Read Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands for Free Online Page B

his reply.
    Together, we duck through the heavy, half-glass door, hoping to avoid our postmistress’ evil eye. Hands on the counter, Miss Maybelle Mason unpleats her neck, squinting into the afternoon sun, an old turtle sniffing for trouble.
    “Marie Louise!” she snaps, stopping us in our tracks. “You two want to explain why you’re not in school today?”
    “Easter vacation, ma’am, all week,” I say, wondering why she’d hit us with such an obvious question. The front porch of the post office is also our school bus stop. Each school day, Miss Maybelle watches us and the Samson boys like a hawk, making sure we don’t sit down on either of the two benches out front which she informs us are “U.S. Government property!” I’m sure she keeps track of school vacations closer than we do.
    “How old are you now?” she demands, giving me the once-over.
    “Twelve, going on thirteen in July,” I say, resenting her greenish-yellow gaze.
    “Good. My niece from Virginia is comin’ to town next month and she’s bringin’ her daughter who’s about your age. I’m callin’ your mother to have you two play together while my niece and I visit.”
    Miss Maybelle stops, not having asked me if I’m interested or anything, but clearly expecting a reply. As if, in addition to the P.O., she’s the boss of the world.
    “I’ll tell Mother you’ll be calling her, ma’am,” I say lamely, hating how she makes my blood boil.
    “Don’t forget! Now, what kind of trouble you two gettin’ into with no school all week?”
    “No trouble, Miss Maybelle, just playing at the packinghouse or down at Dry Sink.” Ren’s scratching the back of his left leg with his right foot.
    “Dry Sink! There’s no place around here called Dry Sink. What are you talkin’ about?” she demands. Nothing sets her off like an inaccurate address.
    “You know it, ma’am,” I say. “That big, dry sinkhole in the back grove behind our house.”
    Miss Maybelle’s age-spot-speckled face creases briefly into her snapping-turtle smile. “
That
what you call it? When I was a girl, it was Little Lake Annie, the local swimming hole.”
    “Dry Sink? A swimming hole?” we ask, truly amazed.
    “Certainly was. We had a rope off the big old oak tree on the side, used to spend hours swinging off it into the lake,” she cackles.
    Ren and I look at each other, dumbstruck.
    “You kids today have no idea what
real
fun is!” Miss Maybelle huffs. “Go on, now. Marie Louise, tell your mother she’ll be hearing from me.”
    Ren and I beat a path around the corner to P.O. Box 122, second section, third row from the top. Moving fast, to escape Miss Maybelle and recover the conviction that “This is the Day!” Ren misdials the combination the first time and has to do it again. Finally, the little glassed door springs open. There it is—the large manila envelope from La Grange, Illinois, and a handful of small ones. I grab them all and, after cat-walking carefully past the front counter, we fly the half-mile back to the house.
    Doto’s where we left her, enthroned on the screened front porch with the large leather journals she calls her “book-work.” In the blue one, she records her “monthly updates” from the trustee who administers her father’s estate. In the red book, she tracks her “income and outgo.”
    We burst through the screen door and our grandmother looks up, cat eyes twinkling. We thrust the envelope into her hands, grabbing our sides and gasping from the run.
    Slowly, she takes her silver letter opener and slits open the top. Mother, having heard the door slam, appears expectant on the porch, reading glasses in hand. As Doto removes the stack of smaller envelopes from their enclosure, we eye each one for an official-looking clue. Quickly, she spreads them fan-wise like a bridge hand, scanning the return addresses in the upper left corners. Her face falls in the message it’s not here.
    “Look again,” we insist, as she deals the