“She killed him,” Lena and Marcia whispered to each other. “She’d like to kill all of us.”

Vance’s moving to the hotel was lost in the shock of Grandpa’s death. It served a purpose, in a way, for She dared not nag Papa for putting out Vance, since she had admitted in front of everybody that she was going to lock out Grandpa. She didn’t dare talk as much as she wanted about the four hundred and sixteen dollars Grandpa had left to his children, though she made it clear the money would repair the roof and get a new furnace and washing machine. Papa merely said that he had written to the rest of the brothers and sisters scattered around the state, and said he was using Grandpa’s fortune to get him the best goddam coffin the Carson Furniture and Funeral Parlor could supply. It was the least they could do for the old man, he told them, and though there were some whimpers from some of the relations it was too late. Papa himself got a new suit for the funeral and made a down payment on a Ford. He urged them not to deliver the car yet, as it wouldn’t look right for him to go riding around so soon after his old man died. Even so, his brothers and sisters continued to write him nasty letters for years.

“There’s no pleasing your own relations,” Papa said, shaking his head. “You can do and do for them but still it ain’t enough.”

30

MARCIA WAS PLANNING to run away. Florrie knew about it, but they didn’t tell Lena because she was sure to tattle to Mary Evelyn and it would get back to Papa. Marcia had made this decision after the Speaking Prize trouble. Every year at commencement time, a prize consisting of a brass medal on a red satin ribbon was awarded to the best recitation at the Grammar School Holiday Exercises. This had been awarded to Marcia for “The Raven” (expression and gestures coached by Fannie Gross). The winner of this medal was then invited to represent her town in the Mid-Summer Educational Conference in Lesterville, where the county winner would win an even larger medal and ten dollars. The participants would receive a handsome certificate merely for competing. They were to be judged by the Courier editor, the Methodist minister, and the high school principal. The requirement that loomed most important to Marcia was that the girls were to wear white dresses and white shoes and stockings.