After such a conversation I hardly dared enter the house that day. When I did go in, after fooling around at the barn as long as possible, I found Maw singing lustily about some man who had gone to the gallows with a white dove riding on his shoulder to prove him innocent of the murder of his sweetheart.
"Where's Mrs. Jones and her kids?" I asked, flabbergasted.
"They went home," said Maw. "I told them to. Can't spend all my time gassing with a ugly old woman like that when I've got housecleaning to do."
And until long after sunset she made the feathers fly from the old pillows, beat up the crackling corn-shuck mattresses, sprinkled and swept the floors and polished the meager kitchen utensils till they shone. Annette and I, feeling as if we had been released from jail, helped with a will. Aunt Ellen, reinstated in her rocking chair, frowned and sneezed by turns and said nothing as always.
"There," said Maw at last as she hung the home-made broom behind the kitchen range and sank into a chair, looking suddenly more worn and old than I had ever seen her. "There. It's all swept and garnished for when the bridegroom cometh."
"The bridegroom?" I glanced at her sharply.
"I was just fooling again, son." She stared down at her big-veined hands as they lay clasped in her lap. "Must be getting old, I guess. I just meant that I have a feeling your Uncle Bill will come tomorrow. And you know how fussy he is about everything being neat and clean." She rose reluctantly with a sigh, half of weariness, half of content. "Come. You and Annette get undressed and get to bed. I'll sing you to sleep like I used to when you were little."
"You look just like my daughter, sir,
Who from me ran away...."
Her old cracked voice still had its hypnotic quality and I felt my eyelids drooping despite my certain knowledge that this night, of all nights, I should stay awake.