RACHEL'S SUMMER
59
ful: people used to stop Mother on the street and tell her how
beautiful Rachel was getting to be, and Mr. Brittain the minister
would say Rachel was going to be a beautiful woman "almost any
day now," wagging his finger at Mother in playful warning; and I
myself remember how sometimes I would look at her across the
supper table and suddenly think that Rachel-my own sister that I
quarreled with so much-was the most vivid and alive creature I
had ever seen.-And another reason was that my father had left
home that year and his absence made my sister's death a greater
tragedy for my mother. The day after Rachel died-that wonder–
ful Indian-summer Sunday-winter descended at once, with a
heavy snowfall in the night, so that we looked out in the morning
to white lawns and streets, and the sidewalks had to be shovelled,
and kids got out their sleds, and chains had to be put on the cars
that drove us over Asylum Hill and down to the cemetery that
freezing Wednesday afternoon. Mother said it seemed only fitting
and proper that winter should come now: summer was indeed over.
The night before Rachel was buried we were taken in for one
last look at her, as Mother didn't want us to be around downstairs
on the day of the funeral, when the house was filled with inquisi–
tive neighbors and townspeople and all the hundreds of school
children who filed in and out of the front room for an hour and a
half before the service. We stood around the open coffin, Mother
and we four boys and our father, who had come home for a few
days just to make things look right, and I remember Mother didn't
cry or make a sound as we stood there. The room was heavy with
the smell of floral pieces, almost sickish with it. I looked at Rachel,
lying so still and beautiful in her white dress with the yellow
flowers in it, and all I could think of was Elaine or Juliet, and I
wanted to say something about them. A quotation sprang into my
mind and I had to hang onto myself hard to keep from saying it:
"Death lies on her like an untimely frost,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field"
-which is exactly the way it was, but for once I had enough sense
to keep my mouth shut. Mter awhile Mother said, "And now you'd
better go to bed, boys. Grandma'll get you something to eat if you
want it." We left the room in silence, acutely uncomfortable
because our father had begun to weep.
The next night, the funeral over, we were having supper in
