At first we hated and resented them, then, childlike, accepted the inevitable and even made the best of it. Sometimes, so real did Maw make the delusion become, we almost believed with her that the shadows were real. On rainy weekends we found ourselves inventing games to play with them. Perhaps, in time, we might have gone to inhabit her world of dreams.
But Maw's health was failing rapidly. We tried to ignore the fact as she did, though it soon became pitifully obvious that Paw's loss had broken the iron will which had sustained her through so many adversities. Aunt Ellen more and more ceded her place before the mirror as she helped Annette and me do the lighter chores and even some of the cooking.
Bill Pailey came over every day now—Maw never paraded her shadows when he was around, knowing that the bluff farmer was somehow not to be trusted with such dream stuff. And the money which aunts and uncles contributed, willingly or grudgingly, was more and more needed to fill the gaps in our finances.
"Tommy," Annette said to me one afternoon as we were plodding home from school along the muddy dogwood-bordered road. "What happens to people when they die?"
"Aw, I don't know," I muttered, kicking a loose stone with my copper-toed shoe. "Maw says the angels come and get 'em and take 'em to heaven."
"But the angels didn't come and get Dickie." Dickie was a wry-necked pin-feathered rooster that Paw had taught to come when we called, dig fishing worms for us and jump through a barrel hoop. "I went to look at Dickie's grave the other day. A dog had dug him up. There were just feathers—and bones."
"Aw," I said. "Chickens don't have souls. But Maw says that when Miz Pailey died last year she was there and she saw—"
"We're going to be awful lonesome, though," my sister sighed. "And you'll have to get up and make the fire every morning."
"What you mean?" I challenged.
"Nothing. Let's run. I'm cold." And she was off in a flutter of long legs, gingham and pale yellow braids.