Teacher Still

to see the baby, Laurie Mae." The girl stopped and laid the roses on the ground and with her free hand unwrapped the bundle. We stood without saying anything and looked at the baby. I didn't think it was a pretty baby. It's head was too big with the veins showing in its faee. "Doesn't it ever cry?" Susie asked. "No," Laurie Mae said. "He hardly ever cries." Her voice sounded hoarse and rusty as if she had not used it in a long time. She wrapped the baby up again, and picked up the roses. "Don't you think they're pretty roses," I said. "They cost three dollars," Susie said. "Three dollars," Laurie Mae said, and stopped and looked at the flowers. VVe thought she would be pleased to know The Ladies Aid had spent so much. Her voice sounded full of something else. TEACHER STILL I cut a tree today that shaded the garden And trimmed the branches, troubled at something Deep in memory, hard to touch. I slashed ragged chips from uneven cuts As remembrance came to me. My father, dead now for long years, A timber cutter in his youth, Was bound by neat skill with axe and saw. "Chop the limbs off even with the log," He would say, taking pains to show me. He stood back of me again today, Shaking his head at sloppy work. I took axe to log again, smoothing cuts, Though it was bound only for the winter fire. Loyal Jones We didn t know what it was. "Three dollars is a lot of money," Susie said. "I know," Laurie Mae said. "It's a lot of money." We left her then, for she could walk but slowly with the baby and the roses. Susie left me at the cemetery gate for she went one way and I another. I slipped behind the concrete pillars of the gate and waited. I wanted to see Laurie Mae. I thought that now she was alone she might cry. I wanted to see her cry. She came out of the gate and looked all around; up and down the road, and at the nearest houses, and up into the snowy sky. When she saw no one she laid the baby on the ground, and took the white roses one by one and threw them in the yellow mud of the road. She pushed them out of sight with her foot and raked the mud over them, and then she picked up the baby. 8 ...