BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family by Michael McDowell Page A

the danger he perceived threatening his only child, "that poor little Buster Sapp drowned at the junction last summer."
    Miss Elinor laughed. "You are afraid for Grace, Mr. Caskey."
    "I'm not afraid, Daddy!"
    "I know you're not, darling, and of course I trust Miss Elinor, it's just that the junction...well, you remember Buster, don't you, child?"
    "Course I remember Buster," cried Grace, putting her hands petulantly on her hips. Then she looked sideways both at her father and at Miss Elinor, and added in a low voice, "Ivey says Buster got eaten up!"
    "Ivey was trying to scare you, honey," said James. "But what happened to Buster was that he drowned."
    "Mr. Caskey," said Elinor, "my daddy ran a ferry across the Tombigbee River for thirty-two years. I used to paddle up that river every noon to bring him his dinner. And that was when I wasn't any bigger than Grace." She smiled. "If you're worried, I'll tie a rope under Grace's arms, and make Zaddie run along the bank, holding on."
    But James Caskey wouldn't allow Miss Elinor to take Grace with her. That morning Elinor Dammert paddled the boat alone. James and Grace, however, were standing below the junction in the field behind the town hall when Elinor came by, and they waved lustily and called. She waved back at them and shot past the junction with only a little quiver of her paddle in the water. She rowed over to the red clay bank and sank the paddle into the soft earth. James Caskey went over and lifted Grace into the boat. "You were right," he said, "and I was wrong."
    "Let's go!" cried Miss Elinor, and pushed off. Grace squealed in delight and waved frantically to her father.
    Next day a dozen early morning loafers had congregated in the field back of the town hall waiting for Miss Elinor and Grace to shoot past the junction in Bray Sugarwhite's little green boat. On Thursday, two dozen men and women were hanging out of the town hall windows, and everybody waved. Elinor Dammert was a crazy fool to do it and James Caskey was a crazy fool to allow his daughter to ride in that boat, because one day a whirlpool was going to swallow them both up and spit up splinters and bones onto the red clay bank. Yet in a week or two it didn't seem such a crazy sight; they still waved from the town hall windows, but no one predicted destruction for Miss Elinor and Grace anymore.
    Zaddie Sapp was a quick child, quicker than Buster had ever been, and when she had finished raking the yards each morning she would sit in the kitchen with Roxie or with her sister Ivey and take up a morsel of sewing or a pan of unshelled peas. It didn't matter what it was, she just wanted to be doing something. Elinor took a liking to the child and showed her how to manage simple embroidery. Mary-Love roundly condemned this when she heard of it, for colored women, in Perdido's opinion, had no use for ornamental work. But Elinor gave Zaddie a basket of pillowcases, and Zaddie painstakingly embroidered a floral border around each and every one of them. For this effort, Elinor rewarded her fifty cents apiece.
    By this and many other such actions, Elinor won Zaddie Sapp's heart. Every afternoon at three o'clock, Zaddie sat on the mooring pier and waited for Miss Elinor and Grace to come paddling up.
    "How are you?" Elinor asked Zaddie every, day, and every day Zaddie was thrilled by the question.
    "I'm just fine," Zaddie replied invariably, and then told her everything that had happened in both Cas-key households that day.
    In these fine September and October afternoons, Elinor would sit on the front porch of James Caskey's house, rocking in a chair and listening while Zaddie and Grace sat on the steps and read aloud out of a book. Though she was four years younger than Zaddie, Grace was much the better scholar and apt to be proud of her scholastic superiority, but Elinor always kept Grace in check. "Grace," Elinor would say, "if Zaddie had had your opportunities, she would be much farther along than you are now. How