Summer's Child

was worried that something would happen to me and the baby, being baptized at such a bad time. But I told her that I had put my trust in the Lord and He would take care of me. She asked me why I picked such a bad time? I told her about poor Bige getting killed-and was he ready to go? I told her seemed like that put a heavy burden on me to get myself ready. She went along with that, and said the boys could go in the morning and chip out a big enough place for me to get baptized. "The next morning was powerful cold and disagreeable. It snowed a little, but stopped just about the time we got there. It was a sight to see all the people who was there. Some of them I knew; others, I didn't. From all around they come; my firlhood friends and kinfolks; for news ad spread up every creek and hillside that I was coming home, after all these many years. No one was saying much; just standing there all huddled up, talking kind of low. As I passed them, I heard them saying things like what a good woman I was, and how they ought to take a lesson from this, and how strong my faith must be to be baptized in floating ice and me being helpless like that. It made me feel good to hear them saying things like that. Though I had picked a bad time, I knew I'd never get this chance again to be baptized by Uncle Ira at my old homeplace. "Just as I got to the edge of the water, they started singing 'Amazing Grace,' and I'm telling you children, I ve never heard that song sung so pretty; it lifted my spirits. 'Then, Uncle Ira, with his pretty long white beard, reached out his hand and led me out into the icy water. The singing sort of a faded away. He raised his arm high, like in a benediction, and here's what he said. He said, ? baptize you, Eliza, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.' Then he quickly dipped me under . . . and out. "Now, you'd a thought I'd a been cold with all that ice, but to tell you the truth, I felt warm, and I thanked the Lord that I hadn't turned back. My burden had been lifted, and even though I had been a good woman all my life, I felt that now I could go on and live even a better life. Just goes to show you, when you feel you're right and have studied it through, to just put your faith in the Lord, and He will take care of you." Summer's Child I eased through the gentle days of childhood, brown as the sweetbuds that grew by the back porch steps I never used, as drunk on sunshine and laughter as the bees that reeled and staggered among the fallen apples, riding my rope swing skyward poking holes in the blue with earth-dusted feet, playing twilight games of hide-and-seek while fireflies blinked like caution lights: unaware that time was my playmate calling "ready or not, here I come" down the lamplit streets. -Joan Kyles 19 ...