“You live a long way, dont you. You’re mighty smart to go this far to town by yourself.” It’s like dancing sitting down did you ever dance sitting down? We could hear the rain, a rat in the crib, the empty barn vacant with horses. How do you hold to dance do you hold like this
Oh
I used to hold like this you thought I wasnt strong enough didn’t you
Oh Oh Oh Oh
I hold to use like this I mean did you hear what I said I said
oh oh oh oh
The road went on, still and empty, the sun slanting more and more. Her stiff little pigtails were bound at the tips with bits of crimson cloth. A corner of the wrapping flapped a little as she walked, the nose of the loaf naked. I stopped.
“Look here. Do you live down this road? We havent passed a house in a mile, almost.”
She looked at me, black and secret and friendly.
“Where do you live, sister? Dont you live back there in town?”
There was a bird somewhere in the woods, beyond the broken and infrequent slanting of sunlight.
“Your papa’s going to be worried about you. Dont you reckon you’ll get a whipping for not coming straight home with that bread?”
The bird whistled again, invisible, a sound meaningless and profound, inflectionless, ceasing as though cut off with the blow of a knife, and again, and that sense of water swift and peaceful above secret places, felt, not seen not heard.