“Well, not just because it’s poor farmin’. I don’ know--the woods
maybe, those rotten trees so close. It’s no way to live; you see ’em
all day and hear ’em all night. When I was a kid I used to be scared
our house would slide into the lake. Was you ever down there? It just
shows you what it’s always been like. If you fell in, you’d have some
chance--but if you was always in....”
Her voice weakened to a loud whisper. “You need some excitement.
I never went nowhere, never saw nothin’--had to work. I guess you
wouldn’t have the nerve to get out of a dead hole like that if you knew
you got to come back. That’s why I never went to dances. I guess you’d
jump into the lake for good--when you got home I mean.”
I felt uncomfortable. “Why don’t you sell the whole outfit and rent a
house near town. Nick could make as much by the day as he does here.”
She did not seem to listen. “And it’s so awful still,” she muttered.
“My God. It’s so still you can hear the slime dripping in the well.”
I renewed my encouragement. “Sell it and go to town. Nick could make
two or three dollars a day. Don’t try to stick it out another year.
Give yourself a chance. Have an auction,” I said.
“Oh Lord,” she cried. “Sell all that junk? It wouldn’t bring thirty
cents. Spread all that rubbish round the yard for a lot of old women to
pick over? I should say not.”
“Well, do something then,” I said impatiently. We were in sight of the
house.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Amelia moaned. “I couldn’t go off and leave that
house--everything the way it’s always been. It’d be like leaving one of
them, Ma or Pa, like not burying them,” she said.