The neighbors were kind as could be. Two of the women stayed with her all the time and kept the fire burning, the floor scoured, the house clean, the pots boiling, the water buckets full. But Mary and Maum Hannah scarcely took off their clothes or slept more than an hour at a time.
One night, when Unex seemed to be a little better, Maum Hannah went home to catch a short nap. The women with Mary nodded in their chairs, for she sat beside the bed watching. The tide was coming in, nothing would happen before it turned. God knew what the ebb tide might bring. She could not close her eyes until that was past. When a sudden short shudder ran through Unex from head to foot, terror shook her, but she set her teeth against it and, putting her lips close to his ear, whispered:
“I’m right side you, honey. Go back to sleep. Si May-e ain’ gwine leave you.”
His eyes had cleared, his senses had come back. He knew what he was saying.
“Hold my hand, Si May-e—I got de rattle—my legs is cold to my knees—” he whispered.
“Is you want me to call de people, son? Does you want em to come an’ sing?”
He shook his head. No, he did not want them.
“I want you to hold my hand, Si May-e.—E is gettin dark.”
“E ain’ dark, son, de lamp is a-burnin.” But as she said it she could see by the lamp’s dim light how a deeper darkness was clouding his big sad eyes.
“Son—is you f’aid? Tell Si May-e.”
“I’m cold, Si May-e—”
“Does you want me to lay aside you on de bed an’ warm you, son?”
Without waiting for him to say yes, she eased herself down close to him and put her arms around him. How thin he was, and so weak.
“Now, now,” she whispered in his ear, “Si May-e is got you right in e arms. Don’ be f’aid, honey.—Death ain’ gwine to suffer you—no—all de worst is done over—shut you eyes, sonny, an’ go sleep—”
She wanted to sob, to scream out with grief, but she held herself still while his breath grew less and less. Death was wrenching his life out of his body.
“Sonny,” she whispered. “Sonny,” she called him again with her lips pressed close to his ear. He did not answer although he was warm and yielding. She tried to pray, but it was no use.
She choked back a sob. She must not cry yet. He might not be gone and would hear her. She held him tighter, closer in her arms, as if he were a baby again and sleeping too sound to be wakened.
Death took him. For all her trying and loving and pleading with God to leave him here with her, he was gone. God knew he was the only heart-child she had. The others were the fruit of eye-love, the children of her flesh, yet they were strong and hearty; and her joy-child, her firstborn, her jewel, July’s son, was gone.
Grief smothered her. Her heart was a rock in her breast. She hurried to the window and opened her mouth wide to catch enough air to breathe. She could hear herself moaning softly, not bawling, not beating her head against the wall as women do when they lose out in a fight with Death. Sorrow had her dumb. It had her body weighted down. Her eyelids were numb. Her eyes were too parched for tears.
She looked up at the sky where her precious child’s soul was wandering about seeking its way to Heaven and God. The battered horn of an old red moon hung low above the dawn. The stars were pale and dim, poor lamps to light a lonely soul climbing that steep road trying to find its long way home.
The earth lay still and black. The high sky might have the dead boy’s clean soul, but the greedy old ground would get his body, his poor, thin, fever-wasted body, and turn it back into dust.
XXX
The women woke up, and one of them ran to the doorway screaming and howling. Voices from the other houses answered and people came running down the street and into the room until it was jammed full. Everybody was moaning except Maum Hannah who stood outside in the yard, sending her long death cries out into the dawn so the whole world could know that Unex was gone.
“Oo—Oo—Ooo—Ee—Ee-Eee!
“Oo—Oo—Ooo—Ee—Ee-Eee!”
The cries rose higher and higher breath by breath. Mary felt that if they kept on they would cut the thread of her own life in two, tough and strong as it was.
Her bare feet kept padding across the room as she blundered back and forth from the bed to the window. She strove to think of the things that must be done, but she needed air to keep her from smothering.
Somebody had hung up an old shirt for a curtain and it kept fluttering backward into the room, then outward again, as two strong winds, one from the land, one from the sea, tried to rule the coming day.
The children were huddled in a corner, weeping softly, except Keepsie, who had forgotten his new crutches and went hopping about on his one leg. His face was drawn, his eyes winked fast with fear, now and then Mary felt his hand holding tight to hers. He must have seen her feet totter, for he hopped toward her with a chair. She sat down and held her face in her hands. Her palms could feel the quivering of her mouth and her gaspy breathing, but she held her silence doggedly.
She longed to scream out and butt her head on the wall, so God could see that she knew He had turned against her. But before all these people, these women, she must hold on to herself.
The hours passed slowly. Unex was washed
