In her room Emily lovingly folded the Christmas gift she had knitted for Jack Donelson. A crimson muffler with stripes and a fringe of bright blue at either end. It narrowed a little in the middle where she had knitted a bit too tight, but she stretched it to make it even before she wrapped it in a square of white paper and tied it with a ribbon bow, sticking a tiny bunch of holly jauntily on top. She had gifts for aunt Rachel and uncle Jackson too, linen handkerchiefs she had hemstitched with neat, tiny stitches, then washed and bleached and ironed, with Sary standing around to keep the irons hot. She wrapped these too, along with the gifts for her own family, aware of the curious eyes of the two girls who were making an extra bed in the corner of the room. Some of the cousins would sleep in here, likely enough two of them with her in her own bed.
They would giggle and whisper about their beaus half the night and ply her with questions that she would evade, quite certain that she was fooling no one. She and Jack were a family anxiety, she knew. It was all part of that silly old superstition that cousins should not marry. Jack had more brains than all his relatives put together, she was fiercely certain; he was the cleverest and steadiest of all the Donelson clan; he was almost as smart as uncle Jackson. How could a brilliant young man like Jack have children that were idiots?
“And I’m not a stupid fool either!” she said suddenly, aloud.
The women, shaking out quilts, broke into delighted laughter. “No, Miss Emily, you sho’ ain’t no fool,” cried the older one, “You about the smartest white Miss we got, savin’ Mis’ Rachel herself.”
“Thank you, ’Relia. Don’t use that pillowcase. It’s got a rip in the seam.”
“Hit the very las’ one, Miss Emily. Done use every pillowcase Mis’ Jackson got.”
“Give it to me then. I’ll mend it. We can’t have guests sleeping on rags.”
“Not Miss Mary Eastin, no ways. She want everything mighty fine. Best we got ain’t none too good for Miss Mary.”
“Oh, Mary will sleep with me. She always does.”
“Her hair mighty pretty. Smooth and shiny as a new colt. Got a nice long nose too.”