﻿Christmas Mourning by Janice Daugharty Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Janice Daugharty Good daylight and Hoss Rose had
been driving the wagon, moving slow toward the old tram road
through the woods to Fargo under a sheet of iron clouds
threatening sleet. Little Merry Gay was bundled up in a sweet
red wool coat that her mama had cut down and sewn from a coat
that some woman had given her to wear herself, and on Merry
Gay’s lap a quilt with scraps from one of her old indigo
dresses. She imagined she could smell pee on the quilt because
one of the Negro women had told Bernice that the way to set the
dye in cloth was to dip it in ammonia and if she didn’t have any
ammonia a chamber pot of pee would do the trick. She dropped the
quilt to the floor and kneeled on the bench, waving back at
Bernice and Tommy watching from the yard across the tracks.
Bernice looked worried. The Great Hoss Rose looked worried. But
Merry Gay wasn’t because she knew the pine box in back would
hold up fine, her daddy had been two days