Gratitude poured over Dorothy. "And I'm so pleased to be here!" she piped, hopping up. There was laughter.
"Pretty country, isn't it, Dorothy?"
"Oh yes, Ma'am. We saw lots of flowers."
More laughter. Dorothy had said something else that was right.
"I tell you, ladies, there are times I have to ask myself if this is a human child or a little angel who's dropped to earth. I can't stop her from doing her chores. She just works and works, sweeping, washing the dishes, taking care of the hens. I've never seen a child like her for helping out." Aunty Em's hand was firmly on Dorothy's shoulder.
"She must be just such a comfort." The fat woman looked back up. "After all that terrible business."
"Well, we are sent trials in order to test us, Harriet, and there's no bed of thorns that doesn't also bear a rose." Aunty Em patted Dorothy again.
They began to talk of adult things. Aunty Em pretended that the farm was going well. "We're thinking of bringing in some hogs."
"Oh yes, that's good if you can stop them from rooting out the crops."
"Well, Henry's planted a hedge, keep them in."
Before the winter there had been a murder. A colored man called George Hunter had killed someone in anger. Everyone said the dead white man had been trouble. But still, it was the first violence around those parts since Monroe Scranton had been lynched for stealing Ed Pillsbury's horses, and that had been back in the sixties. They talked of Negroes crossing the border and wanted to know Aunty Em's opinion.
"The South created the problem and wants us to solve it. And it's our Christian duty to welcome them."
"Hard enough for anybody making any kind of business work," said one of the women.
"There's some of them that are as honest and hardworking as you could wish. Edom Thomas for one."
"Oh, certainly. Some of them Exodusters have settled in right smartly."
They went from group to group, and people exclaimed, "Emma! Emma Branscomb!" More greetings, more hugs and kissings and kindly questions. Aunty Em's face became fixed; her smile and bright eyes glazed with happiness. The eyes were famished. Feed me, they seemed to say, I have hungered for this. Dorothy clung on to her hand, feeling forgotten.
"I tell you, I await the Spirit," said Aunty Em. "I tell you, after last winter, I need the Spirit."
"Amen, amen" came the replies, in clusters like flowers.
"There's this world, and there's the next, and sometimes the next just reaches out for you, and you yearn for it, yearn for its refreshment."
"Hallelujah."
Hally hoo hah, Dorothy thought they said.
Em looked hungrier. "Is it this new boy?" she asked.
"Reverend Salkirk? Oh, yes."
"How is he?"
"They say he called powerful good up in Junction City last week. First of the season."
"He was good by the end, but a bit roundabout," said another woman, rail thin like Aunty Em. They might have been sisters. "He doesn't know how to go for it direct."
"Nobody called like your father, Emma," said the man who was with her. He was much older, with a long white beard. "God rest his soul."
"For me nobody could and nobody ever will," said Aunty Em. "But let's see what Reverend Salkirk can do."
"I'm ready for the call," said the fat pink lady. "I feel just like a calf let out in the spring field for the first time."
The people were farmers like them, and they dressed like them, not like the folk of Manhattan. Their children ran about in groups, slightly older than Dorothy. Dorothy watched them, shyly, slightly hiding behind Aunty Em. She knew the children wouldn't say they were happy to have her in Kansas. She felt safer with the adults.
Then, as if rising out of the mist and the flowers, a figure in black came limping and twisting its way toward them. For just a moment, Dorothy thought it was a ghost, as if her bad mama were coming out of the South.
The face was familiar, as if in a dream, and that held a certain terror for Dorothy too. And then dimly, as if someone had called the woman's name from across a far field, Dorothy remembered who it was.
It was Etta Parkerson. She was wearing another black and beautifully made dress, all scallops and ruches, and she walked with a tall, sad-eyed man, old enough to be her father.
"Etta! Etta Parkerson!" said Aunty Em, her smile somewhat sour, caught as she was between two social worlds.
"Etta Reynolds, now, Emma."
"Oh! Of course!" said Aunty Em, hand on forehead as it shook from side to side. "Everyone. This is Etta Reynolds. She is niece to the Goodnow family, and only this February was married to Mr. Reynolds."
Hands were shaken politely. Mr. Reynolds's hands seemed to be made of stone and looked large enough to have torn his wife in half.
"I'm glad you could join us, Mrs. Reynolds," the old settlers said, meaning, cordially, what are you doing here?
"My husband is a follower," replied Etta. "How are you, Dorothy?"
Dorothy murmured that she was fine. She had first met Etta in another lifetime. She dimly remembered that Etta had been kind to her; she also seemed to remember that Etta had said something that even now disturbed her, though she could not remember what it was. This time, Dorothy did not warm to Etta.
Aunty Em launched into another performance of Dorothy as domestic angel, how she cleaned and tidied and helped around the house. Etta listened for a while.
"Emma," she said. "Do you think you could look after my husband for a while? I'd like to show Dorothy some of the field flowers."
"Why, that would be a great kindness, Etta. Alvin, do you feel safe with us?" Alvin Reynolds grinned and rocked in place and plainly did not feel safe at all. Etta held out her hand toward Dorothy. There was nothing for Dorothy to do but take it. They walked together down the slope of the field, toward the river. Etta's boots swept the top of the grass, sideways, as if kicking it. What does she want? Dorothy wondered.
There were flowers, like ground-hugging buttercups, the size of Dorothy's hand. There were vivid little stars of blue on the tops of long stems, and plain white flowers clustered together. There were echoing cries of children, running to the river, and the shade of the giant trees, showing the silver underside of their leaves in the wind.
"Drudge, drudge, drudge, eh, Dorothy?" asked Etta.