Blessed . . . Blessed

Blessed . . . Blessed by Harriette Simpson Arnow "Blessed are the peacemakers for . . . for . . ." The words would come no further . Katy's mind was winging away to the cry of the bloodhounds, no longer faint but suddenly loud, eager, sweeping in hot quick waves of sound down the wagon road that ran below the farm. "Go on, Katy," old Mrs. Fairchild said, and counted three and purled. Katy squirmed on the low hard footstool , pushed back her brown forelock with sticky restless hands. "For ... for 55 Her grandmother exploded with a "Study some more," and handed the Bible back to her. Katy cradled the big©1988 by Estate of Harriette S. Arnow book on her knees and wished it were sundown. It would be harder to find a black man in the dark, and by then maybe her grandmother would have forgotten her anger over her mother's gray mare. Lurie, the hired girl, rested on her iron. "They'll git him, th' blood thirsty nigger," she said, and listened, head tipped above the ironing board to the bloodhounds and the snouts of men, sweeping now below the farm. Young Mrs. Fairchild bit off the thread from a sock she was darning. "Makes me think of a fox hunt." Katy peeped up at her mother, remembered her grandmother, and let her head fall lower, so low that only with her lashes lifted could she see her mother's hands. They were little thin brown hands, with the knuckles blue-white against the black socks. And now while the bloodhounds boomed out in a fullthroated triumphant cry, the hands did no darning, only clutched the socks and the sock darner. Katy marveled at the voice coming out above the hands, cool and uncaring as her mother's always was, laughing almost, not matching tne hands, "I reckon Fiddlin' Turpin's foxhunted so much in his time he 11 take to th' lower creek like a fox an-" "Fox huntin'," old Mrs. Fairchild snorted. "That nigger was never any good for anythin' but fiddlin' an' fox huntin' an'-' She stopped to listen as the bloodhounds cried their confusion at the spot where the creek crossed the road. Lurie took a fresh iron from the stove, tried its heat with spit from the tip of her finger. And to Katy, waiting, listening, arms clenched about her knees, the sound of the spit sounded loud above the bafflement of the hounds, loud like gunfire. "They're a losin' the scent," Lurie said in a hoarse whisper. "He's took tu th' lower creek jist like a fox." Then one hound gave a joyous eager cry, and in an instant the pack of four took it up, moving straight across the creek and on up the road. "Scent must 7 be gettin' stronger," old Mrs. Fairchild said with satisfaction, and added as she resumed her knitting, "Just let him try any of his fox tricks, goin' off down th' creek toward th' river-they'll find him, hid like a fox somewhere down on th' river bluff or in th' lower creek." Lurie rolled her eyes, and glanced uneasily out the window. "I don't reckon he'd take hit into his head an' come up th' creek into Mr. Fairchild's pasture.' "Not less'n he's a plum fool, old Mrs. Fairchild said. "He couldn't go in water any further than th' spring in th' west pasture where Little Sinkin' Creek begins , an' th' hounds could pick up th' scent soon's he tried tu go above th' spring. An' anyhow what nigger would be a hidin' out on a white man's land, an' th' man a helpin' hunt him?" "Maybe Fiddlin Turpin doesn't know Papa's after him, an' that they're goin' to hang him with our plowline. I saw 'em take it out of th' barn an' Mr. Crabtree, I heard him tell papa that-" "Shut up, Katy, an' get on with your studyin',' old Mrs. Fairchild commanded . "When I was a little girl like you I never spoke out before my elders." She gave a sharp angry sigh above the gray knitted socks. 'Th old people would turn...