She stood beside it,
opening her mouth as if to muster voice, then closing it. It was as if
water were swirling around and around her, the unseen presence in the
back of the house surging at her like a multitude.
"Shoot!"
She looked appealingly in the direction of the hammering down of the
seats.
"Never mind that. Sing to the top row of the gallery."
A fearful recurrence of yesterday's train-sickness rushed over her; she
could have crumpled to her knees, had even a sense of wanting to faint,
but instead she opened her lips again, her eyes fixed on the unseen last
two tows of the unseen top gallery, and by miracle finding a pitch that
left her plenty of range.
"Way down upon the Suwanee River-"
"Louder!"
"Far, far away,
There's where my heart is turning ever,
There's where the old folks stay.
All the world am sad and dreary,
Everywhere I roam.
Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary--"
The lay of Page Avenue was before her, swollen through tears. Her mother
sewing beside Katy Stutz. The patient back of her father's gray head.
Her parents on their knees, far back there somewhere beside her bed of
fever.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176