upsetting her valise in the
corner. The instant the valise
moved, the newspaper top she
had over the basket under it
rose with a snarl and Pitty
Sing,the cat, sprang onto
Bailey's shoulder.
The children were thrown to
the floor and their mother,
clutching the baby, was thrown
out the door onto the ground;
the old lady was thrown into
the front seat. The car turned
over once and landed rightside-up in a gulch off the side
of the road. Bailey remained in
the driver's seat with the catgray-striped with a broad white
face and an orange noseclinging to his neck like a
caterpillar.
As soon as the children saw
they could move their arms and
legs, they scrambled out of the
car, shouting, "We've had an
ACCIDENT!" The
grandmother was curled up
under the dashboard, hoping
she was injured so that Bailey's
wrath would not come down on
her all at once. The horrible
thought she had had before the
accident was that the house she
had remembered so vividly
was not in Georgia but in
Tennessee.
Bailey removed the cat from
his neck with both hands and
flung it out the window against
the side of a pine tree. Then he
got out of the car and started
looking for the children's
mother. She was sitting against
the side of the red gutted ditch,
holding the screaming baby,
but she only had a cut down
her face and a broken shoulder.
"We've had an ACCIDENT!"
the children screamed in a
frenzy of delight.
"But nobody's killed," June
Star said with disappointment
as the grandmother limped out
of the car, her hat still pinned
to her head but the broken front
brim standing up at a jaunty
angle and the violet spray
hanging off the side. They all
sat down in the ditch, except
the children, to recover from
the shock. They were all
shaking.
JOY FEELINGS | DECEMBER ISSUE
239