Rachel's Summer
C. R. Jackson
MY
SISTER RACHEL
was dead at sixteen. It was a tremendous
event in our town, and in our family too, of course; and though it
all happened more than twenty years ago, now, I believe I could
remember, and set down, every thing that was said or done in our
house during those three days between her death and the funeral.
Even conversations I can remember; and who was there, of all our
relatives and neighbors; and what people wore and how they
behaved-during every hour from Sunday afternoon, when the
thing happened, till the funeral was over on Wednesday. I well
. knew that we had all been thrown into the limelight, as it were, by
Rachel's death, and that we were the talk of the town. Conse–
quently when I spoke I was careful to speak with effect, and act as
people expected me to act, with the proper amount of drama, so
that nobody would be disappointed. That is probably why I remem–
ber everything so clearly. I was so busy thinking about myself and
the impression I made that I didn't have much time to think of
Rachel.
It had happened on Sunday, late in October-one of tnose
amazing warm and lovely days that return suddenly, just before
winter, to tell us of the end of summer long after summer is ended.
In those days people ·drove out in their cars on Sunday, inviting
friends or neighbors for a drive into the country, or to call on
someone in the next town. Rachel had been asked to go riding by
the Gove family, Wilson Gove and his father and mother; and
about three o'clock they drove away, Mr. and Mrs. Gove in the
front seat, Rachel and Wilson in back. An hour later, returning to
town from nearby Palmyra, the car overturned coming down the
East Palmyra hill and Rachel was thrown out and killed.
It was a tragedy in the town for many reasons, and I was old
enough to know most of them. Rachel was the only daughter in a
family of four boys. She was young, of course, and very beauti-
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