Losing Battles Read Online Free Page B

you’ll look like if he don’t get here,” she said to Gloria. Her foot in its black leather, ragged-heeled shoe, feathered with dust, and wearing a skinny white sock, stepped on the end of Gloria’s sash.
    “What’s she want to walk off and leave good company for?” asked Aunt Cleo the next minute. “She too good for us?”
    For Gloria walked down the yard away from the house, through the circles of squatters, until she was all by herself. Her high heels tilted her nearly to tiptoe, like a bird ready to fly.
    “Hair that flaming, it looks like it would hurt her,” murmured Aunt Beck. “More especially when she carries it right out in the broil.”
    All the aunts, here on the gallery, were sheltering from sun as if from torrents of rain. Ferns in hanging wire baskets spread out just above their heads, dark as nests, one for each aunt but Aunt Lexie, who wouldn’t sit down.
    Aunt Nanny shaded her eyes and asked, “How far is Gloria going, anyway?”
    Down near the gate, a trimmed section of cedar trunk lay on the ground, silver in chinaberry shade. Clean-polished by the seasons, with its knobs bright and its convolutions smooth-polished, it looked like some pistony musical instrument.
    “That’s her perch,” said Miss Beulah as Gloria sat down on it with her back to them, her sash-ends hanging down behind her like an organist’s in church.
    “She’s got to be ready for her husband whether he gets here or not,” Aunt Beck said softly. “But she’s young, she can stand the disappointment.”
    “She’s too young to know any better. That’s the poorest way in the wide world to bring him,” Aunt Birdie said. “Getting ready so far ahead of time, then keeping your eyes on his road.”
    “Set still, Sister Gloria, keep your hands folded!” Jack’s little sisters chanted together. “Don’t let your dress get dirty! You gotplenty-enough to do, just waiting, waiting, waiting on your husband!”
    “When I can’t see her determined little face any longer, but just her back, she looks mighty tender to my eyes,” Aunt Beck said in a warning voice to the other women. “Around her shoulder blades, she looks a mighty tender little bride.”
    A big spotted cat, moulting and foolish-looking, came out onto the porch, ramming its head against their feet, standing on its hind legs and making a raucous noise.
    “He’s kept that up faithful. He’s looking for Jack,” said Etoyle. “That cat’s almost got to be a dog since Jack’s away.”
    “Think he’d better whip up his horse now and come on,” said Granny.
    “He’s coming, Granny, just as fast as he can,” Aunt Birdie promised her.
    Aunt Nanny teased, “Listen, suppose they was all ready to let those boys out, then caught ’em in a fresh piece of mischief.”
    “They’d just hold right tight onto their ears, then,” said Miss Lexie. She had a broom now and was sweeping underneath the school chair, the only one where nobody was sitting.
    “You wouldn’t punish a boy on his last day, would you?” Uncle Noah Webster asked. “Would you now, Lexie?”
    “Yes, I would. By George, I took my turn as a teacher!” Miss Lexie cried.
    Vaughn ran the little girls out of the swing, and while the uncles climbed to their feet to watch he started setting out the long plank tables. There were five, gray and weatherbeaten as old row-boats, giving off smells of wet mustard, forgotten rain, and mulberry leaves. None of them were easily persuaded to stand true on their sawhorse legs. Vaughn looked down an imaginary line from the big bois d’arc to the chinaberry. Unless Gloria were to move from where she sat, there would have to be a jog in the middle of it.

    Close to the house, the company dogs had fallen into long slack ranks, a congregation of leathery backs jolted like one long engine by the force of their breathing. Over the brown rocks of their foreheads flickered the yellow butterflies of August like dreams, some at their very noses. Sid, tied in the