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By Root 1495 0

Ingledew but didn’t know how to spell. Selena Dinsmore had first noticed the closeness of Jelena and Doris when they were infants: she had only one crib, and the two girls began very early the practice they would continue for the rest of their lives: sleeping in the same bed. Their mother nursed them together one to a breast, a not very difficult balancing act to those who saw her doing it. As soon as they were old enough to sit up and eat at the table with the other children, they always made certain that their chairs were side-by-side and their identical chipped bowls contained the same amount of gruel. From the first through the eighth and last grades, the two sisters shared the same desk, and the teacher of those years, Estalee Jerram, could scarcely ever tell them apart and was always calling upon one of them by the other’s name. The difficulty was compounded because Jelena and Doris insisted that their mother sew their clothes from identical patterns of flour-sack gingham and calico. If one of them was punished in school for some infraction of the rules, the other would insist that Miss Jerram mete the same punishment to her. If one of them was hurt and cried, the other’s tears were no less profound. They had few friends and seemed to need none.

The men who loafed on the store porch and made joking allusions to “the Siamese twins” began to speculate jokingly about what was going to happen now that the sisters were growing up and filling out. There were not, to anyone’s knowledge, two brothers anywhere hereabouts who were sufficiently twinned themselves to make a proper match for Jelena and Doris. But that was not what Jelena and Doris had in mind anyway, it seemed. What they had in mind became apparent at the first play-party they attended, Etta Whitter’s birthday celebration, where the games played were “Marching ’round the Levee,” “Build the Bridge,” “Post Office,” and “Snap.” All of these were kissing games, and whichever boy kissed Jelena had to kiss Doris too. Some of these games involved being “it,” and whenever Jelena was “it,” Doris would also be “it” at the same time, which some of the others felt was unfair in the running and catching games, because it made the sisters doubly quicker to catch when they were “it.” Usually, when they were caught by the boy who was “it,” they would both kiss him at the same time, Jelena on the right cheek, Doris on the left. The men on the store porch, hearing about the party afterward, made jokes about what was going to happen when Jelena and Doris were old enough to start going to square dances. As a matter of fact, the sisters did nearly wreck the first square dance they attended. Tobe Chism, the caller, had to stop the music and take the girls aside and try to explain to them that it is simply impossible for two girls to square dance with the same partner at the same time. When he was unable to persuade them to take turns, one doing one dance and one the next, he at least worked it out so that they wouldn’t both be moving with the partner at the same time, although this didn’t work too well either because Jelena or Doris or both would be inclined to forget to stand still and let the other do the moving. Folks were laughing at them so, they finally walked home together and didn’t go to any more of those romps.

They decided to get religion, because religion held that any kind of dancing was sinful, and even frowned upon the play-parties, because kissing was involved. On the next rare Sunday when a passing evangelist came to Stay More to give a meeting and baptism, the sisters offered themselves up for salvation, but when the congregation gathered at the creek for the baptizing, the revivalist discovered that the sisters wished to be baptized simultaneously. He argued that they ought to be baptized in the order of their birth, Jelena going first, but they refused. He protested that he didn’t think he was stout enough to submerse them both at the same time.

“You got two hands, ain’t ye?” Jelena observed.

“Yeah,” said the minister, “but generally I clamp one of ’em on yore