"Yessir. Black flies ain't woke up yet."
"Don't disturb them."
"No. Jesus, no. I guess we got a couple of days yet." He tested the
ground with the shovel and looked into the cemetery. "Margery Sewell,"
he said.
"You know Margery?"
"Since she was about so high." He gestured toward his knees. "Used to
go smelting with her father, Jack."
"I'm Charlie, friend of Margery's."
"Tucker," the man said. "Tucker Smollett."
"That's an old name."
"Smolletts go way back around here. Smolletts and Sewells, both." They
stared into the graveyard. "You from around here, then?" He knew that
Charlie was from away; he was being polite.
"Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine."
"Well, then." The world divides into people who have been hungry and
those who haven't. Charlie felt himself grandfathered into the right
camp. It was strange how some people you got along with and some you
didn't. "I'll tell you one thing," Tucker said, "there weren't nobody
smarter than Margery Sewell ever come out of here. She got prizes,
awards--some kind of thing from the governor, even. Whoever he was.
Can't recall."
Charlie nodded. "She's a professor--classics--Latin and Greek."
"It don't surprise me," Tucker said.
They talked, from time to time glancing into the graveyard. Tucker was
waiting for Margery, Charlie realized. When she appeared, she was
walking slowly.
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