The old woman looked briefly at Mary and then looked back at Jay. “Hit ain’t the only time,” she said, “not by a long chalk. Twarn’t three days ago I…” she stopped. “Takin on about yer troubles ain’t never holp nobody,” she said. “You just set hyer a minute.”
She turned and walked over to the older woman and leaned deep over against her ear and said, quite loudly, but not quite shouting, “Granmaw, ye got company.” And they watched the old woman’s pale eyes, which had been on them all this time in the light shadow of the sunbonnet, not changing, rarely ever blinking, to see whether they would change now, and they did not change at all, she didn’t even move her head or her mouth. “Ye hear me, Granmaw?” The old woman opened and shut her sunken mouth, but not as if she were saying anything. “Hit’s Jay and his wife and younguns, come up from Knoxvul to see you,” she called, and they saw the hands crawl in her lap and the face turned towards the younger woman and they could hear a thin, dry crackling, no words.
“She can’t talk any more,” Jay said, almost in a whisper.
“Oh no,” Mary said.
But Sadie turned to them and her hard eyes were bright. “She knows ye,” she said quietly. “Come on over.” And they climbed slowly and shyly out onto the swept ground. “I’ll tell her about the rest a yuns in a minute,” Sadie said.
“Don’t want to mix her up,” Ralph explained, and they all nodded.
It seemed to Rufus like a long walk over to the old woman because they were all moving so carefully and shyly; it was almost like church. “Don’t holler,” Aunt Sadie was advising his parents, “hit only skeers her. Just talk loud and plain right up next her ear.”
“I know,” his mother said. “My mother is very deaf, too.”
“Yeah,” his father said. And he bent down close against her ear. “Granmaw?” he called, and he drew a little away,
