Delicately grate rinds of fruits. Make sure you have slender pieces of rind. Chop up your pulp, leaving the middle section of each fruit. Put the middles of the fruits and the seeds somewhere else in a cotton wrap. Add three times the amount of pulp & rind. That’s the measure for your water. Keep this sitting overnight. Get up the next day & boil this for a half hour. Drop your wrapped seed bag in there. Boil that, too. & mix in an exact equal of your seed bag with your sugar (white or brown). Leave it be for several hours. Come back. Get it boiling again. Don’t stop stirring. You can test it & test it, but you’ll know when it jells. Put on your table or in jars you seal while it’s hot.

Now you have these with your hominy grits. (I know you know how to make hominy grits.) Fried eggs, sunny-side-up. Ham-sliced bacon, butter rolls, & Aunt Haydee’s Red Pimiento Jam. I’d tell you that receipt, but Aunt Haydee never told nobody how it is you make that. I keep a jar in the pantry for special occasions. I get one come harvest.

Mama’s breakfast simmering way downstairs drew the girls out of their sleep. Indigo ran to the kitchen. Sassafrass turned back over on her stomach to sleep a while longer, there was no House Mother ringing a cow bell. Heaven. Cypress brushed her hair, began her daily pliés & leg stretches. Hilda Effania sat at her kitchen table, drinking strong coffee with Magnolia Milk, wondering what the girls would think of her tree.

“Merry Christmas, Mama.” Indigo gleamed. “May I please have some coffee with you? Nobody else is up yet. Then we can go see the tree, can’t we, when they’re all up. Should I go get ’em?” Indigo was making herself this coffee as quickly as she could, before Hilda Effania said “no.” But Hilda was so happy Indigo could probably have had a shot of bourbon with her coffee.

“Only half a cup, Indigo. Just today.” Hilda watched Indigo moving more like Cypress. Head erect, back stretched tall, with some of Sassafrass’ easy coyness.

“So you had a wonderful time last night at your first party?”

“Oh, yes, Mama.” Indigo paused. “But you know what?” Indigo sat down by her mother with her milk tinged with coffee. She stirred her morning treat, serious as possible. She looked her mother in the eyes. “Mama, I don’t think boys are as much fun as everybody says.”

“What do you mean, darling?”

“Well, they dance. & I guess eventually you marry ’em. But I like my fiddle so much more. I even like my dolls better than boys. They’re fun, but they can’t talk about important things.”