Maggie

I never did have a lick of sense and after what happened Saturday night, maybe my Ma is right. The night was fallin' around our mountain cabin and I was sittin' on our front porch watchin' the fireflies come out and wonderin' what caused their butts to light up like they did? I figgered I'd find out soon enough when I started school in September month. We were already in August month and I was markin' the days off on Ma's hand made calendar she kept pinned on the kitchen wall.

Maybe I'd find out a lot of answers to the many questions I always seemed to be pesterin' Ma with. I was 8 years old and big for my age, or so that's what my Ma was always tellin' me. I know'd I was ignorant but when I'd ask my Ma a question, she'd tell me I'd find out soon enough. I'd tell her I wanted to know now so's I'd have some sense. I didn't want to go to school without a lick of it. My Ma said I was FRESH so she whopped me up side the head. My head was full of questions though and no matter how hard I tried, my Ma wouldn't give me no answers.

One question ate at me all the time just like a sore festerin' up and getting bigger and bigger until it was gonna bust wide open. I was powerful hungry for some answers. I was hungry for more than food. My Ma saw to it that we got by and I never went to bed with an empty belly but I never went to bed with a full one neither. More than anything I'd pester my Ma as to why we had no daddy man livin' with us? Those sorry Mace's that lived up on Briar Hill had a daddy man and so did Nelda Faye Bascomb, my bestest friend in the whole world. She told me her daddy played horsie with her and I wanted a daddy man to play horsie with me. My Ma said I was too fanciful, whatever that means. She just don't explain nuthin' to me and I reckon she thinks I'm a baby.

Why I'm near grow'd and now that we have us a school and Ma says I can go, I'll be so smart I won't need to ask my Ma nuthin'. She'll be askin' ME questions. That idear sure brung a smile to my lips. I'm so lost in my own smartness I didn't hear when Nelda Faye's daddy man stepped round our cabin and into our yard scarin' me near to death.

"Maggie," he says to me, "go fetch your Ma and be smart about it. My Lindy be in awful pain and needs her."