He reached the corn-field before the morning dew was dry. The black furrows between the tall green rippling blades felt cool and damp. As a light breeze blew, the corn rustled and waved and the silks added their perfume to the fruity blossomy fragrance in the air.
Breeze sat down on the ground and looked up at the sky overhead, pondering. He couldn’t remember his sins. He hated Brudge, but that couldn’t be sinful, mean as Brudge was. Anybody who knew Brudge would hate him.
“Oh, Lawd,” he began, then halted. If he knew how to pray it would be easier. Where was Jesus? How could he make Jesus hear him? The blue sky where Heaven was looked high and far and empty.
Getting on his knees Breeze closed his eyes and repeated the words of Uncle Bill’s prayer as nearly as he could remember. Over and over he said them, until in spite of all his striving to keep awake, the stillness overcame him and he fell into a gentle doze. Something tickled his nose, then crawled across his lips. He jumped, hit at the pest, a straw. The sun’s midday light was a hard hot glare; the black shadows short. Emma stood over him, her white teeth shining in a broad grin that vexed him bitterly, a wisp of dry grass in her fingers.
“How you duh sleep! You ain’ gwine pray?” Emma giggled as she asked it.
Breeze rubbed his eyes and looked all around. He hated being caught, and Emma had no business tickling his face while he slept. Stung to the quick with shame and vexation, he snapped out angrily:
“How come you duh grin like a chessy-cat? Who you duh laugh at so frightenin’?”
His ill humor sobered her and she made haste to explain, “I ain’ laughin’ at you. I’m a-laughin’ at Brudge. Brudge is done found peace in dem woods back o’ we house. Lawd, e hollered so loud, I thought sho’ e had got in a yellow-jacket’s nest! Jedus, you ought to heared em!” Emma’s laugh rippled out and shook her slim shoulders so that the beads Joy had given her chinked merrily against the hot black skin of her little black neck. Her three-cornered face glowed with fun, her slanting eyes sparkled as they met Breeze’s, but he shrugged disdainfully. “I know dat ain’ so. Brudge didn’ start seekin’, not till dis mawnin’. E couldn’ find peace, not dat quick. You can’ fool me. Shucks!”
“I ain’ tryin’ to fool you. Gramma made me go see wha dat was ail Brudge, made em squall an’ holler so loud.” Emma’s face had got serious, her teasing eyes grave.
In spite of the too-big, ugly dress she wore and the long awkward sleeves that hung over her small hands, the child had a half-wild grace and lightness, and as she knelt down in the soft dusty furrow and one hand crept out from the folds of her dress toward Breeze, he grabbed it and held it before it could draw back.