Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

the muscles of her face into a mask and sealed them in the steam of the kettles. Every woman in that room, except Tillie, knew who fathered Hettie’s three children, and it wasn’t her long-gone stove-black husband, or the white trash squatter, or Jim Bredge. But no self-respecting white woman would ever dare utter the name of the father in the presence of his wife, not even when she was sitting no more than two feet away.
    “I’m sorry, Aunt Eula,” Tillie waved a hand around to include the other offending women in the room. “I forgot that you and Uncle Alex did have a baby once.”
    With her masklike face in place, Eula managed to give her niece a slight nod of her head. Fedora, concentrating on apple peels more than Eula had ever seen, lifted her head slightly as she sidled her eyes in Tillie’s direction. Eula watched the younger woman’s own eyes grow wider as she grabbed at the waist of her dress.
    “If there is a baby in here, Aunt Eula, do you think I might lose it like you did?” Fedora’s arm moved with such speed that Eula swore she only saw a white blur as her sister-in-law whacked Tillie near the elbow with an unpeeled apple.
    “Will you stop your nonsense? You ain’t about to lose Wiley George’s baby.” Fedora glowered at her daughter.
    “I don’t really know the story, Aunt Eula.” Stubborn Tillie rubbed at her arm but kept her eyes on Eula. “I only know that you and Uncle Alex had a baby that died. Was it the whooping cough?”
    The scraping sound of Fedora’s chair as the woman jumped to her feet brought Eula’s eyes hard around to her sister-in-law. Faster than a blink of an eye, Fedora reached across the table and snatched the spoon from the cooling pot of plums. Wielding the implement like a sword, she struck her daughter hard on the shoulder.
    “I taught you better.” Fedora’s face had gone red. “You leave your aunt be. Not everybody wants to talk about what pains them like you do girl.” Fedora held the spoon ready for a follow-up blow as Tillie shifted her hand to her shoulder.
    “I ain’t pryin’, Ma. I just want to know what happened to Aunt Eula’s baby.”
    The other women worked at a pace that Eula hadn’t seen all day, but she knew every ear was turned up as keen as a hunting hound to hear her answer.
    “She died abornin’.” Eula’s lips felt like they were moving through hardened clay. She tried to clear her throat. “Do we have another case of Mason jars?” Sweeping past Belle and Cora Lee, Eula stepped as slowly as she thought seemly out onto the back porch and the pump.
    She bit into her lip. As she primed the pump handle, she wanted to shout out. Damn Jenny and Belle and Cora Lee. Why did their silly conversation have to drag her into it? Babies, yellow babies, coming babies, dead babies. Was it better to hurt her or Fedora? As the water started its trickle out of the pump, she cupped her shaking hand to gather a fistful and splash it over her face.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    “Henry, run these sticks over to the barn.” Without looking at her son, Annalaura took two crooked branches off the pile of stripped tree limbs accumulating from Lottie’s run between Doug and the mound at Annalaura’s feet.
    The little girl, drenched in sweat, dropped eight more sticks atop the slow-growing pile before she collapsed between two rows of tobacco.
    “Momma, I’m hungry.” Little Henry plopped on the dirt across from his sister and let the sticks in his hand fall in different directions.
    Annalaura reached down for the water jug on the ground, unscrewed its top, and offered it to Henry, while she glowered at Lottie.
    “Girl, get up from there. Don’t you know that it’s September and we’ve got to get these sticks sharpened for spearing the tobacco? Mr. McNaughton wants his tobacco now.”
    “I don’t care ’bout no ole tobacco. Momma, I’m hot.” Lottie crawled over to Henry, who held the water bottle to his lips.
    Before her daughter could lay her hands on it, Annalaura slapped the child’s wrist.
    “You’d better care ’bout some old tobacco, and you’d better be glad you’re feelin’ some heat on your back right now. Store it up. If we don’t get this harvest in, come winter, you’ll feel nothin’ but cold snow on your behind.” Annalaura looked up at the sky. She was grateful that early September had brought cooler weather, although, with the work they all were doing, she knew the fires of Hades couldn’t feel much hotter.