When I was five years old, Uncle Alfred’s wife Birdie showed me a photograph of a beautiful baby in a lacy white gown and said, “Ain’t she purty? She used to live in this very room, right here in your own bedroom.”

“Where does she live now?” I asked. 

Birdie said she lived in heaven now, with her poor mama.

“Did someone take her picture here?” I asked, looking around my room where there wasn’t a piece of lace in sight.

“Lord, no, child!” said Birdie, and she told me how they took that dead baby into town and dressed her in a fancy dress and put her in a satin-lined box to take her picture.

My mama said, “That’s enough, Birdie. There’s no need to be putting ideas in her head,” and then she told me to go on outside and play.  My mama always said Birdie wasn’t quite right.

#

Here’s how it all started.  Early that year while the skies were pale blue and the trees were still bare, we all took a drive to see the farm.  After a good long while, we turned onto a dirt road with fields on either side filled with what I was to learn were dry soybeans with itchy stems and scratchy broad leaves.  We came over a little hill, and my mother pointed.

“There it is,” she said, and I stood up on the back seat so I could see.  At the end of the road was an old white house with a red roof and a chimney at either end.  “This is where we’re going to live,” she said.

That’s when I met Uncle Alfred.  He was really my mama’s great-uncle, and he had been born in that little house and had lived in it all his life, and now he was eighty years old.  He told me how, when he was just a boy, he had gone down the road to see a neighbor’s new baby and how, as soon as he saw her, he said, I’m going to marry her someday.  And then sixty years later, he did marry her, and that was his wife, Birdie.  Now he and Birdie couldn’t keep the old place up like they ought, and so they were going to live in a new place in town and we could live at the farm instead of them.  And he showed me the chickens and where there would be strawberries in the springtime.  He showed us the barn and said my pony could live there and winked at my father.  Right then I knew I wanted my own pony!

Later that day, we all went for a walk, except for Birdie who didn’t walk much anymore.  The weather was fine, and I ran ahead down the lane with our dog, Blinker, who looked like he was going to wag his tail right off.  When we got even with a big patch of brambles, Blinker jumped right in, and I could hear him barging around and sniffing.  We called him and called him, but he was just plain too excited to listen, so my father pushed his way into the brambles to bring him out

“Careful where you step in there,” Uncle Alfred called.  “There’s gravestones you can’t see.”  And he said if my father tripped up on a blackberry cane, he could fall and hit his head on one of the stones.  I could see my father’s head and shoulders above the brambles like the prince fighting his way into Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and I held my breath until he came out with Blinker, watching to make sure he didn’t disappear.

When we moved out to the farm, my bedroom was upstairs under the eaves, and from my window I could see the bramble patch with its hidden headstones.  Sometimes the setting sun would catch a little bit of polished granite peeking through the undergrowth, and I would see it shine.  I didn’t like to think about how it waited out there while I slept, and I would creep into my parents’ room after they settled in at night.  One evening, my mother tucked me into my bed and looked out of my window toward where the gravestones sat waiting for the dark.

“I guess we’re going to have to clean out that old cemetery,” she said, “or none of us will ever get any sleep.”

Later that week, Mama set to work on the brambles in the cemetery.  While I chased old Blinker around the field, up and down and through the soybeans, Mama took the bush axe and started in on the tangle.  After a while, she put on some big leather gloves and pulled on what she had cut until it came loose, and then she laid it up in a big pile for burning. By lunchtime, you could see most of the gravestones, but before I could take a look around, we headed back to the house.  My father worked in town, so we had our big meal, our dinner, in the evening – not like most of our neighbors who had their dinner in the middle of the day.  So for my mother and me, it was ham sandwiches.  Mama had a glass of sweet tea, but I had milk instead.  Blinker was drooling all over the kitchen floor, so he got the ham bone.

When we went back down to the cemetery that afternoon, Mama started scratching up all the left-over mess with a rake and pulling the green cockleburs loose to put on the burn pile while I worked on a hole I was digging all the way to China.

“Why, look here!” my mother called, and I gave up digging to see what she was looking at.  I couldn’t tell what was so interesting, but Mama said it was the biggest clump of daffodils she had ever seen. 

“Someone used to tend this cemetery,” she said, “and these must have been blooming away in here under the brambles for years.  Now what’s that stone say?”

There were two little markers with the carved writing almost worn away, but I could see it was round like handwriting instead of straight up like in my books.

“Our Darling Baby,” Mama read. “Oh, that’s just so sad. There’s two of them, and they didn’t even have names.”  She sounded like she was about to cry. 

There were some other stones that looked old and worn, but off to one side, the side toward our house, was a bigger marker that was polished smooth.  I thought maybe it was the one that I could see shining in the evening sunlight from my bedroom window.

“What’s this one say?” I was tracing the deep lines of the letters with one finger.  There were numbers, too.  Mama came up and looked it over, then sort of shook her head a little.

“Just never you mind,” she told me.  “Now where did that dog get to?  Why not see if you can find him.”

That night at dinner, I told my father about the darling babies, and he explained that lots of babies died early in the old days and mothers expected to lose a few.  Mama said that was right, but it was still sad.  Later while the grownups sat talking around the dinner table, I played with my miniature farm over in the corner.  My stomach was full, the lights were low, and my parents’ soft voices added to the feeling that all was just as it should be.  I was beginning to yawn when the conversation turned to the big stone in the cemetery. 

“Did you ever hear tell of someone named Celestia B. Gaye?” Mama asked my father.  Then without waiting for his answer, she said, “Well, she’s buried right here on our farm, within sight of the house, and with her baby, too.  They died just two days apart, some fifty years ago, and she was just twenty years old.  Somebody must know something about her.  Somebody cared enough to put up that big marker.  Do you think she died here? We’ll have to ask Uncle Alfred.”

That’s when they remembered I was right there in the room, and before I could say a thing I was washed up and put to bed where I lay and listened to the familiar sound of grownup conversation coming up from downstairs until I fell asleep. 

#

As soon as we were good and settled into the farm, on a Sunday after church, we brought Uncle Alfred and Birdie out to take Sunday dinner with us.  While Mama got the food on the table, my father took the rest of us in the car to see the old cemetery all cleared of its brambles. Uncle Alfred got out with Papa, and I heard them talking about putting up a little fence around it.  Birdie was in the car with me, and I asked her to tell me more about that pretty baby in the lacy dress, but she set her lips and just looked the other way.  When I looked over at her, I could see her hands working away in her lap, and that’s when I began to wonder just what Mama meant when she said Birdie wasn’t quite right.

Back at the house, while we were finishing up the cherry cobbler, Mama poured out coffee for the grownups.  She was passing around the milk jug when she said, “Uncle Alfred, I don’t remember anybody in the family with the name of Gaye.  Who is it buried under that big granite marker?”

I saw Uncle Alfred look over at Birdie who was busy saucering her coffee before he answered.  Celestia was a cousin, he explained, who grew up on the farm after her parents died of the phthisis.  When she was just sixteen, she married a man by the name of Gaye from over near Spring Hope and went to live with him till she came back home to have her baby.  There was a lot of sickness around that year, and it took Celestia and then the child died, too.  Her husband put up that big marker, then he didn’t come around much after that.

That’s when Birdie surprised us all.  She slammed her hand down on the table, pushed her chair back and rose up, all four foot eleven inches of her, and said, “You stop right there, Alfred Boone.  There’s no need to be bringing up all that talk of sickness and dying babies.  I won’t hear any more of it!”

And she marched right on out of the house and stood by the car, leaving all of us with our mouths wide open.  Nobody moved until Uncle Alfred stood up and cleared his throat.  “I think we ought to be getting on home, if you don’t mind.  It was a fine dinner, but Birdie does better in our new place.  I’ll thank you if we can be leaving now.”  And he followed his wife out into the yard.

That night I lay in my bed, listening to the sounds an old house makes when it’s settling in for the night. I didn’t mind the noises because they reminded me how that farmhouse looked after me just like my parents did, always there holding out the rain and the darkness, waiting for me at the end of the day. But tonight, away behind the normal going to sleep for the night sounds, there was something else.  I remember how I strained my ears until I could just catch a new sound, the sound of crying. It went on and on, like the echo of a hollowed-out heart. Now I wonder if maybe it was the old house itself that cried.

#

Well, nothing much happened for the rest of that summer.  Papa went to work and Mama stayed busy around the farm, while I explored every corner within shouting distance.  On Saturdays we went to town and on Sundays we went to church like most folks, then had our dinner right after.  The way I remember that time was that everything just went along.  The sun was shining, it rained as often as it should, and nobody seemed to have much to worry about.  I guess you can’t expect things to stay that way forever.

September was coming up and bringing both my birthday and my first day of school.  Of the two, I was happier about my birthday when I had hopes of finally getting that pony.  When I thought about going off to school, my feelings were mixed.  Everybody wants to be grown, I guess, but I had the sense that things would never be the same for me once I set foot on that yellow bus.  I think my mother understood my misgivings because she planned a big old birthday party for me that year with all sorts of people invited.  We would set up tables in the orchard, Papa would roast half a pig, and there would be a store-bought cake and ice cream with the presents.

The day of the party, my father drove to town early and along with the groceries, he brought back Uncle Alfred and Birdie, whom I hadn’t seen since that time she walked out on our dinner.  This time, Birdie had a big smile for me and a box with a bow on it in her arms.  I showed her where we were stowing the presents for later, but she went on in the kitchen with her box to talk to my mother.  I saw her say something, and Mama looked over at me, smiling and nodding.  Then Birdie went upstairs with her box and came back down without it.

When everything was about ready and it was time to get dressed for the party, Mama called me over to say, “You go on up to your room with Birdie, now.  She’s got a surprise for you.”

When we got up there, Birdie sat down on my bed next to that big box.  I pulled on the ribbon to untie it, and Birdie helped me to lift off the lid.  Inside was some blue tissue paper that I unfolded, and under that was the laciest white dress I’d ever seen.  I didn’t know what to say, but Birdie lifted it out of the box and held it up to me.  “Won’t you just be the purtiest thing!” she said and smiled, but her cloudy eyes seemed to be looking at something I couldn’t see.

Well, the party was grand, even if I did have to wear that scratchy lace dress and even if I didn’t get my pony.  I did get a bicycle to ride, a big one without training wheels which my father said were an unnecessary adornment and a sop to the induced helplessness that girls were subjected to.   We all ate pulled pork, then the grownups sat in the shade while us kids chased each other all over and back.  That kept up until the sun was mostly down and it began to cool off a bit.  Then Mama called us all back for cake and ice cream, and by the time all the presents were open and shared around, the fireflies were out and a bobwhite was calling out across the pasture.  We had one more game of tag while the grownups drank a last glass of tea, and I slipped between the trees like a ghost with my white dress shining out in the fading light.  One by one, my friends ran back to drop down in the grass by their parents and soon everyone was preparing to leave.  That’s when I went to yawning, and it wasn’t long before my mother said, “Will somebody please take this child back to the house while I pack up some of these dishes?”

And right then, Birdie popped up out of nowhere to say she’d be glad to do it, and off we went, Birdie and me, while Mama stayed down in the orchard.  When we got to the house, we went straight up to my room, and all I wanted was to crawl into bed.  It was hot up there under the eaves with no breeze to speak of, and I turned around so Birdie could unbutton my dress.

But Birdie said, “You just leave that dress alone now and go on and get into your bed.”  And she pulled my covers back over the footboard.

“Lay yourself down here on your back, and fold your hands on your belly like so.  Now close them eyes, and I’ll sing you a song.”

I remember how odd this all sounded, but I guess I was too tired to put up a fuss, and besides, we all knew Birdie was a strange one.  So I lay back in my white dress and closed my eyes in the dim bedroom light while Birdie went to humming, then singing in a low voice.  It was a song I’d never heard my mother sing, a sad song that told about three sick babies who go to heaven then come back to visit their mother at night.  I didn’t much like it, and I wanted her to stop but she just kept on, and I started to cry even though I was a full six years old.  Birdie was still singing to herself when she took my folded hands in one of hers, then picked up a pillow with the other one.  I tried to call out to my mother, but with that pillow pushed against my face, I couldn’t get breath enough to shout.  I was wiggling and my legs were kicking, but all I could see were sparks going off in the darkness behind my eyes.  Birdie’s voice seemed to be getting softer, and my legs were getting tired, and after a while I thought maybe I’d just go to sleep.

That’s when I heard a door slam and feet on the stairs, and then the light came back with a big whoosh and I could see my father holding Birdie’s arms down over by the door away from my bed, and here was my mother pushing the hair out of my eyes and hugging me and crying.

#

The first thing Mama did was take that old white dress off me and put me in my pajamas.  Then she took me down to the kitchen where Uncle Alfred was waiting.  I remember that old kitchen with its white painted table had never looked so good to me.  While she was fixing me a glass of milk, Papa brought Birdie downstairs but Mama shook her head no, and he took her to the front room and sat her on a chair where he could keep an eye on her.  She turned her back to us and sat there still as a stone and never said a word.

I took my time drinking my milk so I could see what would happen next.  My mama sat beside me at the kitchen table, listening to Papa and Uncle Alfred talk and taking little peeks at me from time to time.  I guess she could see I was feeling almost back to normal now, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Thinking back to that night, I can see now that most of what Uncle Alfred had to say went right past me, but what I remember was that he was crying – not big, heavy sobs but quiet, with tears running down in the grooves of his face until I could see a drop or two slip off his jaw and soak into his shirt collar.  I’d never seen a grown man cry before that night.

Now I know that he was apologizing for Birdie and telling the story of the day that Celestia B. Gaye was buried out in our cemetery.  I’ve heard my mother tell that tale more than once since then, and here’s the gist of it. 

The family had all gathered at the old farm house to say their final farewells to Celestia, and nobody wanted to stay back at the house and miss going out to the grave for the last prayers.  Alfred had the idea of going down the road and asking if young Birdie could watch the baby for a while, and that’s what happened.   When the family got back to the house, Birdie was sitting by the cradle and singing to herself, and the baby was dead.  Everybody thought it must have been the same sickness that had taken its mother just a few days before.

But while he was walking her back home, Birdie told Alfred the truth.  That baby had started to cry, and she had tried rocking it and changing it and giving it a sugar-tit to suck on, but nothing worked.  The crying just got louder and louder, until Birdie felt like her head was about to bust. Finally, she took the baby’s blanket and held it over its mouth until the crying stopped, and then she sat down in the rocking chair and waited for the family.  She didn’t know anything was wrong until the grown folks went to shouting.

Well, Alfred never told anybody what Birdie had said, and a few years later her family moved away.  Years later, when Birdie moved back into the neighborhood, she’d been married and widowed and had two sons, but she never talked about them and they never came to visit.  That’s when she and Uncle Alfred got married.  He never mentioned Celestia B. Gaye to her again. Mama always said she guessed Uncle Alfred thought some things were best left in the past.

To my mind, it’s not so simple.  I’ve never understood what it means when they say somebody ain’t quite right, but I know now that every person’s life is full of brambles and it’s easy to get caught up in them and never be able to pull yourself out.  I guess that’s what happened to Birdie, and I guess she was lucky that she had Uncle Alfred to look after her.

I never saw Birdie again.  From time to time, I’d hear some news about Uncle Alfred, but we didn’t bring him out to the farm after that.  I never could sleep in my old bedroom again without hearing that sound like crying when I closed my eyes.  When I was about to start high school, my father took a job up north, and we moved to a new-built house in a new neighborhood up there.  Sometimes I still had trouble sleeping.  I guess I took that crying up there with me, and it was many years before I was strong enough to get it to stop.