The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty [124]
But the moment came when without meaning to she lifted her hand softly, and made a sign to Cornelia. She almost said her name.
And Cornelia—what was it she had called back across the street, the flash of what word, so furious and yet so frail and thin? It was more furious than even the stamping of her foot, only a single word.
Josie took her hand down. In a seeking humility she stood there and bore her shame to attend Cornelia. Cornelia herself would stand still, haughtily still, waiting as if in pride, until a voice old and cracked would call her too, from the upper window, "Cornelia, Cornelia!" And she would have to turn around and go inside to the old woman, her hair ribbon and her sash in pale bows that sank down in the back.
Then for Josie the sun on her bangs stung, and the pity for ribbons drove her to a wild capering that would end in a tumble.
Will woke up with a yell like a wild Indian.
"Here, let me hold him," said his mother. Her voice had become soft; time had passed. She took Will on her lap.
Josie opened her eyes. The lightning was flowing like the sea, and the cries were like waves at the door. Her parents' faces were made up of hundreds of very still moments.
"Tomahawks!" screamed Will.
"Mother, don't let him—" Josie said uneasily.
"Never mind. You talk in your sleep too," said her mother
She experienced a kind of shock, a small shock of detachment, like the time in the picture-show when a little blurred moment of the summer's May Festival had been thrown on the screen and :here was herself, ribbon in hand, weaving once in and once out, a burning and abandoned look in the flicker of her face as though no one in the world would ever see her.
Her mother's hand stretched to her, but Josie broke awaj. She lay with her face hidden in the pillow.... The summer day became vast and opalescent with twilight. The calming and languid smell of manure came slowly to meet her as she passed through the back gate and went out to the pasture among the mounds of wild roses. "Daisy," she had only to say once, in her quietest voice, for she felt very near to the cow. There she walked, not even eating—Daisy, the small tender Jersey with her soft violet nose, walking and presenting her warm side. Josie bent to lean her forehead against her. Here the tears from her eyes could go rolling down Daisy's shining coarse hairs, and Daisy did not move or speak but held patient, richly compassionate and still....
"You're not frightened any more, are you, Josie?" asked her father.
"No, sir," she said, with her face buried.... She thought of the evening, the sunset, the stately game played by the flowering hedge when the vacant field was theirs. "Here comes the duke a-riding, riding, riding ... What are you riding here for, here for?" while the hard iron sound of the Catholic Church bell tolled at twilight for unknown people. "The fairest one that I can see ... London Bridge is falling down ... Lady Moon, Lady Moon, show your shoe ... I measure my love to show you..." Under the fiery windows, how small the children were. "Fox in the morning!—Geese in the evening!—How many have you got?—More than you can ever catch!" The children were rose-colored too. Fading, rolling shouts cast long flying shadows behind them, and to watch them she stood still. Above everything in the misty blue dome of the sky was the full white moon. So it is, for a true thing, round, she thought, and where she waited a hand seemed to reach around and take her under