“No sir.”

“Well, I did. Bob Lemon pitched for the Indians. Tigers ain’t much; they’re in last place again.”

“I don’t much care for the American League,” I said, repeating words I’d heard my father and grandfather say since the day I started remembering.

“What a surprise,” Jimmy Dale said with a laugh. “Spoken like a true Cardinal fan. I was the same way till I went up North. I’ve been to eleven games this year in Tiger Stadium, and the American League kinda grows on you. Yankees were in town two weeks ago; place was sold out. They got this new guy, Mickey Mantle, ‘bout as smooth as I’ve seen. Good power, great speed, strikes out a lot, but when he hits it, it’s gone. He’ll be a great one. And they got Berra and Rizzuto.”

“I still hate ‘em,” I said, and Jimmy Dale laughed again.

“You still gonna play for the Cardinals?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“You ain’t gonna farm?”

“No sir.”

“Smart boy.”

I’d heard the grown-ups talk about Jimmy Dale. He was quite smug that he’d managed to flee the cotton patch and make a better living up North. He liked to talk about his money. He’d found the better life and was quick with his advice to other farm boys around the county.

Pappy thought that farming was the only honorable way a man should work, with the possible exception of playing professional baseball.

We sipped our tea for a while, then Jimmy Dale said, “So how’s the cotton?”

“So far so good,” Pappy said. “The first pickin’ went well.”

“Now we’ll go through it again,” my father added. “Probably be done in a month or so.”

Tally emerged from the depths of Camp Spruill, holding a towel or some type of cloth. She circled wide around the red car, where her family still stood entranced; they didn’t notice her. She looked at me from the distance but made no sign. I was suddenly bored with baseball and cotton and cars and such, but I couldn’t just race off. It would be rude to leave company in such a manner, and my father would suspect something. So I sat there and watched Tally disappear past the house.

“How’s Luther?” my father asked.

“Doin’ well,” Jimmy Dale said. “I got ‘im on at the plant. He’s makin’ three dollars an hour, forty hours a week. Luther ain’t never seen so much money.”

Luther was another cousin, another Chandler from a distant strain. I’d met him once, at a funeral.

“So he ain’t comin’ home?” Pappy said.

“I doubt it.”

“Is he gonna marry a Yankee?”

“I ain’t asked him. I reckon he’ll do whatever he wants to do.”

There was a pause, and the tension seemed to fade for a moment. Then Jimmy Dale said, “You can’t blame him for stayin’ up there. I mean, hell, they lost their farm. He was pickin’ cotton around here for other people, makin’ a thousand bucks a year, didn’t have two dimes to rub together. Now he’ll make more than six thousand a year, plus a bonus and retirement.”

“Did he join the union?” my father asked.

“Damned right he did. I got all the boys from here in the union.”

“What’s a union?” I asked.

“Luke, go check on your mother,” Pappy said. “Go on.”

Once again I had asked an innocent question, and because of it, I was banished from the conversation. I left the porch, then raced to the back of the house in hopes of seeing Tally. But she was gone, no doubt down at the creek bathing without her faithful lookout.

Gran was at the garden gate, resting on the fence, watching my mother and Stacy go from plant to plant. I stood beside her, and she tousled my hair. “Pappy said she’s a damned Yankee,” I said softly.

“Don’t swear.”

“I’m not swearin’. I’m just repeatin’.”

“They’re good people, they’re just different.” Gran’s mind was somewhere else. At times that summer she would talk to me without seeing me. Her tired eyes would drift away as her thoughts left our farm.

“Why does she talk like that?” I asked.

“She thinks we talk funny.”

“She does?”

“Of course.”

I couldn’t understand this.

A green snake less than a foot long poked its head from the cucumber patch, then raced down a dirt trail directly at my mother and Stacy. They saw it at about the same instant. My mother pointed and calmly said, “There’s a little green snake.”

Stacy reacted in a different manner. Her mouth flew open, but she was so horrified that it took a second or two for any sound to come forth. Then she let loose with a scream that the Latchers could’ve heard, a bloodcurdling shriek that was far more terrifying than even the deadliest of snakes.

“A snake!” she screamed again as she jumped behind my mother. “Jimmy Dale! Jimmy Dale!”

The snake had stopped dead on the trail and appeared to be looking up at her. It was just a harmless little green snake. How could anybody be afraid of it? I darted through the garden and picked him up, thinking I was helping matters. But the sight of a little boy holding such a lethal creature was more than Stacy could stand. She fainted and fell into the butter beans as the men came running from the front porch.

Jimmy Dale scooped her up as we tried to explain what had happened. The poor snake was limp; I thought he’d fainted, too. Pappy could not suppress a grin as we followed Jimmy Dale and his wife to the back porch, where he laid her on a bench while Gran went to get remedies.

Stacy came to eventually, her face pale, her skin clammy. Gran hovered over her with wet cloths and smelling salts.

“Don’t they have snakes up in Michigan?” I whispered to my father.

“Reckon not.”

“It was just a little green one,” I said.

“Thank God she didn’t see a rat snake. She’d be dead,” my father said.

My mother boiled water and poured it into a cup with a tea bag. Stacy sat up and drank it, and for the first time in history hot tea was consumed on our farm. She wanted to be alone, so we returned to the front porch while she rested.

Before long, the men were into the Buick. They had the hood up and were poking their heads around the engine. When no one was paying attention to me, I moved away from the porch and headed for the rear of the house, looking for Tally. I hid by the silo, in a favorite spot where I couldn’t be seen. I heard an engine start, a smooth powerful sound, and knew it wasn’t our old truck. They were going for a ride, and I heard my father call my name. But when I didn’t respond, they left.

I gave up on Tally and walked back to the house. Stacy was sitting on a stool under a tree, looking forlornly across our fields, arms crossed as if she were very unhappy. The Buick was gone.

“You didn’t go for a ride?” she asked me.

“No ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“Just didn’t.”

“Have you ever ridden in a car?” Her tone was mocking, so I started to lie.

“No ma’am.”

“How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“You’re seven years old, and you’ve never ridden in a car?”

“No ma’am.”

“Have you ever seen a television?”

“No ma’am.”

“Have you ever used a telephone?”

“No ma’am.”

“Unbelievable.” She shook her head in disgust, and I wished I’d stayed by the silo. “Do you go to school?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Thank God for that. Can you read?”

“Yes ma’am. I can write, too.”

“Are you going to finish high school?”

“Sure am.”

“Did your father?”

“He did.”

“And your grandfather?”

“No ma’am.”

“I didn’t think so. Does anybody go to college around here?”

“Not yet.”

“What does that mean?”

“My mother says I’m goin’ to college.”

“I doubt it. How can you afford college?”

“My mother says I’m goin’.”

“You’ll grow up to be just another poor cotton farmer, like your father and grandfather.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. She shook her head in total frustration.

“I’ve had two years of college,” she said very proudly.

It didn’t make you any smarter, I wanted to say. There was a long pause. I wanted to leave but wasn’t sure how to properly remove myself from the conversation. She sat perched on the stool, gazing into the distance, gathering more venom.