Fletch followed me everywhere, forever wanting to go where I went. Sometimes I hid, choosing to play by myself, and talk things aloud, but he would call until his voice hoarsened and trembled. Then I was ashamed not to answer, and I’d pretend I had just come into hollering distance. He would run to me, dodging through the weeds like a puppy. There was no getting away from Fletch. We fished dirt holes for johnny-humpbacks. If I caught one first he spat down the hole for spite. Oft we would tale-tell. I told about Uncle Toll’s finger-piece, Walking John Gay, and the pigeon-birds; and of my going to Redbird River. “Tell agin you going to Redbird,” Fletch would say. So many times I had told I knew the words by heart. “Uncle Jolly brought me home the far way round,” I would begin. “First he went a-sparking Tina Sawyers on Left Troublesome, then we struck toward Redbird River country. I saw Cutshin and Goose Creek, Big Greasy and Hoss Neck. And Redbird was the biggest waters a-tall, clear as goblet-glass. I saw things Walking John Gay went many a mile to see. I saw country like a dream dreamt. . . .”

Oft we talked of growing up, of what we were going to do then. “When I’m growed to a man,” I’d brag, “I figger to be a horse doctor. Hain’t going to be a miner, buried down like a johnny-humpback.” Fletch thought he wanted to be a horse doctor too. “Me,” he would say, “I hain’t a-going to be a miner neither.”

One day Fletch and I came in from the buckeye thicket with our pockets loaded. Mother and Euly were working around a dead willow in the yard, stringing the twigless branches with saved eggshells. The eggs had been broken carefully at each end, letting the whites and yolks run out. The little tree was about five feet high, and the lean branches were already nearly covered with shells.

“I allus did want me an egg tree,” Mother said. “I hear tell it’s healthy to have one growing in the yard. And I figure it’ll be brightening to the house. A sight o’ folks will be coming to the funeralizing. My dommers ought to lay nigh enough to kiver the last branch before the time. Eggshells hain’t a grain o’ good except to prettify with.”

August lay heavy on the fields when Father came home for three days. Blooming whitetop covered the pasture before the house, and spindling stickweeds shook out purple bonnets. Father came just before dark, and the pretty-by-nights were open and peart by the doorsill. He trudged into the yard without seeing the egg tree, or the blossoms beside the steps. He walked up on the porch, and we saw his red nose and watery eyes. Mother caught him by the arm.