one gray hair and one spring chick

When I’m being particularly rotten or sour-faced, Aunt Kitty likes to remind me I’ve got more reasons to smile than a sinner on Sunday. Usually I get so stuck trying to puzzle out what in tarnation she’s talkin’ about that I clean forget to hold onto that grumpy face. But when you’re lookin’ death in the eye, it just ain’t so easy to be smooth-talked out of your depression. That’s right, I said death. It’s alright; I didn’t see it comin’ either.

I woke with great expectations; spring comes early to Frog Creek and likely as not the almond trees are all aglow with blossoms by February’s end. Ben tried sweet-talkin’ Wilbur into the barn for breeding this winter but I reckon she fancies herself head-over-heels for Pilot. We won’t be seein’ any kid goats this spring.

Anyhow, Ben was hollerin’ at Aunt Kitty from the barn to dig the heat lamps out of the attic; the chicks were comin’ early! Now usually I wouldn’t even have a single look in the mirror ‘fore getting on outside and starting in on my chores. As I was scrubbin’ at my teeth though, a flash of white pulled my eye up to my reflection in the glass. There it was, just springing out of my head all crazy-like. An omen. A foreshadowing. A eulogy just 10 inches long. Tell me now, just what business does a gray hair have on the head of a 13-year-old girl?

I near to burst into tears right then and there. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes– and it only took a couple seconds. I imagined what they’d hammer into my gravestone: “HERE LIES TEVIS: She died before she did much on account of she only lived to be thirteen.” What I wanted to do was throw myself into Aunt Kitty’s arms, but I reckoned the right thing to do was spare her a few days heartache and keep the news to myself for as long as I could bear.

You see things different when you’re dying. I told Ben I would not be doing my chores for a while. (What I really meant was forever, but again, it seemed kindest to withhold the truth.) To be honest, I was sorta hoping he’d ask why so as I’d have an excuse to share, but he didn’t ask why. He just said a word I reckon I can’t repeat here, and he told me to get busy.

The rest of the day I spent with the chicks, giving them all names and teaching them to be kind to one another. Pilot, you may remember, has a special fondness for chickens. He fair to filled a bucket with drool, watchin’ me and the chicks from the other side of the fence. I tried talkin’ to him about kindness too and he tried his darndest to put on an innocent face, but he wasn’t foolin’ me. I know that dog too well.

I skipped dinner and waved away cookies in the afternoon. By the time supper was on the table, Aunt Kitty’d had enough of my poutin,’ thank heaven. She marched outside with a wooden spoon in one hand and a dish towel in her pocket and I spilled out the whole truth before she even opened her mouth.

“Well is that all?” she said, and quick as a lick she found that gray hair and pulled it right out of my head. “There.”

“Ouch!” I said, and put a hand to my smarting head, but she was already on her way back to the house.

Aunt Kitty says every gray hair on her head has a name and if I picked just one, more’n likely it would be named “Tevis.” Me, I felt no particular attachment to that hair and the sooner I forget about it the better. If I were going to put a handle on it, I’d choose something like “Abomination,” but the way I figure it, a name will just hinder my forgettin’ it ever happened.

Ben, he’s always tellin’ me how the good Lord knows the number of hairs on my head. Now, I reckon there’s supposed to be some comfort in that… but here’s what it tells me: sure as you can’t make a sandwich with just one slice of bread, that white hair didn’t just pop up on my head without the good Lord knowing about it. Reckon I’ll be holdin’ that against Him for a while.