PARTISAN REVIEW
all of us, that is, but Rachel. She walked right into the dining room
and got the Bible from the lower shelf of the sideboard and brought
it to Mother. Mother asked Rachel if she knew the seriousness of
what she was doing and Rachel said yes. Mother took the Bible
and set it in her lap. Then she said, "Put your hand on this and
swear that you're telling me the truth." I almost didn't dare look,
but I had to. Rachel put her hand right on the Bible, looked
straight at Mother, and said, "I swear." There was a terrible
silence. I think Mother was scared too. She looked it. Or maybe
not scared, but something like it-worried, maybe. "You swear
what," she said. "I swear I'm telling the truth," said Rachel.
Mother looked back at Rachel for a minute and then she sighed,
probably glad that it was over. We were. Then she said, "All
right, you can put it back now." Rachel took the Bible from
Mother's lap and walked back to the dining room with it, looking
just as she had before. There had been no lightning or thunder or
anything, and she hadn't changed a bit.
These are the things I was thinking of as I lay in bed that
night after the funeral. But only for a little while, because then I
remembered that tomorrow I was going back to school and I was
glad. I looked forward to that, seeing all the kids and having them
see me. I was a hero, kind of, and they would all pay a lot of
1
attention to me. I mean there had been a death in the family and
everybody knew it, and all the school kids, and the teachers too,
would want to look at me and watch me and see how I acted. Only
the day before, when I was returning some dishes to Mrs. Kirtle's
house, I met one of the kids who lived up the street and he stopped
and wanted to talk with me. He stood there on the sidewalk looking
at me in a funny way, and then he said: "I saw something on your
front door when I came home from school yesterday." There was
a kind of gleam in his eye, and he was almost grinning. " It's still
there," he said. I didn't say anything and he kept on staring,
peering at me closely as if 'he expected me to do something. I
turned and walked on. "I guess it won't be there tomorrow," he
called after me, as I went into Mrs. Kirtle's house.
We kind of pretended the next day that we didn't want to go
back to school. Mother said it was customary for children to stay
home a week when there had been a death in the family, and we
could have, too, and it would have been all right with our teachers,
