Hattie Lampson began to mumble on top of the hymn singing and turn of the wheels.
“I’m indebted to you ever,” said Ma and put her arm around the dwarfed shoulders. “You been here to give me courage.” Ma rattled, looked at her quickly and gave the cold little woman a rigorous and sudden hug. She snapped free. Ma eased her again under a brown arm and widely ruffled sleeve.
“Hattie. You ain’t going to be doggish. Not on a wedding day.”
They rode unmolested over the flat pan — fifty miles away there might have been a mountain range to seal them perfectly within the white disk passable and clear — and looking way to the ground Ma watched the last of the hoofs, so slowly dropped, switch and explode in dust. She felt under the seat for her finery.
“He’s probably thinking just like me. Now,” said Ma and fanned herself.
Hattie Lampson spoke: “He wasn’t brung up for such. Not to be handed straight over. Naked. He’ll work some now. There ain’t no family. There ain’t even any boys, men neither. You can’t pass them all out. They’re supposed to laze around home. Take care of their own farmyard, they was told.
“They get no pardon. It ain’t just any hound can go out shorn and keep his head up. I say they’re done. My younger has gone just like him. Bringing that Indian into the house is about as bad. Neither one can hold himself straight. They was behind my back.
“Around their age they start feeling worms inside and nothing I say will change it. Why, he’s been walking you sideways for two years steady. And when he won’t touch no food, there’s enough to kill him right there.
“Some just worm themselves in. I ain’t going to be touched now the way you do. You ain’t going to get me to help you mix no water in his meal. Just to lie spread in the dish. I got to watch for him and keep him quiet. But I’m not sure he’ll make much noise anyway. Folks forget. They’ll forget the whole family.
“They won’t even remember what month it was. And he won’t, for sure. No one knows mine neither. You ain’t going to live long enough with my boy to get the yellow off his teeth or bleach out what I learned him. You’re too old.