Chapter One A Birth Dark Holler, 1922 On the evening of the third day of labor, the woman's screams filled the little cabin, escaping through the open door to tangle themselves in the dark hemlocks that mourned and drooped above the house. The weary midwife, returning from a visit to the privy, winced as a series of desperate shrieks tore through the still air of the lonely mountain clearing. Pausing to readjust her loose dress and collect her strength for the battle ahead, she glanced up at the brooding trees and shook her head. "Seems like all them cries and moans is going straight up into them old low-hanging boughs--just roosting there like so many crows. And the pain and grief, it'll linger on and on till every wind that stirs'll be like to bring it back--miseries circling round the house again, beating at the air with their ugly black wings." The country woman frowned at such an unaccustomed flight of fancy. "Law, whatever put such foolishness into my head? I'm flat wore out, and that's the truth--else how would I come to think such quare things? But hit's a lonesome, sorrowful place fer all that and a sorrowful time fer poor Fronie. Here's her man not yet cold in his grave and her boy tarrying at death's door--ay, law, hit's a cruel hard time to birth a child--iffen hit don't kill her first." Hurrying back into the small log house, the midwife pulled on the clean muslin apron that was the badge of her calling. The screams broke off and the expectant mother lay panting on the stained and stinking corn-shuck tick, her breath coughed out in hoarse rasps. Long dark hair, carefully combed free of tangles in vain hope of easing the birth, fanned in damp strands around her death-pale face. The anguish, the fear, the anger that had passed like a succession of hideous masks over the laboring woman's gaunt countenance were replaced by an otherworldly absence of all emotion. Then a great ripple surged across the huge belly swelling beneath her thin shift, and the woman's face contorted once more. Her mouth gaped but nothing more than a strangled croak emerged. Gasping with pain and frustration, she twisted her misshapen torso and clawed at her heaving belly. The midwife caught at the woman's hands and held them till the contraction passed. "It'll be born afore sundown or they'll be the two of 'em to bury," she whispered to the frightened girl standing at the bedside. "I ain't never seen no one die." The girl's wide eyes brimmed with tears. "My daddy, he was already gone when they fetched him home from the logging camp. Miz Romarie, I'm bad scared. . . ." The midwife patted the girl's bony shoulder and then reached for the bottle of sweet oil that stood on a nearby stool. "We ain't got time fer that now, Fairlight. You catch hold of yore mama's hands whilst I see kin I turn the babe and bring it on. Hold 'em tight now, honey." Black night had come and owls called from the sighing hemlocks as the exhausted woman bent an expressionless face to her red, squalling infant. At last she spoke. "It'll allus be the least un, fer there won't be no more. Reckon that'll do fer a name--call it Least." Chapter Two The Peddler Dark Holler, 1927 (Fronie) What the Lord in His wisdom has done to me don't seem neither right nor just. To bear nine children and then to lose them as I have. And my husband Hobart gone too. They ain't none left on the place save Little Brother and the least un--and she not yet five years of age and naught but a hindrance and a worry. Brother's a good worker, I give him that, but me and him can' Excerpted from The Day of Small Things by Vicki Lane All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.