Free Losing Battles by Eudora Welty

porch. From the shadow of an iron pot nearby, rising continuously like sparks from a hearth, a pair of thrushes were courting again.
    The sugar sack Gloria pinned about her baby’s haunches blushed in the light and sparkled over with its tiny crystals that were never going to wash out of it. Around their shoulders the airshook with birdsong, never so loud since spring. On all the farm, the only thing bright as the new tin of the roof was the color of Gloria’s hair as she bent her head over her baby. It was wedding-ring gold.
    “Act like you know what you’re here for, Lady May,” she told the smooth, uplifted face.
    The child looked back at her mother with her father’s eyes—open nearly to squares, almost shadowless, the blue so clear that bright points like cloverheads could be seen in them deep down. Her hair was red as a cat’s ear against the sun. It stood straight up on her head, straight as a patch of oats, high as a little tiara.
    “Just you remember who to copy,” Gloria told her child.
    She came leading Lady May to the house and through their ranks and inside the company room and out again, and this time the little girl was tiptoeing in a petticoat.
    “Have a seat with us,” said Aunt Nanny. “That’s better.”
    Gloria sat down on a keg and Lady May climbed onto her lap. She turned her little palms up in a V. Her eyebrows lifted in pink crescents upturned like the dogwood’s first leaves in spring. Her unswerving eyes looked straight into her mother’s.
    “Learn to wait,” said Gloria, pulling both baby hands down.
    So the baby sat still, her lashes stiff as bird-tails; she might have been listening for her name.
    “Honey, where did Banner School ever get you from?” asked Aunt Beck, leaning forward. “Has this reunion ever asked you and ever got a full reply?”
    “Miss Julia Mortimer was training me to step into her shoes,” said Gloria.
    “Whose shoes?” asked Aunt Cleo, and everybody groaned.
    “The oldest teacher that’s living. She was giving me my start,” said Gloria.
    “You meant to teach more than the single year?” exclaimed Aunt Birdie. “Never dreamed!”
    “When I came, I could see my life unwinding ahead of me smooth as a ribbon,” said Gloria.
    “Uh-oh!” said Aunt Cleo.
    “All I had left to do was teach myself through enough more summer normals to add up to three years, and I could step right into Miss Julia’s shoes. And hold down Banner School forever-more.”
    “But then she just happened to run into Jack,” said Aunt Nanny, with a strong pinch for Gloria’s arm.

    “So I wonder what was everybody’s first words to Jack when he says he wants to marry his teacher?” asked Aunt Cleo.
    Miss Beulah called, “I told him, ‘Jack, there’s just one thing you need for that that you’re lacking. And that’s the ring. Remember the gold ring Granny was keeping in the Bible? She might have spared it to a favorite like you, at a time like this, and where did it go?’ ”
    “I reckon his mother had him there,” said Aunt Birdie.
    “No she didn’t. Jack said, ‘Mama, I’m going to afford my bride her own ring, like she wants, and all I need is a little time.’ Time! He thought he had all the time he was going to need. You had to feel sorry for the child. Sorry for both of ’em.”
    “Well, I see you got you one anyway,” Aunt Cleo said to Gloria. “What’d you have to do? Steal it?” She laughed, showing her tongue.
    “Mind out, Sister Cleo, Gloria don’t like to tell her business,” Miss Beulah called, while Gloria laid her cheek to the baby’s. Lady May’s fast hands pulled the mother’s hairpins out, and the curls rolled forward over them both.
    “Gloria taught Banner School a whole year long for that little ring, that’s what I think,” said Aunt Birdie, giggling.
    “A teacher always gets a warrant she can trade with,” said Miss Lexie. “It means the same as a salary. And it just depends on the teacher—what she decides to use it