Free Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker Page A

dress up in their best clothes when they do something special—to keep them from being afraid anything will spoil it. I had another bath that morning and I felt as light as tumbleweed, but a lot cleaner.
    We had breakfast at the cafeteria down the street. Dad had a paper to read while he ate and he gave Mom the woman’s part and me the funnies.
    “It’s been nearly twelve years, Anna, since I’ve had a morning paper to read at breakfast. By heaven, this is living like a white man!”
    And suddenly, I was proud that Dad knew how to live, that he was used to places like hotels. Mom loved it, too. Her eyes were bright and dark. I leaned toward her a little and there was the delicious smell of “Russian leather” again, nicer than fresh hay or sweet clover or buffalo willows in the spring and as penetrating as the smell of sage. I looked at the three of us in the mirror. We might have been travelers just passing through town for the day.
    “I don’t like letting the cows and pigs and chickens an’ all wait for their food,” Mom said, but Dad didn’t hear her.
    “Well”—he folded the paper on the table—”it’s close to ten. Where do you want to go?”
    Mom looked surprised. “To church, Ben.”
    I remember driving along the streets, quiet on that Easter Sunday morning. Bells on one church began ringing. I had never heard church bells before.
    “Let’s go where the bells are, Dad,” I begged.
    We could pick out the churches easily from the steeples that reached up above the roofs of the bungalows. I leaned way out of the car to try to see the bells swinging in the tower, the way they do on Christmas cards. I noticed how the sun glinted hard on the cross that topped the spire, like the sun on the lightning rod on the Hendersons’ barn.
    “Sit back, Ellen,” Dad said. He stopped the car and Mom got out.
    “I think I’ll take Ellen over to the Congregational Church, Anna.”
    Mom leaned against the car door. All her face waited. I knew with dreadful certainty that the thing had come, the thing I had feared when I woke up this morning, the thing that would spoil our day. I couldn’t say anything. I looked at the people going into church, whole families together. Some of them wore flowers. The bell was still ringing. The double door opened and I caught a glimpse of brightness, of candles far down in front, and the stained-glass windows.
    Dad was making the engine sound louder with his foot. “We’ll come back for you at twelve or as soon as our service is over, Anna. Wait right out in front.”
    I wanted with all my heart to go with Mom. It was no good this way. I held my hands tight together. Why didn’t Mom say something? Her face was firm like it is when she goes to kill a turkey.
    “Now I don’t want any church,” she said.
    “Oh, Mom, come with us,” I said as she opened the door of the car. Mom shook her head. Her lips came out farther than usual. “I go to his church once. Everyone is too busy look at me to say prayers.” The hard cold feeling was there. Nothing could help now. It was no use.
    Dad pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator. The engine roared so loud people on their way to church looked at us. Dad drove back down from the quiet shady streets where people lived, out the road toward home. I watched the road straight ahead without looking at Mom or Dad. They didn’t speak. After a while I looked down at Dad’s shoes with the city shine on them, at Mom’s silk stockings so thin and smooth they showed a blue vein through.
    We were more than fifteen miles toward home when Dad said, not to Mom or me, just aloud, “I guess we’ve lost our religion out here along with some other things.” He didn’t sound mad, only discouraged. We never drove into town to go to church again.
    “Tell about your religion,” Mr. Echols had said. “How much it has meant to your family, to you.” The sheet in front of me was blank. I hadn’t written a word for an hour.
    It was just there that