Gap Creek

by Robert Morgan

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

An Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times best-seller, this powerful novel is the starkly naturalistic story of a young woman's struggles in early 20th-century Appalachia. Richly crafted from the tiny details of everyday life, Gap Creek is a place that listeners will find unforgettable. Julie Harmon is a hard worker living a hard life. Only a teenager, she has already witnessed the deaths of her brother and father when she loses herself in the work of a new marriage. The trials she faces-from fires and floods to nearly unbearable hunger-gradually build into a wonderful examination of the ways the human spirit can triumph over adversity. Through rich, beautiful language and compelling storytelling, award-winning poet and novelist Robert Morgan recreates the quiet, earthy world of a century ago. Narrator Kate Forbes captures the soft cadence of a life made strong through the virtues of grace and simplicity.

Release date: August 21, 2012

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

“Morgan has a kind of perfect pitch for the locutions of his characters … Haunting, lyrical.”

—American Way, American Airlines magazine

“In Morgan’s hands … details become the stuff of stern, gripping drama … Morgan is among the relatively few American writers who write about work knowledgeably, and as if it really matters … You begin to feel, as you sometimes do when reading Cormac McCarthy’s or Harry Crews’s early novels, that the author has been typing with blood on his hands and a good deal of it has rubbed off onto your shirtsleeves … I wanted to cry uncle and go bury this novel in my backyard, someplace where it wouldn’t slip into my dreams. I couldn’t take anymore, and I mean that as a compliment.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“[Morgan] shows what it was like to be human in a time and place now far removed from modern America. He creates living, breathing souls who, as transparent as their dreams and fears may seem today, demand to be taken seriously.”

—The Orlando Sentinel

“Pure as a mountain stream, haunting as a mountain melody.”

—The Charlotte Observer

“In examining the hard, honest lives of his people, Robert Morgan gives voice to a time and place rarely imagined. Gap Creek speaks of things both intimate and eternal.”

—Stewart O’Nan

“A gliding, unhurried story of sufferings and hope that is simple and ragged, but never seems alien. This couple’s relentless misfortunes are given no more drama than they need, and all the compassion they deserve.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Likely to appeal to fans of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain.”

—People

“Julie Harmon is like other strong mountain women created by Harriette Arnow, Lee Smith, and Wilma Dykeman; she survives poverty, flood, and pain by mixing hard work with love. Perhaps because he is a poet, Morgan uses her voice in simple but luminous prose that tells the truth, whether abut the beauties of Appalachia or the human struggles during childbirth and death throes.”

—Doris Betts

“[Gap Creek] immerses the reader in a time, early in this century, and place where five dollars is a fortune, homemade jam a life-saving gift, and the simple act of going to church a step toward survival.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Beautifully written and delicately textured.”

—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“An unforgettable voice … Will remind readers of Mattie Ross’ storytelling in Charles Portis’ True Grit.”

—Wilmington, NC, Star-News

“A rich story that deserves a slow, appreciative reading. It’s a wonderful pick for a long winter’s night.”

—Winston-Salem, NC, Journal

“A story, well written, about a place and a time that Morgan has brought to life with his blunt prose and a reproduction of dialogue that brings his characters alive. This one’s a keeper.”

—The Knoxville News-Sentinel

I know about Masenier because I was there. I seen him die. We didn’t tell anybody the truth because it seemed so shameful, the way he died. It was too awful to describe to other people. But I was there, even though I didn’t want to be, and I seen it all.

Masenier was my little brother, my only brother, and us girls had spoiled him. If Masenier woke up in the middle of the night and wanted some hot cornbread one of us would get up and bake it. If Masenier wanted a pretty in the store in town we’d carry a chicken down to one of the big houses in Flat Rock and sell it to buy him the pretty. Masenier got an egg every morning while the rest of us just had grits. If he wanted biscuits and molasses, Mama or one of us girls would bake them for him.

I thought Masenier was the cutest boy in the world. He had these blond curls that stood out all around his head, and his eyes was blue as the mountains in the far distance. He loved to sing and sometimes Papa would pick the banjo by the fire at night and us girls would sing ballads like “In the Shadow of the Pines” or “The Two Sisters” and Masenier would clap and sing along. We didn’t have music that often and it was a special treat when Papa got down the banjo.

Now the year I’m talking about was the year after Cold Friday, that day when the sun never did come out and it never warmed up. Cold Friday was the coldest day anybody had ever seen. It seemed like the end of the world, when the chickens never left the roost, and it put such a chill on everything we’ll never forget that day. Papa took his coughing sickness then and it seemed like he never was well after that. But it was the year after Cold Friday when Masenier started acting poorly.

Masenier had always been such a healthy boy, even a little plump, from all the biscuits and molasses, and his cheeks was pink as wild roses. He had a pile of white sand out beside the house Papa had carried in the wagon from the creek. Masenier made roads and castles and all kinds of mountains and valleys in the sand. He even made him a church out of sticks and set it on a hill of sand, and he stuck little rocks around it to look like a graveyard. You might have knowed a boy that done that was marked in some way.

ALONG IN THE winter Masenier started to look peaked. He fell off a lot, and Mama thought it was because the cow was dry. So we borrowed milk from the Millers that lived further out the ridge. But the milk didn’t seem to help Masenier. He got paler and he lost his baby fat.

“What that boy needs is a tonic,” Cora Miller said. And she mixed up a tincture of herbs and roots that she kept in a cupboard in her kitchen with corn liquor. Mama give Masenier a tablespoon of the tonic before every meal. The tonic would bring the glow back to his cheeks for a while. We thought he was getting better. And for Christmas he got four oranges and a poke of peppermint candy.

But it was the day after Christmas when he woke up with the pains. My sister Rosie heard him holler out and she went to his bed in the attic. “My belly hurts,” he said.

“Have you got the colic?” Rosie said.

“Hurts bad,” Masenier said.

Everybody knows what you take for the colic is pennyroyal tea, and Mama boiled some as soon as the stove was hot, even before she cooked any breakfast. Masenier sipped the tea, and it seemed to make him feel better, maybe because Mama put a little paregoric in the tea, the way you do for babies with the colic. Papa said, “Too much store-bought candy will always give a body colic.”

BUT AFTER THAT Masenier got the colic even when he didn’t have any store-bought candy. After the Christmas candy was long gone he still had the terrible cramps and would wake up in the middle of the night crying. Mama would hold him in her lap and rock him by the fire. And Papa or one of us girls would hold him while Mama made pennyroyal tea. Then after he drunk the tea with some paregoric he would feel better and might even sleep a little.

That was a bad winter, not only because it was colder than usual, but because of the ice storms and the snows. It looked like the woods had been chopped down, there was so many trees broke by the ice. Sleet is hardest on pine trees, because so much ice gathers on their needles. I doubt if there was a pine tree standing whole on the mountain. And when it snowed it was a heavy wet snow that broke down more trees and made barns and sheds and even houses cave in. The church house at Poplar Springs fell down.

Because Papa had the cough, my sister Lou and me did the heavy work outside. We got in eggs and fed the stock and carried in wood and water from the spring. I hated how everybody expected me to do the outside work. If there was a heavy job it just fell naturally to me, and sometimes Lou, like it always had. The weather was bad so long we nearly run out of firewood. I took the axe into the woods and chopped up a blow-down tree. And then I hitched up the horse Sally to the sled and drug in a load. My hands liked to froze it was so wet and cold.

“Julie can work like a man,” Mama said when I brought the load of wood into the front room.

“Somebody’s got to work like a man,” I said and dropped the logs on the edge of the hearth. My hands got rough from the cold and the hard work. I rubbed grease on them at night to soften the calluses and moisten the dry skin. I would have liked to keep my hands soft the way Rosie did hers.

DURING THE TERRIBLE winter when Papa took the chest consumption, we didn’t hardly get off the mountain, and we almost run out of cornmeal. If Papa did the least little thing he would start coughing and get so weak he couldn’t hardly set up. He had always been such a strong man before that it embarrassed him to be so helpless. Mama liked to say, “Now you can do without a lot of things, but a family can’t do without cornmeal. If you run out of meal you don’t have any bread and you don’t have any mush. And you don’t have anything to fry fish in, or squirrels. When the meat runs out, and the taters runs out, the only thing that will keep you going is the cornbread. You can live a long time on bread and collard greens, if you have collard greens. And you can live a long time on bread alone if you have to, in spite of what the Bible says.”

We got down to the last peck of cornmeal in the bin, and then to the last gallon. Mama started skimping on the size of the corn pone she baked every morning.

“Masenier won’t get better if he don’t have plenty to eat,” Mama said. “And your papa won’t either.”

“Maybe we’ll freeze to death before we starve,” I said.

“Don’t talk that way,” Mama said. “You take some corn down to the mill.”

There was still ice on the trees and snow on the ground. But I seen what I was going to have to do. I resented it, but I seen what had to be done. The road was too slick and steep for either the wagon or the sled. I couldn’t carry enough corn on my back down the mountain and back up. Even if my sister Lou went with me we couldn’t carry enough between us. Lou was the toughest of my sisters. She was almost as strong as me. I saw that the only way to take a bushel of corn to mill was to sling it over the horse’s back and lead her down the mountain. It would take both me and Lou to lead Sally.

“Lou, you’re going to have to help me,” I said.

“Why ain’t I surprised?” Lou said.

Took us all day to get down the mountain, wait for the turn of corn to be ground, while the men eyed us and told jokes, and then lead Sally back up the trail. We got home a little after dark and the sacks was damp. But we had enough fresh meal to last a few weeks, until the weather opened up and Papa was well enough to drive the wagon down the mountain.

BUT EVEN WITH plenty of cornbread and milk to eat, Masenier didn’t get any better. He kept falling off no matter how much he eat. And then he started to get a fever and the night sweats. He had terrible dreams that would make him holler out in the night. He yelled one time, “There is snakes dancing!” and when we woke him up he said there was a pit where snakes was swaying to music. He looked scared out of hisself. He was so scared by his dream he dreaded to go back to sleep. One of us had to set up with him after he drunk his tea with paregoric. There was some long nights that winter on into February and early March.

But it was after the weather broke, after it looked like things was opening up and Papa’s cough was a little better, that Masenier took the terrible fever. One morning Mama felt him and he was hot as a coal and all day he just got hotter. By evening he was talking out of his head.

“Mama, why don’t you have Gabriel come blow his horn?” he said. We knowed he was a little beside hisself. Mama had read him a story from the Bible the night before. After it got dark he just growed hotter. When a person has a bad fever they just seem to glow. Masenier was so lit up with the heat he looked swelled enough to bust.

“What can we do to bring his fever down?” Papa said.

“We can rub him in alcohol,” Mama said. We stripped the clothes off Masenier and rubbed him all over with alcohol. The room was filled with fumes and you would have thought it would freeze him to death. But after all that sponging he was hot as ever.

“I’ve heard you’re supposed to wrap up a body that has the fever,” Lou said.

“He’s been wrapped up all day,” Rosie said.

“There’s nothing else to do but bathe him in cold water,” Papa said.

I went down to the spring and got a bucket of fresh water. It was a cool night with a full moon, and the water was near freezing. “This is liable to give him pneumony,” I said.

“If we can’t bring it down the fever’ll cook his brain,” Mama said.

Now I’ve heard that somebody in a high fever sees visions and speaks wisdom. I’ve heard you’re supposed to gather round a fever patient to hear a message from heaven. But while we peeled Masenier’s clothes off and bathed him in cold water, he didn’t say a thing that made sense. When we put him in the tub of cold water he screamed, “It’s the haints with no eyes!” That’s all he talked about, haints with no eyes.

“There’s no haints,” Mama said to him. “There’s nothing here but us.” But it didn’t do no good. He kept his eyes wide open and jabbered on about what he could see.

It scares you when a fever keeps going up. It’s like watching somebody slide toward a brink and you can’t stop them. Masenier was so hot it burned your hand to touch him.

“We’ve got to make him sweat,” Mama said.

“How do you make him sweat?” Papa said.

“By wrapping him in quilts and putting pans of hot water under his bed,” Mama said.

“That’ll just make him hotter,” Papa said.

“Sweating’s the only thing that’ll cool him off,” Mama said.

We got nigh every blanket in the house and piled them on Masenier. And we heated kettles of water on the stove and in the fireplace and poured boiling water in pans, which we slid under the bed. It got so hot in the house we was all sweating. I lifted the covers and looked at Masenier. It was like his skin had closed tight and he couldn’t sweat.

“He’s going to die if we don’t do something,” Papa said.

“What else can we do?” Mama said.

“We can make him drink hot lemon tea,” Papa said.

Rosie and me squeezed some lemon juice into hot water and they tried to make Masenier drink a cup of that. But he wouldn’t wake up enough to drink anything. His eyes was closed and he wouldn’t rouse.

“Drink some of this, darling,” Mama said and patted his cheek.

“Maybe he should drink something cold,” Papa said.

“I don’t think he can drink anything,” Mama said. She held the cup to Masenier’s mouth, but his lips was closed.

“If we was to pour it down his throat he might strangle,” Papa said.

It got to be midnight and Papa wound up the clock on the mantel. As he turned the key he looked at Masenier, and you could tell how worried he was. Papa was still weak hisself from the lung sickness. “I’ll carry him to the doctor,” Papa said.

“You can’t carry him to the doctor in the middle of the night,” Mama said.

“I’ll carry him down the mountain, and Julie can hold the lantern,” Papa said. Papa always did depend on me when he needed something. If there was a hard job to be done, it just had to be me that done it. I didn’t know but what Masenier had a catching sickness. I was near about afraid to touch him.

“Why does it have to be me?” I said.

“Because you’re the strongest one in the family,” Mama said. “And because everybody has to do what they can.” Mama always did know how to make me ashamed when I tried to get out of a job.

“All right, I’ll do it,” I said, as I always did when they expected me to do something they didn’t want to do.

IT WAS A cold, clear night with the moon shining when we started out. We didn’t even need the kerosene lantern in open places, but I lit the wick anyway and carried it like a pail of light down the path in front of Papa. He toted Masenier on his right shoulder wrapped in a blanket. Sometimes Masenier groaned, but he was so asleep he didn’t know what was happening.

When we got to the woods we needed the lantern, and in the hollers where the moon didn’t reach it was black as a Bible. The woods smelled different at night, and I kept thinking as we picked our way down the trail how I could smell rotten leaves and water in the branch. And I thought how it was almost time to find sprouted chestnuts, where they fell in the fall and got covered with leaves and was beginning to sprout now. Nothing is sweeter than a sprouted chestnut. It cheered me up a little to think of chestnuts.

I heard a dog bark somewhere off in the woods near the Jeter place. And then something up on the mountain squalled, like a person in terrible pain.

“What is that?” I said.

“Nothing but a wildcat,” Papa said.

The scream come again, this time closer. “Must be following us,” I said.

“Just a wildcat,” Papa said, and I could tell from his voice he was nigh out of breath.

“Here, I’ll carry Masenier,” I said.

“You carry the lantern,” Papa said. “I’m all right.”

But Papa was winded. He was ashamed to admit it, but he was winded.

“Won’t do Masenier no good if you get wore out,” I said.

“I can carry him,” Papa said. He kept walking a little further, too stubborn to admit he was tired, and then he had to stop to catch his breath.

“Here, let me take him,” I said. I set the lantern down on the trail and turned and took Masenier from Papa. Papa was so weak his arms trembled when he handed the boy to me. Masenier didn’t feel all that heavy, except he was limp as a sack of flour. I was afraid to touch him, but didn’t have any choice. I slung him up against my shoulder and followed Papa down the trail. It took us over an hour to make it down the mountain.

DR. PRINCE LIVED in one of the big houses down in Flat Rock. He was the son of the old Judge Prince that had founded Flat Rock, and he lived part of the year in Charleston and part in the mountains. And when he was in Flat Rock he doctored the mountain folks same as the Flat Rock people. Sometimes he rode his horse with a doctor bag slung behind the saddle out on the ridges and to the far coves beyond Pinnacle.

I knowed the doctor had a big cur dog that he kept in a fence in front of his house. Everybody had seen the cur dog. I didn’t know what we would do when we got close to the house, for the dog was supposed to be mean.

Though Masenier had not felt heavy when I took him on my shoulder, his little body got weightier and weightier as I stumbled down the trail. It was like somebody was adding pounds to him the further we went. I stiffened my back and locked my arm around him and followed Papa swinging the lantern. I was still mad that I had to carry him and that give me more strength.

When we come out of the woods into the open country around Flat Rock, the moonlight was so bright it seemed like day. I could almost see the green in the grass along the creek and the windows of houses made you think there was lights inside them. Dew on the fields sparkled like beads. I was so tired my arms ached and my legs trembled by the time we got to the gate of Dr. Prince’s house.

Sure enough, the dog set up a growl and a bark. He come running from the porch and stood behind the gate snarling. He would have eat up anybody that come through that gate.

“You holler for the doctor,” Papa said.

“Let me catch my breath,” I said, and shifted Masenier to my left shoulder and called out, “Dr. Prince!”

The dog set up an even bigger fuss. And I heard a noise in the house.

“Hey, Dr. Prince!” I shouted.

A light was lit somewhere inside the house and a door opened. “Who is there?” a voice called.

“This is Julie Harmon and her papa. Masenier is bad sick.”

“Is he with you?” the voice called.

“We carried him down the mountain,” I said.

The doctor called the dog back and held him on the porch while we climbed the steps and went inside. The cur growled as we passed him. It was a big fancy house with high ceilings and lots of mirrors and lamps. The doctor led us into his study, which was lined with books. Rich folks’ houses always smell like toilet water and some kind of soap.

We laid Masenier on the table in the middle of the room and Dr. Prince brought a bright lamp over and looked at him. Dr. Prince had a big mustache like the German Bismarck. He pulled the blanket back and felt of Masenier’s pulse. “How long has he had the fever?” he said.

“He got hot two nights ago,” Papa said.

Dr. Prince bent down and sniffed Masenier’s breath and listened to his heart. “Could he have milksick?” the doctor said.

“Too early for milksick,” Papa said.

“Then it must be typhoid,” the doctor said.

I was going to say hadn’t nobody else on the mountain had typhoid, but I didn’t. Who was I to argue with Dr. Prince?

Dr. Prince went to a shelf and got a bottle of something that looked like reddish syrup. “Let’s give him a dram of this,” he said.

I had to hold Masenier’s head up and Papa pried his mouth open with his fingers. But I don’t think Masenier knowed what was happening when the doctor poured the spoon of syrup in his mouth. Some dribbled out of the corners of his mouth, but I guess a little went down his throat. Masenier was too deep asleep to know the difference.

“You’ll have to watch him closely,” the doctor said and handed Papa the bottle of syrup. “Every fever is different.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have no money,” Papa said.

“You can pay me later,” Dr. Prince said. It was the way the doctor said it so quick that told us he was rich and didn’t need our money.

“I’ll bring you a dollar soon as I sell some chickens,” Papa said.

“That will be fine,” Dr. Prince said. He showed us to the door and held the big cur dog by the collar while we walked to the gate. I never did see any of the doctor’s servants.

I know Papa was tired before we ever started back up the mountain. I was wore out myself in my legs and in my back, and my arms was sore. We had four miles to walk still, and they was up the mountain.

“Let me carry Masenier,” I said.

“We’ll take turns,” Papa said.

“I should carry him now on the flat ground,” I said. “And you can carry him when the trail gets steep.”

“We’ll both get wore out,” Papa said.

“I can rest while you’re carrying him,” I said. I took Masenier from Papa. The boy was dead asleep. His head laid on my shoulder. I prayed, Lord, let us get Masenier home. Don’t let him die out here on the trail in the damp night air. I had never prayed with such a will.

It was the prettiest night you ever saw, with the moonlight slanting on the creek and dew sparkling in the grass. The mountains rose like shadows ahead of us. It must have been three o’clock in the morning, and the mountains was so still and peaceful you would have thought the Millennium had come and all our trials was over. It was the first time I ever noticed how the way the world looks don’t have a thing to do with what’s going on with people.

I locked my arm around Masenier like I never meant to let go, and I stomped the ground hard to make my steps firm. If I had to carry him all the way up the mountain, I could. I was determined to get this over and done with. There was strength in me I had never called on, and this might be the time I had to use it.

Papa lit the lantern when we got to the woods and started climbing. It was so still I could hear our breath and the flutter of flame in the lantern. Sometimes a twig or an acorn dripped off the trees. I had never seen the woods that quiet. There wasn’t even a dog barking anywhere, and the wildcat must have found its mate, for I didn’t hear any more squalling.

When you make extra effort a numbness sets in, like your legs are walking on their own and you’re not willing them to. But as I kept going a throbbing started in my back, and every step hurt, like I had cramps in my back and arms.

“Want me to take him?” Papa said after we had gone maybe a mile.

“I’ll take him a little further,” I said. I figured if I could get to the bench on the mountain where Riley’s spring was we could rest and give Masenier a drink of cold water. Then Papa and me could take turns carrying him the rest of the way up the mountain.

“You are going the extra mile,” Papa said.

The extra four miles, I thought, but didn’t say it. When you are straining you have a short temper and a sharp tongue. Mama liked to say, “It weakens you to feel proud of yourself.” Better use your breath to fight against the trail, to fight against the mountain, I told myself.

We had got a little further up the trail, up to where the beds of moss growed below the laurel thicket, when I felt Masenier stiffen in my arms. I thought he must be waking up and stretching, that the syrup the doctor had give him was having a good effect. But his back arched too stiff and fast. “Are you awake, little feller?” I said. I started to pat his back, but felt his whole body stirring.

“Is he awake?” Papa said.

“Must be,” I said, for Masenier was twisting in my arms like a baby that will jump even while you’re holding it. But there was something wrong, because the stirring continued, and his back kept jerking. “Hold the light here,” I said to Papa.

Papa brought the lantern up close and the first thing I saw was Masenier’s face. His eyes was open like he had seen something terrible and his mouth was drawed back in a scream, but no sound come out except the gnashing of his teeth. He looked like he had seen the awfullest thing and it had scared him to death.

“Is he dying?” I said.

“He’s having a fit,” Papa said.

Masenier’s feet was kicking now and his whole body heaving. I didn’t know what to do. Should I lay him down? Or hurry on up the trail toward home? Should we turn and go back down the trail to the doctor’s house?

“Put him down here,” Papa said, and held the lantern over a bank of moss beside the trail. I knelt down and laid Masenier on the ground, and it was the worst sight to see him twist and kick with both legs. I’d never seen anybody have fits before.

“What can we do?” I said and held his head off the cold moss. I felt helpless. It was like the night was crushing down on top of me.

“Put something between his teeth,” Papa said. “So he won’t swallow his tongue.”

All I had to put between Masenier’s teeth was a corner of the blanket we had wrapped him in. I folded it twice and stuck it in his mouth, which was foaming with spit. His head jerked as I pushed the fabric between his teeth.

And then he coughed and coughed again. I seen he was choking. I wondered if he had swallowed his tongue, or was he choking on his own spit? I stuck my finger in his throat to pull out the block and felt something rush up into his mouth.

“He’s strangling!” I screamed.

Papa held the lantern closer and we seen that Masenier was throwing up. White stuff come out of his mouth and lines of white stuff. “My god,” I said. For I thought he was throwing up milk or some white gravy. But what come out of his mouth was gobs of squirming things. They was worms, wads and wads of white worms. He kept coughing and throwing up, and more come out.

“He’s choking,” Papa said and reached his hand into Masenier’s mouth and pulled out more gobs of the things. I shuddered, looking at what he was doing. Papa dug out more worms to clear Masenier’s mouth and throat. And when he stopped, Masenier’s mouth was open and his eyes was open, but he was still.

“Make him breathe,” I cried and shook Masenier’s chest.

Papa pushed on Masenier’s heart and listened to his chest. “He’s not breathing,” he said. Masenier’s mouth was open and his eyes was open in the lantern light.

“What can we do?” I said.

We just looked at his little body, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Something twitched in a nostril. It was another worm that had found its way out through his nose.

I SET THERE on the cold ground feeling that human life didn’t mean a thing in this world. People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn’t mean a thing. The moon was shining above the trees and the woods was peaceful. I could hear the creek down the ridge gentle as a dove, and the mountains was still as ever. The ground under me was solid, but little Masenier was dead. There was nothing we could do about it, and nothing cared except Papa and me. The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business.

We must have set on the ground several minutes before we got the strength to pick up Masenier and carry him up the trail. Papa and me took turns toting the body, and we got to the house in the first light of day. Mama and Rosie was waiting up, with the lamp still burning on the mantel.

After Masenier died there was just us four girls in the family, Lou and me and Rosie, and Carolyn the youngest. Rosie was the oldest, and Lou was next. After we lost Masenier Carolyn got spoiled almost as bad as he had and never did a bit of work around the place. It was like we had to spoil somebody, and with no brother it was just natural that Carolyn would be the one. Mama made Carolyn pretty pink dresses with lace and ribbons on them. And she fixed Carolyn’s hair in ringlet curls and a pink bow. Carolyn looked more like a doll than a regular child.

Papa’s lungs had started to get a little weaker. When he got overworked or soaked in a storm