Not that she said as much to a soul: she was tongue-tied when it came to words. She left a note written in a pencil tablet on the kitchen table, and when Narciss went out to cut up the chicken, she found it. She carried it to Uncle Daniel in the barn, and Uncle Daniel read it to her out loud. Then they both sat down on the floor and cried. It said, "Have left out. Good-by and good luck, your friend, Mrs. Bonnie Dee Peacock Ponder." We don't even know which one of them it was to. Then she just traipsed out to the crossroads and flagged down the north-bound bus with her little handkerchief—oh, she was seen. A dozen people must have been in the bushes and seen her, or known somebody that did, and they all came and told me about it. Though nobody at all appeared to tell me where she got off. It's not beyond me. You see, poor, trusting Uncle Daniel carried that child out there and set her down in a big house with a lot of rooms and corners, with Negroes to wait on her, and she wasn't used to a bit of it.
