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It just seemed like canning and jelly making was all there was to summer. There was more. There were long, hot, lazy afternoons when the plants were limp and the road up to Uncle Charlie's was so dry that a wagon moving down it looked like a rolling ball of dust. On just such an afternoon Aunt Merica got her umbrella and we put on clean clothes and went with her to Fairview to practice our parts for the Children's Day program. Ms. Lillian assigned the parts, chose the songs, played the piano and so impressed on us the importance of the event that we eagerly walked the mile there and the mile back once or twice each week to say the poem or the story from memory. Coming back, there about the Cornetts field where the branch comes out from under the gate and follows the road most of the way to our house, there Aunt Merica let us doff our shoes if we were wearing any, and wade home. The water was cold, the stones small and round and it all felt so good. Mama didn't much approve. I think she was afraid we would get on a snake.

My city cousins came to visit for a week or two, giving Mama and Aunt Merica two or four more children to feed and keep up with. But there were no real holidays. Even the fourth of July didn't arouse any cause for celebration. Daddy didn't even take the afternoon off, much less the day.

Quarterly Meeting was a bigger event. Then you went to our church and had dinner on the ground or you went off some where in the District and, after listening to a fervent sermon, piano pounding, hymn singing, and endless reports, you were recognized as a visitor and asked to stay for dinner. Mama and Aunt Merica knew this would happen, but nevertheless, when Daddy said, long about Friday night, "Let’s go to Quarterly Meeting on Sunday" they began planning what they would take: potato salad, deviled eggs, fried chicken, salt rising bread, pickles, tomatoes in season, chocolate pie, angel food cake. Mama made sure our clothes were clean and ready; that my hat, my silver mesh pocketbook and white gloves were found. Aunt Merica had to give the chickens extra water and feed; even the pigs got an extra bucket of slop at breakfast, enough to hold them. The work of going was nothing compared to the pleasure of being there.

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