consequences.
Suddenly her face went slack around her open mouth and she collapsed, the floor rising up crazily to slam her in the face. The local doctor came and she was put to bed under mild sedation. She slept fitfully, softly whimpering.
Gram, already past eighty at this point, took up the watch. She sat quietly on the enclosed porch, erect in a hard-backed chair. A pane of glass shut her out from any strength-draining conversations with the neighbors who silently stood vigil on the lawn, quieting the children when their voices shrilled, allowing Gram the dignity of her isolation.
In a summer settlement some distance from the Oval but very like it in its quiet location and little park, the mothersgossiping back and forth about the lost child and the waning hope of finding her alive felt great sympathy for the Negro mother. They wished that there were some way they could help, for they knew that it could have been one of their own children as well as not, and they thanked God for sparing them. From time to time they made a careful check of these children, screeching a little one’s name whenever a panicky eye overlooked the object of its search. It was some time before anyone noticed that the protective circle of neighborhood children included one more child than it should, and one more dog. For a while the child was left to itself, each mother thinking rather smugly that
her
small child was where she could see it. This was no day to let children run free.
Shelby had been drawn to this sanctuary because it resembled home, with its little park and its children playing and its mothers watching them. She found a tree to stand under and leaned against it, thoroughly tired after the long walk through the heart of town. For the first time that day it occurred to her to be worried about her situation. The puppy was nervous too, as if he sensed her anxiety. He darted from beneath her feet and into the street and back again, over and over, several times narrowly avoiding a grisly fate beneath onrushing wheels. The summer cars honked at the puppy impatiently, until finally a policeman, terribly conscious that his summer job existed because of them, told Shelby a little too tartly that her dog was tying up traffic.
“Go
home and
tell
your mother that all dogs must be restrained on a leash downtown. Or their owners will be fined.”
Shelby could only stare back. She was too overcome atbeing the sudden center of attention, a dozen honking cars screeching to a standstill, and a tall policeman, as tall as the sky, crying sharp words that she couldn’t unscramble. On top of it all, the puppy—not knowing a friend from an enemy—insisted on digging his paws into the policeman’s impeccably creased pants as he begged for water, using the only sign language he knew.
Shelby, older and shyer than the dog, kept her own extreme exigency to herself, though it was rapidly reaching an excruciating state. Bracing herself against the tree, she clamped her legs together and began to shiver uncontrollably. She tried desperately to find a dark face among the crowd of mothers. She simply knew that a dark face was almost always an approachable face, while a white face was always a passerby’s face, one of so many that it was impossible to pick out the right one. Her straits were too intimate to reveal to a stranger.
Suddenly it happened, before all these strangers, as the puppy sniffed at her and looked surprised, and a boy stopped dead in his play and stared before running off to tell. The hot sticky stream ran steadily down her leg, making little splashes around her feet. The children stampeded to witness her disgrace, their eyes crowding in, and then giggles rising around her like waves, like waves drowning her.
She cried and cried and cried. She turned her back and pressed her scarlet face against the tree.
Then there was a voice, a mother’s voice, scolding but not scolding her, shooing the other children away, reminding them that
Suddenly her face went slack around her open mouth and she collapsed, the floor rising up crazily to slam her in the face. The local doctor came and she was put to bed under mild sedation. She slept fitfully, softly whimpering.
Gram, already past eighty at this point, took up the watch. She sat quietly on the enclosed porch, erect in a hard-backed chair. A pane of glass shut her out from any strength-draining conversations with the neighbors who silently stood vigil on the lawn, quieting the children when their voices shrilled, allowing Gram the dignity of her isolation.
In a summer settlement some distance from the Oval but very like it in its quiet location and little park, the mothersgossiping back and forth about the lost child and the waning hope of finding her alive felt great sympathy for the Negro mother. They wished that there were some way they could help, for they knew that it could have been one of their own children as well as not, and they thanked God for sparing them. From time to time they made a careful check of these children, screeching a little one’s name whenever a panicky eye overlooked the object of its search. It was some time before anyone noticed that the protective circle of neighborhood children included one more child than it should, and one more dog. For a while the child was left to itself, each mother thinking rather smugly that
her
small child was where she could see it. This was no day to let children run free.
Shelby had been drawn to this sanctuary because it resembled home, with its little park and its children playing and its mothers watching them. She found a tree to stand under and leaned against it, thoroughly tired after the long walk through the heart of town. For the first time that day it occurred to her to be worried about her situation. The puppy was nervous too, as if he sensed her anxiety. He darted from beneath her feet and into the street and back again, over and over, several times narrowly avoiding a grisly fate beneath onrushing wheels. The summer cars honked at the puppy impatiently, until finally a policeman, terribly conscious that his summer job existed because of them, told Shelby a little too tartly that her dog was tying up traffic.
“Go
home and
tell
your mother that all dogs must be restrained on a leash downtown. Or their owners will be fined.”
Shelby could only stare back. She was too overcome atbeing the sudden center of attention, a dozen honking cars screeching to a standstill, and a tall policeman, as tall as the sky, crying sharp words that she couldn’t unscramble. On top of it all, the puppy—not knowing a friend from an enemy—insisted on digging his paws into the policeman’s impeccably creased pants as he begged for water, using the only sign language he knew.
Shelby, older and shyer than the dog, kept her own extreme exigency to herself, though it was rapidly reaching an excruciating state. Bracing herself against the tree, she clamped her legs together and began to shiver uncontrollably. She tried desperately to find a dark face among the crowd of mothers. She simply knew that a dark face was almost always an approachable face, while a white face was always a passerby’s face, one of so many that it was impossible to pick out the right one. Her straits were too intimate to reveal to a stranger.
Suddenly it happened, before all these strangers, as the puppy sniffed at her and looked surprised, and a boy stopped dead in his play and stared before running off to tell. The hot sticky stream ran steadily down her leg, making little splashes around her feet. The children stampeded to witness her disgrace, their eyes crowding in, and then giggles rising around her like waves, like waves drowning her.
She cried and cried and cried. She turned her back and pressed her scarlet face against the tree.
Then there was a voice, a mother’s voice, scolding but not scolding her, shooing the other children away, reminding them that
Similar Books
