Each Little Bird That Sings: Chapters 3–7

When Mr. Johnson and Daddy were done, I gave Mr. Johnson my Life Notice for Aunt Florentine, and I also gave him a letter for Declaration. Declaration’s note back to me was prickly, bordering on peevish.

The cemetery was up a slope to my left, and Purgatory Hill plunged down to the oak grove on my right.

I caught up with him at the base of Listening Rock, where he slurped his sloppy tongue all over my face in a frenzied Hurry up!, his breath smelling like lima beans. I buried my face in his shaggy neck and hugged him. “Good dog!” I whispered.

A thick stand of rose of Sharon bushes guarded the path with strong woody branches full of wide pink blooms. Hummingbirds and butterflies nosed around the sweet scent. I gave an appreciative sniff as I walked past the sentries and entered the world of Listening Rock.

I had to watch my footing, but mostly the walk to the top was an easy one, even in my black flip-flops, and I often imagined myself as Meriwether Lewis on the Lewis and Clark expedition (Discovering Our World Magazine, issue 14), hiking up an enormous boulder worn smooth by what Uncle Edisto said was thousands of years of water flowing over and around Listening Rock in the ice ages.

“Granite and slate,” he said each time we visited, “maybe a little soapstone, sprinkled with limestone and quartz. Minerals galore! It’s a smorgasbord of metamorphic marvels!”

“Granite and slate,” he said each time we visited, “maybe a little soapstone, sprinkled with limestone and quartz. Minerals galore! It’s a smorgasbord of metamorphic marvels!”

Dismay stood, majestic, washed in sunlight, near the edge of the rock, on the tip-top of the slope, like he always did when he first got there.
Regally he blinked at his dogdom, sniffing at the high air.

Rural Route 2 was dotted with pickup trucks meandering toward the towns of Snapfinger and Halleluia, Bay Springs and Puckett.

Dismay had exhausted himself chasing rabbits and chewing up sticks. Soon he was snoring in a shady spot under a fat juniper bush that spread out from a rock crevasse.

She didn’t smile back. Uncle Edisto always said, “The heart hears more than the ear.” My heart listened as it thumped in my chest. My smile wavered. “Declaration?”

“Your note was awful persnickety.”
“Was it?” Declaration fanned herself with her hat and spoke in a lofty tone. “I was in a rush when I wrote it—sorry.”

“Your note was awful persnickety.”
“Was it?” Declaration fanned herself with her hat and spoke in a lofty tone. “I was in a rush when I wrote it—sorry.”

“Stop!” Declaration took a big gulp of her RC and put her hat back on her head. Then, as if she had fortified herself and come to a decision, she said, “I didn’t wait.”

The back of my throat stung with tears. “You haven’t been to my house all summer..."
“I was in Mobile!”
“And then I had to pester you at school to meet me at Listening Rock—and then you didn’t even bother to come when you said you would!”
“I’m here now!”

Declaration looked me in the eye. She gave a small shudder. “Grandmother Lucy says, ‘A lady always honors her societal obligations, no matter how it ruins her more pleasant plans.’ Daddy wants me to go, but he told me it’s my choice.”

They knew that he had slept all night next to their loved one’s casket, on the night before the funeral. It was Dismay’s way of seeing them off to the next world. He kept a vigil.

Some people are queasy about looking at the deceased.

Go to the bathroom before you get in your car to go to the cemetery, in case Preacher Powell gets long-winded at the cemetery.

Also, just a gustatory note (as Florentine Snowberger would say)—you can never have too many brownies.

Great-great-aunt Florentine had stuffed lavender sprigs in her pockets and in her pillows, in her drawers, in her hair—she had been a walking lavender bush.

Before I could think of what to say, Mama picked up florist wire, kitchen shears, and a bucket of pink tea roses and scooted past me. “Can you help me tote these buckets of flowers next door? I’ll arrange them in the downstairs kitchen. Lurleen can’t get here to help me for another hour, and I’ve got more orders than I can shake a stick at.”

“I live to serve,” I said valiantly.
Mama looked right into my eyes and smiled a genuine smile that showed all the sadness around her mouth and behind her eyes. It made me love her a lot.

I put on my best tinny, puny, scrawny Peach voice—"‘Comfort! My drink’s too cold!’ ‘Comfort! I need my softer pajamas!’ ‘Comfort! This story is too scary!’”—and then I went back to my own voice.

I put on my best tinny, puny, scrawny Peach voice—"‘Comfort! My drink’s too cold!’ ‘Comfort! I need my softer pajamas!’ ‘Comfort! This story is too scary!’”—and then I went back to my own voice.

“You’re a different kind of sensitive, Comfort. You sit in your closet—you’re sensitive inside. Peach cries—he’s sensitive outside. That’s all. We each do something to cope with our feelings when life feels overwhelming—Tidings mows grass.”

“You might give him another chance,” Mama said. “The only way he will learn some decorum is by practicing.”

We pulled the wagon into the cavernous downstairs kitchen, where the air-conditioning made the room so cold, I could imagine what Admiral Byrd felt like as he reached the South Pole (Discovering Our World Magazine, issue 17)—only he didn’t have a long table full of funeral food standing ready for guests.

Then I remembered. “Declaration says she’ll come tomorrow, too.”
Mama lifted her head and gave me a quizzical look.
“Really?”
“Really. She told me so at Listening Rock just now…”

Mama took two fingers and tucked wayward strands of my hair under the brim of my baseball cap.