Free The Day of Small Things by Vicki Lane

Goingsnake knowed he would have to stop and feed her something and change out the moss in the rags he had wrapped around her little bottom—what we call hip-pens.”
    “How old was Baby Rebekah, Granny?” I know the answer, but this is part of the way we do the story.
    “She was not yet a year of age—and still a tittie baby, getting all her nourishments from her mama. Now that her mama was gone, what would John Goingsnake do?”
    I bust out with what comes next, wanting to hurry on to the good part. “John Goingsnake, he stops near a branch and gets him some water, and after he cleans the baby’s bottom, he pounds up some of that dry biscuit and mixes it with the water in a drinking gourd he’s carrying. And all the time, that baby’s fussing and squalling and he’s telling her hush. And he dips a finger in the biscuit mush and puts his finger in Baby Rebekah’s mouth for her to suck on. And at first she don’t like it and spits it out but then she begins to swaller some. And then …”
    I wait, for Granny tells this part the best. She laughs a little and goes on with the story.
    “And then, when the baby’s swallered all she will and John Goingsnake is putting her on his back, he hears a crunching and a crackling and knows that something is climbing up the way he come. His heart begins to thump for he fears the soldiers have followed him. High above the laurel, he can see that the sky is getting lighter.
    “Without waiting to see who it is coming towards him, John Goingsnake, with Baby Rebekah on his back, makes a run for the laurel and dives in.
    “The laurel bushes are old and their trunks are so twisty and close-growed that in some places John Goingsnake has to get down on his belly and slip along like a real snake to get through. Behind him he can hear voices. It sounds like two men and when he looks back he sees the glitter of brass buttons in the pale morning light that is sifting down through the dark leaves.”
    Granny’s fingers wiggle as she shows how the sun came down through the laurel leaves on that long-ago day.She sets back in her chair, the rug machine in her lap, and stares into the past. Her voice drops down low and scary for what is to come.
    “Now John Goingsnake is certain sure that it is the soldiers coming after him, and though he is in black despair, he keeps scrambling and sliding, deeper and deeper into the thickest part of that laurel hell. He moves along like only an Injun can do, making hardly a sound. But just then Baby Rebekah decides they are playing a funny game, and no matter how he tries to hush her, she keeps on laughing and babbling. And still John Goingsnake hears the voices following him … closer and closer and closer … till it seems they’re at his back.”
    I shiver hard. The light is going fast and I can barely make out Granny’s face. She is a voice coming out of the dark.
    “And then, along with the baby’s laughing and the growling voices coming up on him fast, John Goingsnake hears another sound. At first he thinks it is his heart, beating hard and fast in his breast, but then he realizes that the sound is coming from somewhere a little ways deeper in the laurel. And it is the sound of drums.”

Chapter 12
The Story of John Goingsnake (the end)
Dark Holler, 1931
    (Least)
    P lease, Granny, tell the rest of the story. John Goingsnake heard drums way back in the laurels and then what happened?”
    My last poppy is all filled in and I pick up some of the black strings and skooch over closer to Granny Beck and start to working on the background right next to her. I can’t hardly see but it feels good to set so near and feel the warmth of my granny’s body through her skirt and breathe in her oak leaf smell.
    “Well, honey,” she says like she always does, “now, you may not believe this next part. But this is how John Goingsnake told it.
    “The drums was louder and louder and he followed the sound, sometimes crawling, sometimes walking crouched