picture.
There were two miles before me, and I was already tired. The thick yellow dust felt hot through my thin slippers, and the half-burned weeds stung when they swished about my bare ankles. It would have been a long and wretched walk if Danny hadnât rescued me, but he did, and there wasnât a trace of the taunts he had yelled at Carlotta and me hardly a half hour earlier.
âWhatâs the matter, Julie?â he asked as he stopped his bicycle at my side. âWhat did Lottie do to you?â
âNothing. She just wonât take me home.â I looked at Danny bleakly. âI think Aggie is going to die, Danny, and her mother almost hates me. I canât ride around the country in a pony cart after Iâve seen Aggie and her mother.â
Danny looked down at the ground. Somehow the subject of death embarrassed us both. I wondered about it later.
I rode for the remainder of the two miles home on the handlebars of Dannyâs bicycle. We didnât talk much, and Aunt Cordelia didnât say much either when I told her briefly what had happened. Some grease from the spokes of a wheel had soiled my white dress, but she didnât scold; she made cold lemonade for Danny and me and the three of us sat together on the wide porch, all of us grave and thoughtful.
Mrs. Kilpin had been right; we heard of Aggieâs death the next morning, and Aunt Cordelia again drove up to the bare, wretched home where she and Mrs. Trevort and Mrs. Peters got Aggie ready for a decent burial.
The three women looked pale and tired when they came back from the Kilpinsâ that night. Aunt Cordelia and I sat together in the high-ceilinged library where a crosscurrent of air made the room cool and pleasant.
âSheâs clean, at last, poor little creature.â Aunt Cordelia shuddered involuntarily when she spoke. âI washed her hair. It was a task the like of which I hope never to have to do again. But do you know, Julia, the child had pretty hair. When it was clean I was able to press two big waves in it above her forehead, and when it dried it was a deep brown color with bright lights in it.â
Aggieâs hair clean. Not only clean, but pretty. It seemed impossible, but I knew that it was true or Aunt Cordelia would not have said so. I wished that Aggie could have known. It seemed such a terrible wasteâugliness all oneâs life, and something pretty discovered only after one was dead.
I had never attended a funeral; Aunt Cordelia had always excused me from going with her for one reason or another. But four of us, Elsie Devers, Margaret Moore, Carlotta, and I, were pressed into attending Aggieâs funeral. We carried big armfuls of flowers and followed Aggieâs casket to the altar of the little country church.
When I looked at Aggie lying in her coffin that afternoon, I was filled with wonder as I saw that she was gently, almost gracefully pretty in death. She was clean, so beautifully clean in the soft ivory-colored dress that my aunt and other neighbors had bought for her, a dress that would have sent Aggie into ecstasies if she could have had it while she lived. I noticed that her hair was, indeed, bright with copper lights in it, lights that sparkled when the afternoon sunlight, channeled in through the church windows, touched Aggieâs head and face. It had been the filth and the stench and the silly grimaces, the garbled speech and the stupid responses that had made Aggie revolting. And now she was pretty.
But it was a prettiness touched with a cold aloofness that reproached and tormented me. I knew with a terrible certainty that I might beg her forgiveness until I was exhausted, that I might kneel before her as we had done in mockery when we first made her queen of the lunch hour, and that she would remain as coldly indifferent to me as I had once been to her.
There was a poem of Sara Teasdaleâs that I had heard Aunt Cordelia read many times. It hadnât
There were two miles before me, and I was already tired. The thick yellow dust felt hot through my thin slippers, and the half-burned weeds stung when they swished about my bare ankles. It would have been a long and wretched walk if Danny hadnât rescued me, but he did, and there wasnât a trace of the taunts he had yelled at Carlotta and me hardly a half hour earlier.
âWhatâs the matter, Julie?â he asked as he stopped his bicycle at my side. âWhat did Lottie do to you?â
âNothing. She just wonât take me home.â I looked at Danny bleakly. âI think Aggie is going to die, Danny, and her mother almost hates me. I canât ride around the country in a pony cart after Iâve seen Aggie and her mother.â
Danny looked down at the ground. Somehow the subject of death embarrassed us both. I wondered about it later.
I rode for the remainder of the two miles home on the handlebars of Dannyâs bicycle. We didnât talk much, and Aunt Cordelia didnât say much either when I told her briefly what had happened. Some grease from the spokes of a wheel had soiled my white dress, but she didnât scold; she made cold lemonade for Danny and me and the three of us sat together on the wide porch, all of us grave and thoughtful.
Mrs. Kilpin had been right; we heard of Aggieâs death the next morning, and Aunt Cordelia again drove up to the bare, wretched home where she and Mrs. Trevort and Mrs. Peters got Aggie ready for a decent burial.
The three women looked pale and tired when they came back from the Kilpinsâ that night. Aunt Cordelia and I sat together in the high-ceilinged library where a crosscurrent of air made the room cool and pleasant.
âSheâs clean, at last, poor little creature.â Aunt Cordelia shuddered involuntarily when she spoke. âI washed her hair. It was a task the like of which I hope never to have to do again. But do you know, Julia, the child had pretty hair. When it was clean I was able to press two big waves in it above her forehead, and when it dried it was a deep brown color with bright lights in it.â
Aggieâs hair clean. Not only clean, but pretty. It seemed impossible, but I knew that it was true or Aunt Cordelia would not have said so. I wished that Aggie could have known. It seemed such a terrible wasteâugliness all oneâs life, and something pretty discovered only after one was dead.
I had never attended a funeral; Aunt Cordelia had always excused me from going with her for one reason or another. But four of us, Elsie Devers, Margaret Moore, Carlotta, and I, were pressed into attending Aggieâs funeral. We carried big armfuls of flowers and followed Aggieâs casket to the altar of the little country church.
When I looked at Aggie lying in her coffin that afternoon, I was filled with wonder as I saw that she was gently, almost gracefully pretty in death. She was clean, so beautifully clean in the soft ivory-colored dress that my aunt and other neighbors had bought for her, a dress that would have sent Aggie into ecstasies if she could have had it while she lived. I noticed that her hair was, indeed, bright with copper lights in it, lights that sparkled when the afternoon sunlight, channeled in through the church windows, touched Aggieâs head and face. It had been the filth and the stench and the silly grimaces, the garbled speech and the stupid responses that had made Aggie revolting. And now she was pretty.
But it was a prettiness touched with a cold aloofness that reproached and tormented me. I knew with a terrible certainty that I might beg her forgiveness until I was exhausted, that I might kneel before her as we had done in mockery when we first made her queen of the lunch hour, and that she would remain as coldly indifferent to me as I had once been to her.
There was a poem of Sara Teasdaleâs that I had heard Aunt Cordelia read many times. It hadnât
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