“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Sarah scolded her mildly, “and help me with the victuals. Lotus! Take those filthy children to the well back of the church and wash their hands. Then bring the baskets and help us get ready, you hear?”

“If I move off this bench, we can use it to set things out on.” Edna put her hands on her knees and rose stiffly.

Presently Lotus returned with the children, each trying to help carry the baskets on either side of her. Rachel and Doreen had done most of the morning’s work and now wandered off to the well to wash their faces and hands. When they came back, Doreen, who had lately taken to public praying, spoke a short blessing over the food. All stood and ate together, cheerful enough in spite of the setting. Then Lotus took the children to the carriage to lie down while she watched them, although they were too full of giggles to sleep, Jane setting B.B. off into a new fit of mirth every time he became quiet.

Rachel and Doreen turned to work, much of it accomplished on hands and knees, the sort of labor neither did any other time or place but did here as an act of piety and family regard. They were too young to think of their being one day put here for their final rest, with Jane perhaps doing the work that presently engaged them.

But Sarah, having packed empty dishes into the baskets, sat on the bench beside Edna and thought of the time that would certainly come when she would be here forever. “Only please, God, not soon!” she asked silently.

Edna said, “I wish I was dead.”

“And I was just saying to myself I want to live forever.”

“So you should say at your age.”

“Anybody who can eat fruit cake and boiled ham the way you did a while ago surely isn’t contemplating life on a cloud playing a harp.” They were silent a few moments until Sarah said, “I can’t see you and me flying around heaven on wings, can you?”

“They’d have to be bigger wings than I ever saw on a bird to keep my old butt in the air!” Laughing, Sarah turned and hugged Edna. “You’re good to me,” Edna said.

“I don’t know what I’d have done without you.” Sarah shook her head. “There’ve been times I felt you were the only friend I had.”

Edna brooded quietly a little while. “I meant it, what I said. There’s going to be a war, Sarah.”

After brief hesitation Sarah said, “I surely hope not!”

Edna nodded. “South Carolina has led the way. Rooster says the rest of us Southerners will secede soon.”

“So does Leon,” Sarah admitted. “Still and all—”