The old editions of the Chowan Herald, all on microfilm, were located in the small, cramped, and quiet second story of the library. I was the only person up there, and it took me thirty minutes to figure out how to operate the microfilm machine. I was frustrated by the time I loaded the reel for 1940 and even more frustrated when I realized there was no indexing—no way to search for Anna’s name. I began running through the papers week by week, studying the crude images with the dodgy machine, finally finding a photograph in the February 15 edition. The large but grainy picture appeared to have been taken inside the warehouse—Mama Nelle’s “big barn,” I felt sure. Anna and her very cool haircut stood next to an empty canvas … or at least, it appeared empty until I enlarged the shot and saw the faint but clear pounce lines that covered the surface. I understood immediately what I was looking at. Anna Dale had created a cartoon of the mural and pounced the image onto the canvas. A thrill ran up my spine, knowing that the canvas I was looking at was the very canvas I was working on, and I had the out-of-body feeling that I was there, with her, in that warehouse. I squinted at the faint, grainy image. I could see no pounce marks for the motorcycle, although it was hard to make out much of anything on the canvas.

The photograph was interesting in other ways, too. Anna stood to one side, pointing to the canvas, a wide smile on her face. She wore wide-legged pants and a smudged white smock. I thought she was beautiful. I smoothed my hand over my own shoulder-length pale hair, wondering how it would look in that bob. Flat as a pancake, most likely. My hair didn’t have the body hers did.

Next to Anna, a young black man held a long roll of paper—probably the used cartoon. On the opposite side of the canvas, a towheaded boy stood with his hands in his pockets. Both the man’s and the boy’s gazes were riveted on whatever Anna was illustrating on the canvas. There was just one line beneath the picture: Artist Anna Dale discusses the drawing for the mural, which will reside in the Edenton Post Office.