My Name Is Sally Little Song by Brenda Woods

Author:Brenda Woods
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

His arm round her waist

Frogs croak

Her head on his shoulder

Crickets keep time

A full moon above

Night dancin’

By the time I woke up, it was almost evening of the next day and Pa was gone. “Is Pa dead?” I asked Mama.

Abraham answered, “Naw, scrawny gal, cain’t nuthin’ kill Pa. He’s off scoutin’, searchin’ for Indians. You the one we thought was gonna die, talkin’ in your sleep, singin’ a song ’bout grindin’ corn. If’n you hadn’t been so sick with fever, I woulda laughed so loud, they woulda heard me clear back to the plantation.”

Mama gave me sips of water from the canteen. “You hungry?” she asked.

“Yes’m,” I replied. “Y’all eat all the coot?”

Abraham rubbed his stomach. “Yes indeed, and it sure was good.”

“But we got plenty fish and the sweetest raspberries that ever touched my tongue.” Mama smiled as she stroked my hair.

“And me and Pa caught some frogs . . . tastes like chicken,” Abraham boasted.

“I don’t havta eat no frog, do I, Mama?”

“No frog, but you gotta eat sumthin’ b’fore you waste away,” she replied.

“Yeah, ’cause you’s scrawnier’n ever. E’en them frogs got more meat on their legs than you,” Abraham teased.

I tried to get up so I could chase him, but my legs wouldn’t hold me and I fell back to the ground. “Careful now,” Pa said from behind me, and I turned around to see him smiling big. “Fever ’bout gone?”

“Sur’nuf, but she’s more than a mite weak, too weak to walk,” Mama answered.

Abraham interrupted, “You see’d any Indians?”

“Naw, but I see’d gators big and small. They’s unsightly creatures. See’d a black bear too. I figure from here on in we’s best to travel while the sun is up. We’ll stay the night here, but t’morrow we gotta make up for lost time.”

Two white birds with long, thin orange legs waded in the lake where dragonflies hovered and flowers bloomed.

Above us a black vulture circled.

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