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Grandmother said, walking on: “It’s five hours exactly.” Halifax wasn’t the name of Grandmother’s farm at all, it was Cedar Grove, but Father always called it Halifax.”Hot as Halifax,” he would say when he wanted to describe something very hot. Cedar Grove was very hot, but they went there every summer because Grandmother loved it.”I went to Cedar Grove for fifty summers before you were born,” she told Miranda, who remembered last summer very well, and the summer before a little. Miranda liked it for watermelons and grasshoppers and the long rows of blooming chinaberry trees where the hounds flattened themselves out and slept. They whined and winked their eyelids and worked their feet and barked faintly in their sleep, and Uncle Jimbilly said it was because dogs always dreamed they were chasing something. In the middle of the day when Miranda looked down over the thick green fields towards the spring she could simply see it being hot: everything blue and sleepy and the mourning doves calling.

“Are we going to Halifax, Aunty?”

“Now just ask your dad if you wanta know so much.”

“Are we going to Halifax, Dad?”

Her father twitched her bonnet straight and pulled her hair forward so it would show.”You mustn’t get sunburned. No, let it alone. Show the pretty curls. You’ll be wading in Whirlypool before supper this evening.”

Grandmother said, “Don’t say Halifax, child, say Cedar Grove. Call things by their right names.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Miranda. Grandmother said again, to her son, “It’s five hours, exactly, and your Aunt Eliza has had plenty of time to pack up her telescope, and take my saddle horse. She’s been there three hours by now. I imagine she’s got the telescope already set up on the hen-house roof. I hope nothing happens.”

“You worry too much, Mammy,” said her son, trying to conceal his impatience.

“I am not worrying,” said Grandmother, shifting her riding skirt to the arm carrying the portmoney.”It will scarcely be any good taking this,” she said; “I might in fact as well throw it away for this summer.”

“Never mind, Mammy, we’ll send to the Black Farm for Pompey, he’s a good easy saddler.”

“You may ride him yourself,” said Grandmother.”I’ll never mount Pompey while Fiddler is alive. Fiddler is my horse, and I hate having his mouth spoiled by a careless rider. Eliza never could ride, and she never will….”

Miranda gave a little skip and ran away. So they were going to Cedar Grove. Miranda never got over being surprised at the way grown-up people simply did not seem able to give anyone a straight answer to any question, unless the answer was “No.” Then it popped out with no trouble at all. At a little distance, she heard her grandmother say, “Harry, have you seen my riding crop lately?” and her father answered, at least maybe he thought it was an answer, “Now, Mammy, for God’s sake let’s get this thing over with.” That was it, exactly.

Another strange way her father had of talking was calling Grandmother “Mammy.” Aunt Jane was Mammy. Sometimes he called Grandmother “Mama,” but she wasn’t Mama either, she was really Grandmother. Mama was dead. Dead meant gone away forever. Dying was something that happened all the time, to people and everything else. Somebody died, and there was a long string of carriages going at a slow walk over the rocky ridge of the hill towards the river while the bell tolled and tolled, and that person was never seen again by anybody. Kittens and chickens and specially little turkeys died much oftener, and sometimes calves, but hardly ever cows or horses. Lizards on rocks turned into shells, with no lizard inside at all. If caterpillars all curled up and furry didn’t move when you poked them with a stick, that meant they were dead — it was a sure sign.