I WAKED, my face to the wall, and the pine boards were already yellowed with sunlight. Seven knot holes shaped like dwarf heads looked down on me. From the bed I could reach the resin circles; I could push a forefinger against them until they loosened and fell to the ground outside. Then I’d have to plug them back, for Grandma vowed night air was poisonous, and likely to cause consumption; but I was more afraid of crawlers. A thousand-legged earwig might get inside my head and run me nit-brained. A devil’s walking-stick might spit on me. On this morning while studying the knot faces I heard Uncle Jolly shout outside, and Grandma go hurrying into the yard. “Oh, hit must be a sign,” Grandma called, “a sign a-flying.”

I sprang out of bed. There was no time to jump into my breeches. The thing would have flown by then. I poked out the largest knot and put an eye to it. I saw the thickety slopes of Lean Neck Valley glisten in the morning sun; I saw Uncle Jolly running along the path, peering upward, stumbling, for he did not look at the ground before him. The sky was above, out of my sight. I saw nothing that flew through the air, nor heard a clap or drone of wings. But I heard hoofs coming down Lean Neck. I saw a fat mare and a jinny, with riders atop, taking the long way around to Hardin Town. Two men rode the mare. One straddled the jinny.

In fumbling haste I put on my breeches and hurried into the yard. Grandma was looking toward the corn bottom where Uncle Jolly had gone, paying no mind to the jinny and mare rattling the creek bed road.

“A strange bird a-flying,” Grandma explained. “Jolly was bound to take a long look. A bird of a size I never saw before, body big as a dry land goose’s, wings spreading as would cover an ax handle, tip to tip. Shroud white all over. Scissor-beaked. Flying low, hit was, searching. Oh, hit was like the roc the Book reads about.”

I wanted to run into the corn bottom, to take a look at this queer bird.

“Hit might come back,” Grandma said, “or else be gone forever. I don’t figure Jolly’U see it agin. Eat your breakfast, child, before it gets stone cold.”

I went into the kitchen. A half pone of fatty bread lay on the table, pinched around the edges, and there was a bowl of gravy, brown as a meat skin, to pour over it. The fatty bread crumbled in my plate. I spooned it hastily, hands shaking with excitement.