" And after the table was
cleared, they lay down on the floor and Teacher maybe played soft
music and they went to sleep.
Once they had a real party. They were invited to a near-by
church by some of the children of that church. The tables were
trimmed with flowers and frilled paper and there were cakes and
Jello. The children played games together at the end of the
party.
The big girls, when rain kept them from working, learned to cook
and sew and take care of babies; and even the little girls
learned a heap and made pretties they could keep, besides. From
the bottom of their clothes-box, Cissy brought a paper-wrapped
scrapbook of Bible pictures she had cut and pasted. Tom had made
a table out of a crate, but there wasn't room to fetch it.
"I got so fat and strong," boasted Cissy, punching her thin chest
with a bony fist. "For breakfast, Maw didn't have no time to
give us young-uns nothing but maybe some Koolade to drink, and a
slice of store bread; but at the Center us skinny ones got a hull
bottle of milk to drink through a stem after worship."
"Are you going back there?" Rose-Ellen asked.
Cissy nodded, her hands folded tight between her knees. "And
maybe stay all winter, and me and Tommie go to school. Because
Paw and Maw feel like the teachers was kinfolk, since what
happened to Georgie.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65