Death took him. For all her trying and loving and pleading with God to leave him here with her, he was gone. God knew he was the only heart-child she had. The others were the fruit of eye-love, the children of her flesh, yet they were strong and hearty; and her joy-child, her first-born, her jewel, July's son, was gone.
Grief smothered her. Her heart was a rock in her breast. She hurried to the window and opened her mouth wide to catch enough air to breathe. She could hear herself moaning softly, not bawling, not beating her head against the wall as women do when they lose out in a fight with Death. Sorrow had her dumb. It had her body weighted down. Her eyelids were numb. Her eyes were too parched for tears.
She looked up at the sky where her precious child's soul was wandering about seeking its way to Heaven and God. The battered horn of an old red moon hung low above the dawn. The stars were pale and dim, poor lamps to light a lonely soul climbing that steep road trying to find its long way home.
The earth lay still and black. The high sky might have the dead boy's clean soul, but the greedy old ground would get his body, his poor, thin, fever-wasted body, and turn it hack into dust.
