“Hit’s this plagued hay fever,” Father said. “Every bloom on the face o’ the earth is giving off dust. Sometimes it nigh chokes me black in the face.”
He sniffled, blew his nose, and went inside with Mother. His angry voice suddenly filled the house. Mother brought out an armload of yellowrods, stick-weed blooms, and farewell-summer Euly had stuck around in fruit jars.
Father’s face darkened when Mother told him about the funeralizing for the baby. “I’ve already sent on word to Brother Sim Mobberly,” she said.
Father groaned. “It’s onreckoning what a woman’ll think about with her man off trying to make a living,” he said. “Green hadn’t even larnt to walk. There hain’t any use for a big funeral.”
“We’ve got plenty to feed everybody,” Mother said. “I ain’t ashamed of what we got. We’ve done right proud this year. I’m just getting one preacher, and it’s going to be a one-day funeral.”
“There hain’t no use asking anybody except our kin,” Father said. “It’ll look like we’re trying to put on the dog.”
“Everybody that’s a-mind to come is asked,” Mother said. “I hain’t trying to put a peck measure over the word o’ God.”
Father got up and lighted the rio lamp. “We’ll feed right good down at Blackjack this winter,” he said. “I hear tell the mines are to open the middle of October—this time for good. I’m going back to Mace Hogan’s quarry for another two weeks and then I’m quitting. I’m longing to git me a pick and stick it in a coal vein. I can’t draw a clean breath of air outside a mine this time o’ year. It’s like a horse trying to breathe with his nose in a meal poke.”
“I was reckoning we’d stay on here another crap,” Mother said. “The mines is everly opening and closing. I been told there’s no school in Blackjack this fall. The baby is buried here. Oh, I never favored bringing up my children in a coal camp. They’ve got enough meanness in their blood without humoring it. We done right well crapping this year. We raised a passel of victuals.”
“Going to be good times agin in Blackjack,” Father said. “I hear they’re to pay nigh fifty cents a ton for coal loading. And they’re building some new company houses. I got my word in for one.”
Mother’s face was pale in the lamplight. “I reckon it’s my egg tree I’m hating to leave,” she said. “I allus did want me one.”