"Ned told me this Hicks fellow and another man brought it a few minutes before I got over here. 'Course they left, right away."
As soon as Mama hung her cloak and mine behind the kitchen door, she led me into the fireplace room, where Miss Ophelia and Miss Lida Belle and a big wide lady Mama called Mrs. Lee were sitting.
Miss Ophelia was holding her little baby boy on her lap and was rocking him back and forth. We could tell he was about to fall asleep, for every time he tried to open up his eyelids, they drooped back down again. He was two times as fat as he was that night when he was sleeping in the Christmas hay at church.
Mama spoke to all the women, and they spoke, but nobody did any more talking. They all kept sitting there, quiet. There wasn't a little chair for me, so Mama crossed her knees and let me squeeze in on the edge of her rocker.
The old ladies had drawn their chairs close to the hearth, and there they sat, their hands folded, just looking into the fire. After I had watched them for a while, I noticed they didn't even have their snuff-dipping brushes in their mouths. The front door squeaked.
I looked around. Papa and Doctor Elton and Mister Wes were coming in from the hall. Papa and the doctor took off their hats, and after Mister Wes sat down in the chair next to Miss Ophelia, he pulled his off, too. He held it in his hands, twisting it round and round, folding and refolding the middle crease.
"Miss Ophelia," he said, "I hate to trouble you at a time like this, but I reckon I'll have to ask you a little bit about Ward."
"It's all right, Mister Wes."
"The county coroner sent word by Mister Jodie that we don't have to have no reg'lar inquest 'less we figger somebody shot Ward. 'Course we don't rigger nothin' like that, but when somebody dies under odd circumstances, we sorta have to look into it."
"Yes, sir."