At length the last package was hoisted onto the wagon, and after laying the shoebox of lunch on the seat Peter was to occupy, and taking a final drink of spring water, she clambered carefully up to the driver's bench. Peter hopped up with gray-haired, cricket-like agility, clucked sharply, and the horses jogged off.
They drove behind the crest, on the circling road above Lilydale. Peter chuckled to himself.
"What you laughin' at?"
"Ah'se thinkin', sistuh Stella, dat you sho' buried a passel er people in dis place."
She nodded in complacency. "Six of 'em, Peter, six of 'em."
He chuckled on. "Dey gwineter plant you nex', sistuh Stella."
"Dey gotter kill me fu'st."
She looked back, as the road turned into the viaduct for Adamsville, and sighed heavily. She remembered the arrival in the city ... the wait in the office of the Galilean Fishermen, while the children ate up all the cold fish sandwiches and speckled bananas Tom had gotten for their lunch. All gone. All gone. Unbidden, fragmentary pictures of the romping, frolicking boys, sober Diana, came.... Jim crying, when the hatchet chopped his foot.... Babe's round face.... Ed's face, and the others, in their pine-wood coffins.... Tom's kindly smile. All gone. A weak tear welled from under each old eyelid.
She looked around cautiously to see if Peter was noticing. No, he was drowsing forward, letting the horses choose their own way.
She undid quietly the end of the box of lunch, and took out a sandwich. Real chicken breast! The sisters of the Zion Church certainly did do things up in style.