could bring him food, or give him a place to sleep, or something, but all their people lived out of town, over there in Brundidge, and wouldn't have nothing to do with us anyway. I said it was a useless meeting, but they want to have it anyway, kind of a potluck preparation for the funeral.'
    Gussie replied sullenly, 'Where they gone find a church big enough, Miz Thelma, for all them coffins?'
    'Well', her mistress replied, they talking about the Presbyterian church, which has got removable pews for the first three rows, but I don't know, 'cause they weren't Presbyterian, they were of course Baptist.'
    'Bad thing, real bad', commented Gussie, but her voice didn't hold much sympathy. It was actually that her animosity was directed towards Thelma, and not at the luckless Coppages.
    'And, Gussie, while that pie's in the oven, I want you to run up the street to the church, and make sure that everything's set up right for the women this afternoon. I don't want to show up there and have to go hunting for tablecloths and the like, you hear me?'
    'I hear you, Miz Thelma', replied Gussie, and came down so hard with the ice pick, that she chipped a piece of enamel off the bottom of the sink.
    'And listen, you'd better check—*
    Thelma's next command, whatever it was going to be, was interrupted by the slammingof the screen door. Immediately, little Mary appeared in the doorway, excited, and holding her hands behind her back. A moment afterwards James Shirley, still in uniform, entered directly behind his daughter.
    Mary's eyes flashed. "Look what I brought you, Mama!' She ran forward.
    Thelma looked up at her husband accusingly. 'Where you been with this girl, James? Why isn't she in school?'
    Mary pulled the amulet from behind her back, and shyly put it into her mother's hand. Thelma glanced at it briefly, puzzled, and then stared hard into her daughter's eyes. 'Where'd you get this, girl?'
    Mary's lip trembled, and she looked down at the floor, deeply disappointed that her mother seemed displeased with her find.
    'Found it at the Coppage place', said James Shirley. 'Nothing left there.'
    'Child', said Gussie, from the sink, 'you ought not be picking up things what belongs to dead folks.'
    Thelma took her daughter by the shoulders, and asked, pointedly, 'You didn't see anything, did you, girl?' Mary's eyes widened. She had seen so much, and yet she had seen nothing, for nothing was left at the place. She didn't know what her mother meant. Thelma looked up at her husband. 'You didn't iet her see anything she shouldn't see, did you, James? Dead folks ought to be seen in their coffins, and not strewed out all over the garden. Children ought not see dead people in the grass.'
    Mary trembled. She didn't want to see anybody that was dead, and became suddenly fearful that she might not have been so lucky. What if she had tripped over one of the bodies, and actually fallen on top of it? Mary thought she was about to cry.
    'She didn't see nothing, Thelma. Tnere wasn't nothing to see, by the time we got there. She couldn't have seen nothing at all.'
    Mary was relieved to hear this; there had been, according to her father, no danger at all of tripping over dead bodies that morning. She became excited again. 'Oh, Mama, you should have seen that place! It was all black, and it was wet where they put out the fire, and there wasn't nothing left in the whole place except what I just brought you.' Thelma fingered the amulet thoughtfully. 'Mama', whispered Mary, 'you think it's made of diamonds ? 'Cause you know, you told me that you can't burn diamonds . ..'
    At least three times a day, Becca Blair and Sarah Howell complained to one another of the tedium of their work, the fact that there was no variation in the three screws they set in, that