The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart Read Free Page A

home.
    Tired and worn though he looked, the man seemed like a dandy in my eyes. His white shirt had ruffles and bright buttons down the front. Showing from beneath the end of his fancy jacket were cufflinks sparkling from the ends of his shirt sleeves. I now knew what those were. If he wasn’t rich, he sure dressed like a man who was.
    I came and stood in the open door and waited. Katie just stood there too in front of her uncle, staring at the floor. He glanced around the place as he drank down the water and seemed to think it didn’t look right. He looked over at me and this time held my face in his gaze a few seconds. A puzzled look seemed to flit through his eyes. But then he looked back at Katie, and gradually a serious expression came over his face.
    “Kathleen,” he said, “I think it’s time you stop stalling. There’s something you’re not telling me. I know Rosalind’s not on a trip—she wouldn’t leave you alone or have left the place like this. Did she go into town? If so, she should have been back by now. I want to know what’s going on here.”
    I was standing behind her, but I could see Katie starting to tremble.
    “Kathleen … where’s your mama?”
    “Oh, Uncle Templeton,” Katie suddenly cried, “—she’s dead! They’re all dead!”
    She burst into the most mournful wail and began to sob, like a dam that had been held back all these months was bursting inside her. At the word dead, her uncle’s face went ashen. Katie’s wailing and sobbing left no doubt that she was telling the truth.
    He sat there stunned, his eyes wide, his face white. Katie now walked toward him, put her arms around him, leaned her head down on his neck where he sat, and continued to sob. I heard Aleta come up the steps of the porch behind me. I turned to meet her and motioned for her to come with me instead of going in right now. I took her away from the house and explained as much as I knew about what was going on, which wasn’t much. The last sound I heard as we crept softly down the steps was Katie’s sobbing like I’d never heard her before.
    We tried to busy ourselves with some clothes hanging on the line, but we weren’t thinking about the wash right then. After a bit I told Aleta to go give the chickens some feed.
    A few minutes later I heard the kitchen door open.
    Katie and her uncle came out. He still had the same stunned look on his face, and sure wasn’t laughing or joking now.
    Katie and me had had a lot of death to get used to, and now I guess it was his turn. I couldn’t help feeling almost more sorry for him than for Katie. Katie had her hand in his and led him away from the house in the direction of where she and I had buried her family. Again I followed them, but from a distance. Katie took him to the spot, then stopped. They just stood there looking down at the graves and the four stones we’d found to set by each one, not saying a word. Slowly her uncle stretched one of his arms around Katie’s shoulders and pulled her to his side. She leaned her head against him and again began to cry.
    How long they stood there like that I don’t know. I figured they needed to be alone and didn’t need my prying eyes staring at their backs. Katie had said she wanted me nearby, but she had her uncle to comfort her now. Whatever might happen later, at this moment that had to be a mighty important thing.
    I turned away and went to see what Aleta was doing.

T EMPLETON D ANIELS
    4

    F UNNY AS IT SEEMS TO SAY IT, MY MIND WAS BOTH relieved and full of anxieties and fears at the same time. As long and hard as we’d schemed to keep anyone from finding out we were alone … without warning it had happened. What we’d been worried about all this time had just suddenly happened.
    Katie’s kinfolk knew . Everything was bound to change now. Her uncle Templeton would no doubt take things in hand and do what grown-ups did. He’d put things in order and either stay here himself or find out who Rosewood was