© Copyright 2018,
Gary M. Roberts. All Rights Reserved
Gary M. Roberts. All Rights Reserved
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Chapter One
“Dumb ol’ Ginny got no brains, never had any… Dumb ol’ Ginny got no brains, never had any…”
I could hear my cousins chant, and I knew they meant for me to hear. It was just a whisper of a song comin’ from a darkened room down the hall. The chant started as soon as I’d slipped out of the room we were sharing. They were s’posed to be sleepin’...but then again, so was I. Aunt Nettie had put us all on a pallet in Gram’s sewing room, all the younger ones. She and Gerald were takin’ my bed for the night.
We’d been told to be quiet and go to sleep with the sternest warning. I did try to do as she said, but with my cousins whisperin’ and gigglin’ and pokin’ fun of me, I just couldn’t. They’d been at it all my twelve or so of my years, pickin’ and tryin’ to taunt me wi’d their little song. One would think that on such a day as this, they wouldn’t carry on so, but they did. I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I got myself up. After all, the talk takin’ place was about me, and I figured I needed to hear it.
It was a most serious and dreadful day. Even as bein’ so dumb as I was, I knew that hereafter, my life would be changed forever. I s’pose I’d see many such days ahead of me now. But this one was ‘specially hurtful.
Blocking out their chant, I listened carefully to the talk going on in the eating room, and I heard my pap say, “I just can’t abandon her now.” From the hiding place in the hall, I watched him wipe a tear from his eye. “I promised her gram I would care for her, and by jimmies, I have to keep that promise.”
The memory of Pap sitting at the table with the family all around, everybody looking so sad-faced, was to be ever stuck in my head.
“Dumb ol’ Ginny got no brains, never had any… Dumb ol’ Ginny got no brains, never had any…”
I could hear my cousins chant, and I knew they meant for me to hear. It was just a whisper of a song comin’ from a darkened room down the hall. The chant started as soon as I’d slipped out of the room we were sharing. They were s’posed to be sleepin’...but then again, so was I. Aunt Nettie had put us all on a pallet in Gram’s sewing room, all the younger ones. She and Gerald were takin’ my bed for the night.
We’d been told to be quiet and go to sleep with the sternest warning. I did try to do as she said, but with my cousins whisperin’ and gigglin’ and pokin’ fun of me, I just couldn’t. They’d been at it all my twelve or so of my years, pickin’ and tryin’ to taunt me wi’d their little song. One would think that on such a day as this, they wouldn’t carry on so, but they did. I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I got myself up. After all, the talk takin’ place was about me, and I figured I needed to hear it.
It was a most serious and dreadful day. Even as bein’ so dumb as I was, I knew that hereafter, my life would be changed forever. I s’pose I’d see many such days ahead of me now. But this one was ‘specially hurtful.
Blocking out their chant, I listened carefully to the talk going on in the eating room, and I heard my pap say, “I just can’t abandon her now.” From the hiding place in the hall, I watched him wipe a tear from his eye. “I promised her gram I would care for her, and by jimmies, I have to keep that promise.”
The memory of Pap sitting at the table with the family all around, everybody looking so sad-faced, was to be ever stuck in my head.
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