sounds of birds and small animals darting through trees, crop field, and high grass and
catching the breeze that always seemed to be there.
This was just such another morning of flaming skies, brooding mountains, the playful lift
of birds, the efficient business of animals, trees, and flowers. However, Lou was not
prepared for the sight of Diamond and Jeb slipping out of the barn and heading off down
the road.
Lou dressed quickly and went downstairs. Louisa had food on the table, though Oz had
not yet appeared.
"That was fun last night," Lou said, sitting at the table.
"You prob'ly laugh now, but when Fs younger, I could do me some stompin'," remarked
Louisa, as she put a biscuit covered with gravy and a glass of milk on the table for Lou.
"Diamond must have slept in the barn," said Lou as she bit into her biscuit. "Don't his
parents worry about him?" She gave Louisa a sideways glance and added, "Or I guess I
should be asking if he has any parents."
Louisa sighed and then stared at Lou. "His mother passed when he was born. Happen
right often up here. Too often. His daddy joined her four year ago."
Lou put down her biscuit. "How did his father die?"
"No business of ours, Lou."
"Does this have anything to do with what Diamond did to that man's car?"
Louisa sat and tapped her fingers against the table.
"Please, Louisa, please. I really want to know. I care about Diamond. He's my friend."
"Blasting at one of the mines," Louisa said bluntly. 'Took down a hillside. A hillside
Donovan Skinner was farming."
"Who does Diamond live with then?"
"He a wild bird. Put him in a cage, he just shrivel up and die. He need anythin', he know
to come to me."
"Did the coal company have to pay for what happened?"
Louisa shook her head. "Played legal tricks. Cotton tried to help but weren't much he
could do. Southern Valley's a powerful force hereabouts."
"Poor Diamond."
"Boy sure didn't take it lying down," Louisa said. "One time the v/heels of a motorman's
car fell off when it come out the mine. And then a coal tipple wouldn't open and they had
to send for some people from Roanoke. Found a rock stuck in the gears. That same coal
mine boss, he was in an outhouse one time got tipped over. Durn door wouldn't open, and
he spent a sorry hour in there. To this day nobody ever figgered out who tipped it over or
how that rope got round it."
"Did Diamond ever get in trouble?"
"Henry Atkins the judge. He a good man, know what was what, so's nothing ever come of
it. But Cotton kept talking to Diamond, and the mischief finally quit." She paused. "Least
it did till the horse manure got in that man's car."
Louisa turned away, but Lou had already seen the woman's broad smile.
Lou and Oz rode Sue every day and had gotten to the point where Louisa had proclaimed
them good, competent riders. Lou loved riding Sue. She could see forever, it seemed,
from that high perch, the mare's body wide enough that falling off seemed impossible.
After morning chores, they would go swimming with Diamond at Scott's Hole, a patch of
water Diamond had introduced them to, and which he claimed had no bottom. As the
summer went along Lou and Oz became dark brown, while Diamond simply grew larger
freckles.
Eugene came with them as often as he could, and Lou was surprised to learn he was only
twenty-one. He did not know how to swim, but the children remedied that, and Eugene
was soon performing different strokes, and even flips, in the cool water, his bad leg not
holding him back any in that environment.
They played baseball in a field of bluegrass they had scythed. Eugene had fashioned a bat
from an oak plank shaved narrow at one end. They used Diamond's cover-less ball and
another made from a bit of rubber wound round with sheep's wool and knitted twine. The
bases were pieces of shale set in a straight line, this being the proper way according to
Diamond, who termed it straight-town baseball. New York Yankees' fan Lou said
nothing about this, and let the boy have his fun. It got so that none of them, not even
Eugene, could hit a ball that Oz threw, so fast and tricky did it come.
They spent many afternoons running through the adventures of the Wizard of Oz, making
up parts they had forgotten, or which they thought, with youthful confidence, could be
improved upon. Diamond was quite partial to the Scarecrow; Oz, of course, had to be the
cowardly Hon; and, by default, Lou was the heartless tin man. They unanimously
proclaimed Eugene the Great and Mighty Wizard, and he would come out from behind a
rock and bellow out lines they had taught him so loud and with such a depth of feigned