It was the first Tuesday in August. The Nebraska heat rolled in
upon one like the engulfing waves of a dry sea,--a thick material
substance against which one seemed to push when moving about. Two
women, standing by the back porch of a house in the north end of
Cedartown, commented wearily.
"Hot."
"Awful."
The one, gingerly holding between her thumb and forefinger an egg
which she had borrowed from the other, made feeble attempts to pull
herself away.
"Too hot to bake. . . ."
"I'll say."
After an interim of dull silence, she effected the threatened
withdrawal, and started down the path toward her home. But she had
not gone a dozen feet until she stopped, turned back, and called to
the other in the low mysterious tones of the chronic tale-bearer:
"For the land sakes! Look there. There goes Laura Deal. I do
believe she's goin' over to her grandmother's house the same as she
always did."
And the other, in equally semi-excited voice (it takes little to
bring on an animated conversation in the north ends of the
Cedartowns of the country): "Yes, sir! She is. Did you ever!
And her grandmother just buried day before yesterday."
For a time the two stood watching the young girl pass by and down
the elm-shaded road, but when she approached the gate of the house
to the north and turned toward it, they were looking discreetly at
a petunia bed. Their conversation, however, was not of those
funnel-shaped blossoms.
"She's turnin' in the little gate and goin' up the path between the
cedars. Do you suppose she's goin' IN the house?"
"On my word, I believe she is. And they ain't a soul there . . .
not a soul. Christine Reinmueller even took the cat home with her
when she come over to feed the chickens."
"That twelve-year-old girl . . ."
". . . is the oddest."
"You'd think she'd kind of . . ."
". . . at her age."
"Just day before yesterday . . ."
". . . BURIED."
Neither one made a complete sentence nor waited for the other to
speak. Their conversation was rather a duet, the parts similar and
in perfect rhythm.
"She's got the key . . ."
". . . all by herself."
"Well, on my soul!"
". . . kind of spooky."
Laura Deal, having unlocked the side door of the old house behind
the cedars and disappeared from view, the two loitered expectantly
for a time; but when she did not reappear, they reluctantly
returned to their labors, with special attention to the sweeping of
east porches.
Laura softly opened the side door of her dead grandmother's house,
stepped in, closed the door gently, and stood with her back to it.
