Zeely by Virginia Hamilton

them about Canada and about the little old woman. She told them the long story of the three couriers. When she had finished, Uncle Ross sighed and smiled.
    “When you stayed away so long,” Toeboy said, “I thought for sure you must have found out Zeely Tayber was a queen.” He leaned on his hand, staring thoughtfully into space.
    Geeder looked at Toeboy and then at Uncle Ross. She smoothed her hands over her dress and patted her dark curls.
    “It’s true,” she said, simply. “There’s not another thing in the world Zeely Tayber could be but a queen.”
    Both Toeboy and Uncle Ross were taken by surprise. Before either one could say anything, Geeder was talking.

    “Listen!” she said, almost whispering, so that Uncle Ross and Toeboy had to lean forward to hear. Her hands rose before her. She began to divide and shape the air, as though she were making images out of nothing.
    “I don’t mean queen like you read in books or hear on the radio, with kingdoms and servants and diamonds and gold! I mean queen when you think how Miss Zeely is . Listen! All these hogs going down the road and into town, smelling up the town and squealing. Nat Tayber all covered with mud, just cruel and mean, worse than any animal—I don’t care if he is Zeely’s father. But did anyone ever think of Miss Zeely as smelling like those hogs or being anything other than kind? And listen! All those animals being dirty—no, filthy! Covered with flies and hog wallow, with a stench you couldn’t get rid of in a hundred years. But would you think Miss Zeely was anything but a lady? I mean, working with hogs, having to feed them and walk through them and handle the babies! And having to stay close to old Nat all the time because he is her father and because he gets mean with the hogs sometimes. She doesn’t even know that folks talk about her behind her back. She wouldn’t ever think folks could be as silly as to think she had bewitched those animals. She does her work and I bet she does it better than anybody could.
    “Because,” Geeder said, and then she paused a moment, “it’s not what a person stoops to do—oh, no, it’s not! It’s what’s inside you when you dare swim in a dark lake with nobody to help if something should happen. Or, when you walk down a dark road way late at night, night after night.
    “Oh, she’s a queen,” Geeder said, “Miss Zeely is the best kind you’d ever want to see!”
    There was a silence at the table. They could hear the sound of crickets through the window screen. Uncle Ross looked out the window, surprised to find that night had fallen. He picked up his knife and fork. He had placed them beside his plate when Geeder had first begun to talk about Zeely Tayber.
    They finished eating. There was not much talking. After supper, Toeboy and Uncle Ross went into the living room. Geeder went up to her own room. There, she pulled one of the cherry-wood chairs up close to the window. She sat down, gazing out into the night and the west field and stars beyond.
    “So much to see here,” she whispered. “Just a few days and nights left before we go back home. Where’s the summer melted to? I don’t recall it going.
    “That’s because of Miss Zeely,” she said. “She was the days and nights put together.”
    Geeder stared at the stars. They resemble people, she thought. Some stars were no more than bright arcs in the sky as they burned out. But other stars lived on and on. There was a blue star in the sky south of Hesperus, the evening star. She thought of naming it Miss Zeely Tayber. There it would be in Uncle Ross’ sky forever.
    “Will I come here again?” she whispered. “Will I come back to see her? No. What’s to see? If I do come again, it’ll be to remember the nights at the same time I’m living them. If she’s here, I will see her. But it will be all right if she’s gone off to some other place. There will be that star.”
    Geeder was an hour or more at the window before at last