Isaac took his grandfather’s buckboard, hitched Glory to it, and rode to Calhoun City at the end of the day. He had to buy the tin to cover the beams on his roof. He was so near finished with his house it was frightening. Soon he would see Jennie again and try to recover those splendid days, weeks, months he had wasted. That is, if she would have him.             He unloaded the wagon in the dark and trudged to the porch, tired and hungry, though he was sick of his own cooking. He had yet to purchase a wood cook stove for the kitchen, but there were a lot of things that would have to come later. When there was money enough to pay.             Shreds of moss moved ghostlike through the giant oaks, casting night shadows across the porch not unlike any other evening. It was quiet. Again. The lonesome call of a whippoorwill disturbed the otherwise peaceful setting. When she...

We made the drive to Calhoun County in my brother's "big truck"! I love that truck. It serves as transportation, a drive-in picnic extravaganza device at one of three fast-food restaurants in the small Mississippi town of Bruce, and a proverbial roller coaster ride when my brother brakes for George's Chicken in New Albany. We knew the snow was coming, but it wouldn't have mattered. We would likely have gone anyway, for my brother's truck would have pulled every hill and bottomed out every hollow in Calhoun. It was a windy day. Mike and Gloria are our family genealogists, and they know where all our forebears are buried in these hills of Calhoun County. They also know old home sites, specifically of our grandmother, Mama Smith, where she lived with her family in Sarepta before she and Papa married. That's a great story for later with lots of pictures and memories. I had wanted to be here for the homecoming and burial of Clayton Hell...