She Skittered at the Sound of My Footstpes, Or, If There Was No Avoiding Me, Folded Like

Dolly Talbo …She skittered at the sound of my footstpes, or, if there was no avoiding me, folded like the petals of shy-lady fern. She was one of those people who can disguise theimeslves as an object in the room, a shadow in the corener, whose presence is a delicate happening. She wore the quitest shoes, plain virgianl dresses with hems that touched her ankles. Though older than her siste, she seemed someon, who, like myself, verena had adopted. p. 31

… Dolly’r room… contained only abed, a bureau, achair: a nun might have lived ther, except for one fact: the awalls, everything was painted an outlandish pink, even the floor was this colour.

.. her voice frail and crinkling as tissue paper. She had the eyes of a gifted person, kindled, transparent eyes, luminously green as mint jelly… p. 33

… for Dolly, who lived off sweet foods, was always baking a pound cake, raisn bread. p. 34

… About all natural things Dolly was sophisticated; she had the subterraina intellignece of a ee that knows where to find the sweetes flower: she could tell you of s torm a day in advance, predict the fruit of the fig tree… She looked around her, and flet what she swa…

… she [Caterhine] did not know, as Dolly knew and made me know, that it was a ship, that to sit up ther ewas to sail along the cloudy coasline of every dream..p.36

… “All for me?” and Dolly sounded sad and failing as the dusk. I saw her shadwo as she moved from one part of the room to another. “You are my own flesh, and I love you kinderly; in my heart I love you. I could provt it nowy by giving you the only thing that has ver been mine: tehn you would have it all. Please, Verena”, she said, faltering, “let this one thing belong to me”. p. 43

“ … after he [her father] had died, she sometimes heard his songs in the field of Indian grass. Wind, Catherine said; and Dolly told here: But the wind is us – it gatehrs and remembers all our voices, then sends tehm talkingand telling through the leaves and the fields.. p. 44

… Dolly Augusta Talbo, white, aged 60, yellow grayish hair, thin, height 5 feet 3, green yeses, probaly insane, but not likely to be dangerous, post description bakeries as she is cake eater. p. 49

“I don’t like to hear talk against mys siter”, said Dolly curtly. “She’s worked hard, she derves t ohave things as she wants them. It’s our fault, someway we failed her, tehre was no place for us in her house.” p. 58

“ All the years that I’ve seen you, never known you, not ever recongised, as I did today, what you are: a spirit, a pagan..” “A pgan?” said Dolly, alarmed but interested. “AT least, then, a spirit, someone not to be calcuatled by the ye alone. Spirits are accepters of life, they grant its diffefence – and consequently are always in toruble.” p. 60

“Then”, said Dolly with an intake of breah, “I’ve been in love all my love” “Well, no, I guiess not. I’ve never loved a …gentleman… Except Papa… But I have loved evertying else. Like the colour pink; when I was a child I had one coloured crayon, and it was pink; I drew pink cats, pink trees – for thiry-four years I lived in apink room… when I loved those love collected inside me so that it went flying about like a bird in asunflower filed. But it’s best not to show such things, it burdens people andmakes them… unhappy. Verena scolds at me for what she calls hiding in corners, but I’m afraid of scaring pepole if I show that I care for them… p. 65

… she felt like a shaking small anima, a rabbit just taken from the trap. p. 70

“Collin, what do you think: is it that after all the world is a bad place? Last night I saw it so differently.”.

Dolly’s face hollowed; an urge to go to Verena was rising, at the same momet some sense of self, a deeper will, hel her. Regretfully she gazed at me, “It’s better you know it now, Collin; you shoulnd’t have to wait until you’re as old as I am: the world is a bad place”. p. 75

Dolly smiled, smoothed her long skirt; sifting rays placed rings of sun upon her fingers. “Was there ever a choice? It’s what I want, a choice. To know I could’ve had another lfie, all made of my own decisions. That would be making py peace, and truly”. p. 78

“I’ve never earcned the privilege of making up my own mind; when I do, God willing, I’ll know what is right…”. p. 88

As usual, Dolly could not be hurried. It was her habit, even when it rained, to loiter along an ordianry path as though she were dallying in a agraden, her eyes priimed for the sight of precious medicine flavoruings, a sprig of penny-royal… useful herbs whose odor scented her clothers. She saw everhting first, and it was her one real vanity to prefer that she…pint out certain discoveries… she was always clalilng to see th cat-shaped cloud, the ship in the stars, the face of frsot. p. 88.

“You’d best look again: I am myself”. Dolly seemed to pose for inspection. She was as tall as Verena, as assured; nothing about her was incomplet or blurred. “I’ve taken your advice: stopped hanging my head, I mean. You told me it made you dizzy. And not many days ago.. you told that you wrer ashamed of me. Of Catherine. So much of our lives had been lived for you; it was painful to ralize the wast that had been. Can you know what it it is, such a feeling of waste?” p. 101

“…Collin. Will you promise me something? I was against your coming her, I’ve never believed it was right, raising a boy in a houseful of women. Old womne and their prejudices. but it was done; and somehow I’m not worred about it now: you’ll make your marke, you’ll get on. It’s this that I want you to promise me: don’t be unkind to Catherine, try not to grew too far away from her. Some nights it keeps me wide awake to think of her forsaken.” p. 112

Catherine Creek Dolly spent most of the day ther echatting with her friend Catherin Creek. As a child, an orphan, Cathrine Creek had bee hired out to Mr. Uriah Talbo, and thy ahd all grown up together, she and the Talbo sisters, tehre on the old far that has since become a railroad depott. Daolly she called Dollyhart, but Vernea she called That One. She lived in the back yard in atin-roofed silvery little house set among sunflowers and trellises o fbutterbean vine. She claimed to be an Indian, which made most people wink, for she was dark as the agnels of africa. But for all I know it may have been true: certainly she dressed like an Indian. That is, she had a string of turquoise beads, and wore enough reouge to put out your eyes; it shone on her cheeks like voitve tailligts. Most of her teeth were gone; she kept her jwaws jacked up with cotton wadding… It was true that she was hard to undersnad: Dolly was the only one who could frequently translate her friend’s muffled, mumbling noises. It was enough for Catherine that Dolly undertood her: they wre alwasys together and everhting they had to say they said to each other… p. 33

… Of the two, Catherin was the worst: she insisted on her ifallibility, and if you did not write down exactly what she said, she got jumpy and spilled the coffe or something. But I never litsened to her again after she said about Lincoln; tha the was part Negor and part Indian and only a speck white… But I am under special oblgaiton to Caterhine; if it had not been for her who knows wehter I would have grouwn to ordinary human size? At fourteen I was not much bigger than Biddy Skinner.. Catherin said don’t worry yersefl honey, all you need is a little stretching. She pulled at my arms, legs, tugged at my head as though it wre an apple latched to an unyilding bough. p. 35

To reach it was easy as climbing stairs…even Catheirn, who was heavy aroound the hops and compoained of rheumatism, had no trouble. But Caterhine felt no love for the tree-house. p. 36

… Catherin met us in the yard; she was crooked over with the withgt of a brimming oilcloth satche; her eyes were swollen, she had been crying, and Dolly, oddly calm and certan of what she was doing, said it doesn’t matter, Catheirne – we can send for your goldfish once we find a place. p. 48

… Catherin Creek, Negro, pretends to Indian, age aobut 60, toothless, confused speech, short and heavy, strong, likely to be dangerous… p. 49

Catherin hauled out the rose scrapquilt, insissting Dolly wrap it around herself; then she tucked her arms around me and scrateched my head until I let it relax on her bosom – You cold? she said, and I wiggeld closer: she was good and warm as the old kitchn. p. 64

… Cranky she may be, and peculiar, but there’s as good a woman as you’ll find….” p. 79

Dolly was not uch of a seamstress, she had her diffiuclties lifting a hemline. This was also true of Catehrine; it was in Caterhin’es makeup, however, to pretend professional status in all f ields, parrticualry those in which she was least competnte. p. 111

Catherine showed no interest in routing the new girl. For she’d riterired to her house in the vegtabel garden. She had takne the radio with the rand was very comfortable. “I’ve put down the load, and it’s down to stay. I’m af ter my leisure”, she said. Leisure fattened her, her fut swelled… She developed exaggerated versions of Dolly’s habits, such as a craving for sweet foods… Until she became too gross, she contrived to squieeze herself into clothers that had blenoged to Dolly; it was as though, in this way, she kept her friend with her. Our visits together were an ordeal, and I made them grudgingly… She didn’t care whether or not I came. One afternno she proved it. Simply, she removed the cotton wads that jacked up her jaws. Without the cotton her espeech was as unintelibel to me as it orinarly was to others… I think now this was not a vengeful gesture: it was intendend to let me know that I was under no obligation: the future was something she preferred not to share. p. 115