Read Yonnondio: From the Thirties for Free Online

afternoon.
     Mazie remembered the colors in the culm and shuddered. There was a grove away from
     the town—a long way—but they went there. Will played with his stocking ball, and she
     lay down in the rustling autumn leaves, one hand over her eyes, shielding them from
     what she did not know. The baby lay warm in her other arm, there where it ached from
     carrying him.
    High up the wind was whirring, but here there was only a gentle shadow of it. “All
     that be here is the end of its skirt,” Mazie whispered. And in the darkness of her
     arm, the tightness that had been around her heart slackened, eased, was no more.
    Will came over. Lay down, his head snuggled on her stomach. “Five years. I’m five
     years old. What be it to be five years?”
    “Five years you’ve lived, Will.”
    “Five years. I’m wearin your old coat, a girl’s coat.
    For why?”
    “For that’s all there is. Shush now, let baby sleep. Shush, and hear the wind cryin.”
    “The wind? What’s wind?”
    “It’s people cryin and talkin.”
    “People?”
    “Yes, people in the sky.”
    “Sky? What be sky?”
    “Shush. That’s something I’m not knowin.”
    “Sky be a winder?”
    “A window.”
    “You can’t see through it, ’cause its dirty?”
    “No, your breath’s blowin up on it, everybody’s breath—open your eyes and you see
     it go up, and it makes it cloudy.”
    “Breath? Not rags. Looks like rags stuck in the window, a-flappin.”
    “Shush, Will, not rags. Listen to the leaves. Sounds like people walkin quiet, quick—walkin
     past on tiptoe.”
    “Fatback tastes in my mouf.”
    “Eyes closed and you hear better.”
    “Fatback sour in my mouth. Wish I had a apple.”
    “Poppa comes home and stays.” Something stirred in her breast faint like the leaves
     about her. Dont think of poppa. Hear the leaves.
    “Ask momma for a apple. She says no.”
    “He never hits no more. Looks at me like he gotsomething good, but he never gives it to me, only looks.”
    “Johnny tole me what you eat grows in your belly. I gonna grow fatback.”
    “And momma … bein mad, then bein sorry … momma always lookin as if she expects to
     hear somethin …”
    “Grow fatback and be dead. Mazie, what’s dead?”
    “Momma listenin, always listenin.” The tightness had come alive again; it strangled
     around her heart. She leaped to her feet with a cry, waking the baby. Some terror
     crept upon her.
    “Mazie, whatsa matter?”
    She pointed. Above the sky were ears. In all their different shapes they coiled, blurred
     ears, listening. And looking down, she saw that the wind was pitting the grasses and
     leaves, making little whirlpools, kitten-shaped ears, listening, listening. The face
     of her mother, the face of Mis’ Connors, the face of Mis’ Tikas came like a mist before
     her eyes—listening, everywhere, everywhere.
    “Willie, lets go home, Willie. I’ll race you, baby and all. Lets go. Put your hands
     in your ears and you dont hear nothin, lets go, run.”
    The wind was icy on her running body; the baby dragged. But everywhere the sky and
     earth were listening. And the whistle—yes, it was the whistlethat was shrieking—not the finger in her ear, not the wind. At the tipple there would
     be … thinking of the tipple, her heart plunged, she wanted to fall, to stuff the leaves
     into her ears. “Willie, lets run, Willie.” He moaned, “Momma be runnin, everyone runnin
     and screamin, Mazie.”
    “Lets run away, Will.” A thought hung with bulldog teeth to her mind—“It’ll be daddy
     this time.”
    “Lets run away,” but their feet were flying—flying to the tipple.
    The women were there already. Tearless faces, watching. But no one brought up limp
     and sagging. Instead, frightened men, and the rest sealed in an open grave. A big
     explosion. It might take days to dig them up. Anna with bloodless lips formed “a new
     life,” but Will and Mazie were pulling at her skirt, her baby was moving in her