“You want I should stay with you an’ not go on?”
“No,” she said. “No. When I was a little girl I use’ ta sing. Folks roun’ about use’ ta say I sung as nice as Jenny Lind. Folks use’ ta come an’ listen when I sung. An’—when they stood—an’ me a-singin’, why, me an’ them was together more’n you could ever know. I was thankful. There ain’t so many folks can feel so full up, so close, an’ them folks standin’ there an’ me a-singin’. Thought maybe I’d sing in theaters, but I never done it. An’ I’m glad. They wasn’t nothin’ got in between me an’ them. An’—that’s why I wanted you to pray. I wanted to feel that clostness, oncet more. It’s the same thing, singin’ an’ prayin’, jus’ the same thing. I wisht you could a-heerd me sing.”
He looked down at her, into her eyes. “Good-by,” he said.
She shook her head slowly back and forth and closed her lips tight. And the preacher went out of the dusky tent into the blinding light.
The men were loading up the truck. Uncle John on top, while the others passed equipment up to him. He stowed it carefully, keeping the surface level. Ma emptied the quarter of a keg of salt pork into a pan, and Tom and Al took both little barrels to the river and washed them. They tied them to the running boards and carried water in buckets to fill them. Then over the tops they tied canvas to keep them from slopping the water out. Only the tarpaulin and Granma’s mattress were left to put on.
Tom said, “With the load we’ll take, this ol’ wagon’ll boil her head off. We got to have plenty water.”
Ma passed the boiled potatoes out and brought the half sack from the tent and put it with the pan of pork. The family ate standing, shuffling their feet and tossing the hot potatoes from hand to hand until they cooled.
Ma went to the Wilson tent and stayed for ten minutes, and then she came out quietly. “It’s time to go,” she said.
The men went under the tarpaulin. Granma still slept, her mouth wide open. They lifted the whole mattress gently and passed it up on top of the truck. Granma drew up her skinny legs and frowned in her sleep, but she did not awaken.
Uncle John and Pa tied the tarpaulin over the cross-piece, making a little tight tent on top of the load. They lashed it down to the side-bars. And then they were ready. Pa took out his purse and dug two crushed bills from it. He went to Wilson and held them out. “We want you should take this, an’” —he pointed to the pork and potatoes—“an’ that.”