I was five steps and about a dozen thoughts past that rattlesnake before my head got the message from my eyes that said, in big capital letters, “SNAKE!” The funny thing, and the thing that kept me up half the night after, is instead of hightailing it outta there like any thinking girl would do, I turned myself back around to get a closer look. By then that rattler was coiled up tight and I hope you won’t think I’m funnin’ with you when I say he had a downright mean look in his eye.

Well, soon enough here comes Pilot, leading with his nose of course and all sorts of curious. I hollered out “No!” and “Get away!” and “Get back!” and “Go!” and all the while Pilot’s ignoring me and that rattler’s tail’s gettin’ higher and before I know it there’s a sound like a mighty rushing waterfall and it’s that eight-bead tail just sendin’ up the alarm. Pilot’s gettin’ closer and that rattler’s lookin’ meaner and I’m thinkin’ this is it. This is the end.

~

Pilot first came to us by way of the Yolo County Animal Shelter away off toward the big city. We had a television back then, and maybe this is why we don’t no more, cause one Monday mornin’ Aunt Kitty had the news on and cakes on the griddle and here’s this newsman sayin’ how they’re puttin’ down animals left and right at the Yolo County shelter ’cause they just got too darn many of them. Now, I’d only been with Aunt Kitty and Ben for a few months at that time and when I think on it now I think, Whatever happened to the power I had then? Somehow they got me wound off their little fingers, I guess, cause that day it was no more than me asking that had us all piling into the car and driving through three counties to rescue Pilot.

That Pilot (and his name was Button then, of all things!), he put on quite a show, pretendin’ to be all meek and mild-mannered. Ben, he said he reckoned he’d be a decent enough dog, and we drove three counties back home with Pilot seat-belted in beside me.

I made Ben all sorts of promises, of course. I’d train Pilot up real good, and I’d take care of his feed and water. I’d bathe him every day and make sure he got exercised good and regular, and he’d be the best behaved dog this side of the Mississippi. Turns out maybe I should have said this side of Frog Creek, cause mostly he’s the only dog around these parts.

I spent a whole week trying to get that dog to sit and we weren’t gettin’ nowhere ’til I found he had a powerful affection for Fig Newtons. That’s right. I tried bribing him with hot dogs and sausages, bacon and cheddar cheese and he’d just wag and nibble if I gave him a taste. But it wasn’t something he needed, wasn’t something he’d be willing to work for. Then he snuck into Aunt Kitty’s pantry and cleaned out her package of Fig Newtons and while she was busy hollerin’ and wavin’ her broom around I was thinkin’, Hmmmm.

Ten minutes and one Fig Newton was all it took and that dog would sit before I finished sayin’ the word. To this day it’s like he can’t help himself. His face’ll be telling me how very much he does not want to, but if I tell him to sit, almost against his will he does it.

~

So after I was done screaming “Stay!” and all manner of other stuff and Pilot was closin’ in on that rattler real deliberate-like, the word finally came to me and I said it like I meant it more than ever before: “SIT!” And darned if he didn’t.

Oh, that dog gave me the pitifullest look when that rattlesnake hunkered down and hurried off. But he followed me to the kitchen door and I dropped half a dozen Fig Newton’s at his feet and must have said Good Dog more times than he’s heard in his whole life to date.

Darned if there wasn’t too much scare to be used up in that three minutes though, and I’ve spent the better part of two days still carrying that scare with me.

And what was I supposed to do, when that rat-a-tap-tapping started in on my window pane a couple hours after the sun went down? What would you have done, hearing your whispered name rising out of that darkness?

“Tevis,” came the whisper. “Come on! Tevis! Get on out here!”

Well I don’t mind tellin’ you, when I cranked that window open and saw that rotten neighbor boy standing knee-deep in our rosebushes, I near to cranked it back shut again and went back to bed.

“What’re you doin’ in our rosebushes!”

Now any normal person would have answered me, would have said something along the lines of, “Well, Tevis, the reason I came knocking on your window in the middle of the night and am standing in the middle of your rosebushes is because…”

But Zeke, he just got that crooked grin of his and wouldn’t say a word till I’d clambered out the window and stumbled after him into the darkness.

“It’s a meteor shower,” he said, not sparing even a glance over his shoulder to be certain I was there. It’s true my grumbling may have been louder than I thought.

Now I don’t care to get hit by a meteor anymore than the next person, but I reckon if they’re gonna rain down on us I ought to at least know where they’re comin’ from.

“Are we gonna die?” I asked him, and when he laughed I guessed the answer was no.

I guess that boy must have done a fair bit of night wandering, what with the way he traipsed through the darkness and led us up the hillside like there was a noonday sun lighting our path. For myself, all I could make out was the white of Zeke’s undershirt, where it peeked out at the nape of his neck.

I finally kicked a rock that got the best of me, and my hands only narrowly beat my face to the ground.

“Okay?” Zeke asked, his hands taking my shoulders to set me aright.

“Hmph,” I said.

He took my hand then, and set off at a pace maybe even faster than before. Somehow we crested that hill and settled ourselves on a mossy boulder. It may be we saw some stars fall out of the sky that night. To be honest, I can’t much remember.

“Do you believe in God?” I asked him.

He said, “Probably not.”

“What kind of a dumb answer is that?”

“Not much dumber than your question, I guess.”

We weren’t much inclined to talk after that. Some people just aren’t a right fit; some you just can’t talk to no matter how you try.  If he was going to get all ornery every time I asked a simple question, well, I reckon there weren’t much point in me continuing to try.

~~~

Next morning I hurried to find Ben in the barn where he was wrestling a bale of hay out to the goats.  He looked at me funny, but being Ben said nothin’ when I yanked the hay hook out of his left hand and set my palm where the handle had been. I counted to twenty, because I wanted to be sure. That whole time, from one to twenty, Ben just stood there starin’ at my little hand in his dirty one and I couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinkin’.

‘Cause my thoughts were all used up with this one: There was no magic here. Just Ben’s hand, sort of scratchy on mine. I didn’t feel it in my toes, didn’t feel it under my skin, most certainly didn’t feel it in my chest, which had been all fluttery and gasping under the stars.

I had to pry Ben’s fingers loose when I got to twenty though. He didn’t seem much inclined to let go of me.

It’s a terrible thing happens round this cottage every year, ’bout this time. You might think I’d be expecting it by now, that I’d prepare myself and spare my poor heart the disappointment. But hope is a powerful thing.

I can’t be the only one who finds herself buyin’ into the promise of the sun come springtime. It tells me all sorts of lies about lazy days ahead, ice cream and picnics, nothing to do and loads of time to do it in. Then Aunt Kitty shows up by my bedside, first morning after school lets out, and there it is in her hand: The Summer Chore List.

So while I was pinning Ben’s undershorts and Aunt Kitty’s knee-highs to the clothesline, Pilot and Wilbur took themselves off on a little adventure up the hillside. Now it wasn’t till after I spent the evening cozyin’ up to Pilot on the back porch, not till after Wilbur crawled into bed with me that night, not till I woke up next morning to the sun in my eyes and a terrible itch under my skin, that I realized Pilot’s and Wilbur’s little adventure had taken them through a mighty crop of poison oak.

Now in case you’re thinking Aunt Kitty might have taken pity on this poor, rash-ridden girl, let me just wipe that thought clean out of your head. Aunt Kitty, she’s of the “Take your mind off it and it won’t hurt no more” way of thinkin’. When the preacher shared last Sunday ’bout how Martin Luther would counsel a man struck with the blues to hitch up the horses and go spread some manure, Aunt Kitty was noddin’ her head so hard she near to bounced right out of the pew.

When she found me doubled over in the kitchen, attacking those itchy spots with a potato masher and Ben’s best grillin’ spatula, she shoved a bar of Fels Naptha into my hand and sent me off to the bend in the creek to give Pilot and Wilbur a bath.

Well if you’ve never suffered from a fire under your skin, I’ll thank you to keep your judgment to yourself. By the time we reached the creek I was near to goin’ out of my mind, and I won’t be ashamed that I stripped off every lick of clothing and sat my bare, burnin’ bottom right down in that muddy bend of the creek. I scooped up a handful of that lovely, rocky silt and scraped at the redness on my arms and legs. It’s not the first time Pilot and Wilbur looked at me like I was nuts, but it may be the first time they were right.

If Pilot hadn’t perked up his ears and jogged away, I might’ve never known that boy was standin’ there in the trees.

I scrambled to the water’s edge with as much dignity as I could muster, which was hardly any at all, and I shouted at him:

“Ezekiel! What in tarnation are you doin’ here?”

That boy said nothin’, not a single word! I crouched behind Wilbur and tried to draw my clothes closer just by thinkin’ about them.

“I got some rope back home,” I told him. “We could tie up that misbehavin’ jaw of yours, ‘fore you swallow a fly or somethin’.”

Still, nothing.

“Oh, get on!” I hollered. “Ain’t you seen a girl naked before?”

His jaw was closed now, but there was somethin’ in his eyes I didn’t understand and it shut me up. He turned and left the way he came, but none too fast, and darned if I know how he left me feelin’ like I was the one who should apologize.

I’ll tell you one thing though. Aunt Kitty and old Luther may be on to somethin’. I clean forgot about that fire under my skin for a good thirty minutes or so.

All that gushing and carryin’ on I did about apple blossoms–well, I’ll tell you I felt downright silly when the deer came through not two days later and ate up those blossoms like they were the sweetest treat.

I took myself and my thoughts of that crispy, juicy apple I wouldn’t be biting into come October away up into the hills. Pilot, he came trottin’ along beside me, tongue a-waggin’ and not a care in the world. You just know a dog is feelin’ good when his tongue is hanging halfway to his knees. There’s days I wish I could set my own tongue to waggin’, just let it flop around against my face so everyone could know just by lookin’ at me how good I feel.

I reckon Wilbur has some tongue envy too. More’n once I’ve caught that goat walking side-by-side with Pilot, her mouth gapin’ open and her tongue just peeking out the side. I’d tell her she’s gonna bite her tongue one of these days, tell her a goat’s tongue just wasn’t made for wagging, but I reckon some things a goat just has to learn for herself.

Anyhow, that’s what I was thinking about–that, and juicy, crunchy apples–when I ran smack into that rotten boy Ezekiel from across the creek. I would’ve let him have a talkin’ to ’bout being in my way and there being a whole lot more hills he could take himself away to, but that boy wheeled around, grabbed me by the shoulders with one arm, planted one of his big, scratchy hands over my mouth and told Pilot to be quiet with just a look in his eye.

Well, and what was I to think but I was bein’ assaulted?

I wiggled and squirmed and spit in his hand and all I got outta him was a grunt and a curse.

In the silence that followed, we heard a crashing in the manzanita. Pilot’s ears perked up and his tongue slipped back inside his mouth. One thing about a wagging tongue–it just doesn’t belong where there’s rabbits to be chased.

“They’re gone now,” Zeke said, his mouth so close to my ear that I felt his sigh before I heard it.

When he let go of me I spun around and pinned him with my best Aunt Kitty you’re-in-for-it-now look.

He shrugged. “There was a whole mess of deer.” He gestured to a clearing not five feet away. “I’ve been watching them for a while now.”

My eyes darted back to where we’d last heard the crashing in the brush. “Why! Those rapscallion scallywags!” There were no pebbles on the ground, so I raised my voice–the only weapon I had. “And don’t come back!” I hollered.

**

It wasn’t till later that evening, when Ben and I were eyein’ each other over the last piece of banana cream pie, that I found out those deer had actually done us a service.

“Deer came through last night,” he told Aunt Kitty, while she scrubbed at the dinner dishes. “Saved me a whole lot of work in thinning and pruning. I reckon we’ll have some nice big apples come autumn, if the bees to their work.”

Have you been out-country a moonless night, when it’s all you can do to find your own hand in the darkness, and the coyotes’ howls bounce off the hills till you just know you’re surrounded by those mangy creatures? It’s a disturbing feeling, I’ll tell you, but here’s something that’s more disturbing still: It’s a sound, rising up like woodsmoke to curl around that howling, almost joining in, but not quite. It’s not Pilot, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s music, and it came to me through my open window last night–came real subtle-like, sneaking in under pretense of the keening coyote and revealing itself only later, when it left off the plaintive melody and started in on a riff.

You might think you know me– might think you know me so well as to be certain I threw back my covers without thinking twice and clambered out of my window straight into that dark night.

You would be right, if you were thinking of the imaginary me, the one I wish I was, the one who isn’t just a little bit scared of coyotes, the one who, come to think of it, would actually be sittin’ out there in the darkness blowin’ on that harmonica herself.

Nah. Me, I lay in bed while that harp turned the coyotes howling into a sort of accompaniment and when I woke up this morning I remembered it as a sort of concert, the harmonica and the coyotes and the occasional owl, and I wondered if I might be in attendance again on the night to come.

Meantime, the day was sunny and long with pleasures of its own. This week the apple trees hit the season of their blossoming, and suddenly there’s these blooms bustin’ out all over the place.

I tugged a branch down low this morning and touched a finger to one of those blossoms and I said to Aunt Kitty, “If you could only have one–just this here blossom, or the apple it’ll be in a few months time, which one would you have?”

“Well,” she said, after narrowin’ her eyes a bit till I was quite certain she’d as soon wash the breakfast dishes three times over as answer another of my questions, “I reckon I’d take the apple. Cause it’s a sure thing.”

Truth is, sure things scare me a bit, and not just ’cause they include meatloaf, dying and cleaning toilets on Saturday. There’s just something ’bout knowing what’s coming that sets my teeth on edge.

I’ll let you know if the harmonica blows again tonight.

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.

The thing is, I’ve been reading. Aunt Kitty says I may as well have dropped off the end of the earth (and I had to bite down mighty hard on my stubborn tongue to keep it from waggling that there is no such thing.) Pilot’s eyes have taken on a mopey expression and Wilbur, well, she’s grown a bit round in the belly from all this lazing by the fireplace on foggy days.

Ben did his Christmas shopping in the attic, just as he does every year. There wasn’t even a blush on his cheeks when Aunt Kitty mentioned that the shawl she lifted out of a newspaper-wrapped box on Christmas morning bore a remarkable likeness to the one draped across his mother’s shoulders in the photo on the piano.

As for myself, Ben uncovered a stack of dusty books. Wuthering Heights. Pilgrim’s Progress. Pride and Prejudice. Little Women. Misty of Chincoteague.

I thought, at the first, that I would start straight from the top, and opened Bronte’s novel that very evening. Was this a gift? Because it seemed a punishment to me! I read it aloud so Pilot and Wilbur could share in my misery. You may wonder why I didn’t just put this book down and move onto the next. I wonder too. Pilot whined when Catherine’s ghost first appeared and Wilbur wiggled under the bedcovers until only one hind hoof could be seen poking out. I wanted to hide under those covers myself, and I would have if only I could still see the words on the page.

Three nights of this we endured, and for what? Only to wake that third morning with Heathcliff’s agony in our hearts: “You said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

I had done nothing to deserve this pain, and I’ll tell you it was a struggle to hide my bitterness from Ben. Collecting dust in the attic, indeed. Just as it should be! My next choice would not be made so casually. I reckon anyone would’ve been convinced as I was by the declaration on the dust jacket of Pilgrim’s Progress. “A Christian classic,” it said. Uplifting, I thought, and why shouldn’t I have? Pious, that’s what it would be– good and holy and uplifting.

And I’ll tell you I near to peed my pants no less than three times in the reading of that book, and by the end I was holding onto Pilot and weeping like to start a flood with the certainty that I could be bound for nowhere other than hell–and what a dreadful, terrifying place it would be!

Two days I stayed away from books altogether, but in a moment of pure weakness, on the third day I picked up Pride and Prejudice. Aunt Kitty assured me there was nothing to fear in this one and all would be well by the time the last page was turned. And it was! Darcy loved Elizabeth and Mr. Bingham loved Jane and that rotten old lady was put in her place. There was a smile on my face when I closed the book and Pilot barked a cheerful bark, like I had not heard from him in weeks. The sun had come out after days of fog and we were settled quite comfortably against a fallen log on the hillside. I giggled and leapt to my feet. So full of joy was I in that moment, I even found a grin and a wave for that rotten boy Ezekiel when we passed him on our race back home.

That night I dreamed of Pemberley, and in the morning I woke to the sound of my own voice whispering plaintively, “Mr. Ezekiel.” Disgusted, I tossed back the blankets and recovered Pilgrim’s Progress from under my bed. Better fear of eternal damnation than mooning over some stupid boy.

That’s Jack.

Least, that was Jack until a couple days ago, ‘fore he wound up headless and plucked and stripped of all his turkey-ish dignity.

I know I’m not the first kid to consider being a herbivore round ’bout the time I made the connection between what struts around our property all puffed up and proud eleven months out of the year, and what ends up on the platter on Thanksgiving Day. Ben tells me I need to stop namin’ all the birds, but I don’t see where that would make any difference at all. If I didn’t have a name, would he be eatin’ me for dinner?

You might suppose that my first conversation of a spiritual sort with Pastor JT would have something to do  with gettin’ through the pearly gates or making some improvements to my moral character. You would be wrong. Me and Pilot and Wilbur hiked all the way over to the church this past Wednesday morning to talk with Pastor JT about a turkey. I told it to him just like that, too. He saw us comin’ up the road, me and my dog and my goat, and he called out from the church steps, “Well, good morning, Miss Tevis! What can I do for you and your friends today?” And I told him, real serious-like, “Sir, we need to talk with you about a turkey.”

Well Pilot figured since he was included in the greeting he’d go ahead and fill the pastor in on our troubles. That dog forgets sometimes not everyone converses in barks and whines, on account of he’s used to me always knowing what he’s gettin’ at. Between the two of us though, we managed to get our point across and were rewarded for our efforts with a scripture and a suggestion.

The scripture was about how God gave man dominion over the earth. And the suggestion was this:

“Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings, Tevis. Thank the Lord for providing you with a home, a family, and provisions for each day.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. If I was 57 years old and wise, might be I’d gather some useful stuff out of his words. But I’m just 13, and all I heard was a whole lot of dodging the issue. Here’s something I do know. There was no turkey eatin’ going on in the Garden of Eden.

I don’t mind tellin’ you I think that pastor just wanted to be rid of us right quick, ‘fore we laid somethin’ on his conscience that might creep up Thanksgiving day just as he was set to take a tasty bite of bird smothered in gravy.

Left with no other choice, I had to take this problem to the Lord, and you know how anxious that makes me. Well, I came away from that time of talkin’ with God with a fine proposal for Ben, and I took it to him right away. If Jack died of natural causes before Thanksgiving day, I said, then we’d enjoy a right fine turkey dinner. If not, well, then, we’d just have to make do with our potatoes and yams and greens. I don’t mind tellin’ you I was surprised when Ben agreed to my proposal. I suspect that had more to do with him trustin’ in the Lord than thinkin’ I’d come up with a good idea.

We heard the coyotes and their “yip-yip-yaroo!” in the night and when the goats started bleatin’ (‘cept Wilbur of course, who was sleepin’ just fine at the foot of my bed) and the birds started squawkin’, Ben ran outside and fired a shot in the air. He was too late for Jack, though, who we found next morning halfway ‘cross the yard from the pen, where the coyotes must’ve left him when the shotgun scared ‘em off.

I’ll tell you what. No one, nowhere needs to spend any time convincing me we live in a fallen world. I’ll tell you what else. One day I’ll be in a place where we won’t be eatin’ any turkeys, death by natural causes or not.

But today the best I can do is give Jack a decent burial. (What’s left of him, that is, after we have our fill of supper.)

The telephone rang today–can you imagine? I suppose you can, suppose in fact that such a happening is not so rare where you come from. But let me tell you, around these parts the phone rings about as often as Moses comes knocking at our door, which is to say, never.

It’s a fact I jumped clear out of my seat at the breakfast table when it happened, knocked Aunt Kitty’s scones clean off the table. And what would you expect?

I suppose it would have been unbearably disappointing if that telephone call turned out something boring, like a goat loose on the road, and it’s the truth Aunt Kitty eyed Ben before she lifted the phone off the cradle and mumbled quite confidently, “Wrong number.” But indeed it was not!

It was Aunt Kitty’s uncle died, and this the first I ever heard his name. Nevertheless, Aunt Kitty’s scones sat there on the floor for the rest of the day while she fussed over me and Ben and what in the name of all that’s holy were we to do about making ourselves presentable for the services.

Now why a stranger like that should merit me puttin’ on a hat–a real hat, with flowers and bows on it–I can’t say I know. But Aunt Kitty, she says it’s the proper way to show respect, and this as she pinned her own ridiculous hat to her head the next morning.

Well, I don’t mind telling you I felt a right fool, wearing a garden on my head, and maybe I argued just a little bit, and maybe, just maybe, there was a little bit of a whine in my voice. Certainly though, nothing to justify Uncle Ben telling me I was carryin’ on like a stuck pig. Anyhow, the truth is I practically was a stuck pig by the time Aunt Kitty was done with her bobby pins.

For two hours we drove, the longest two hours I ever knew. There’s no gettin’ comfortable with a hat stuck on your head and pins poking you every which way. We pulled up to the graveyard and Aunt Kitty and me ducked beneath the windows so as no one would see us when the truck let out it’s backfire. (Ben says that truck’s just like an old man–sometimes it’s just gotta clean out its pipes with a little cough. Problem is, lately it’s cleaning its pipes every time he shuts off the engine, and there’s just nothing little about that cough.)

Well, we stood around the grave and the preacher did his preaching. The wind picked up and Aunt Kitty kept elbowin’ me for fussin’ with my hat. And the wind picked up some more. Matter of fact, that wind picked up so much it carried away a bouquet of flowers. And some lady’s handkerchief. And the preacher’s notes. And while the preacher was standin’ there stuttering and flipping pages in his Bible, that wind up and carried away mine and Aunt Kitty’s hats.

I don’t know as I’d ever heard Aunt Kitty laugh before, excepting those grown-up kind of laughs that never really amount to much. This was a real laugh, the kind that shakes your belly, and I’d swear that laugh pushed our hats even farther up into the sky than the wind ever could all on its own.

All this talk about showin’ respect and do you know what I was thinking in that moment? When God showed up in that burnin’ bush, did he tell Moses to put on a hat? No, he did not. Neither did he tell him to fancy up his hair or to clean up his clothes. “Take off your shoes,” God told him, and that’s what Moses did, cause really, who’s gonna argue with a bush that’s on fire and talkin’ to you?

Well we stood there bare-headed for the rest of that service. The rain started falling about two minutes after we lost our hats. By the end would you believe I was actually wishing for that ridiculous hat? A wet head is what I got. A wet head and a look from Aunt Kitty that most certainly said “I told you so.”

Now about this time I reckon you’re asking yourself, “Does that girl’s life just up and stop when the radio waves go silent?”

And this would be my answer for you: In a manner of speaking, yes.

See, here’s what happened to me round ’bout three weeks ago when I’d just coaxed an ornery hen into giving up her goods. (The truth is I tricked her a bit with an old slight of hand Ben taught me once.) Aunt Kitty came slamming out the screen door, hollerin’ my name like I was somewhere in the next county ’stead of just across the yard.

“Time for school!” is what she said next.

Well, my summer just up and died a sudden and horrible death in that moment, and I’ll tell you I’ve spent the better part of a month grieving it’s passing and trying to accept the truth of it all.