Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 10
SARA'S lip quivered. Great tears came to her eyes.
"Dead?" she quavered.
"Dead!" said Tom.
"My Evelyn Dearie dead?" she cried, her voice pierced with anguish.
In a voice of less assurance: "I am sorry, but it is so," Tom agreed.
"My child, my Evelyn Dearie!" answered Sara. "Where is she? Show her to me."
Tom indicated the library table.
"Oh, my Evelyn Dearie!" cried Sara. "My Evelyn Dearie!" She threw herself face down on the floor and burst into sobs. "Oh, Evelyn Dearie; oh, Evelyn Dearie, what made me leave you!"
It was a disconcerting moment. Tom felt like a murderer.
"Well," he said apologetically to Alice, "I couldn't have her on the library table forever, could I? The library table is no place for an invisible child to be sick with measles. Something had to be done."
"Something's got to be done now," said Alice. "Look at Sara. She's going to break a blood vessel."
"Sara," said Tom. "Sara dear." But from Sara came only the long shuddering, "Oo-oo" of a mother mourning her dead child. "Sara, we'll have to do something about Evelyn; we'll have to take her off the table," said Tom. Sara kept on sobbing. "When people are dead you have to bury them," Tom told her.
Sara sat up. Her face was blotched with tears. "Bury them up?" she inquired cheerfully. "Can I have a funeral?" A light of interest shone in her tear-dimmed eyes.
"Certainly a funeral," said Tom.
"Hearse?" she said. "Carriages?"
"Hearses with plumes on them," said Tom. "Black ostrich feathers." There is no limit to such things when they exist only in the invisible world.
Sara jumped up. "Jamie!" she called. "Jamie! Robert! Come on! Evelyn's dead and we're going to have a funeral."
From out behind the house came a careful "Shuff Shuff; Chugg Chugg." It was Uncle Zotsby telling William Travers Jenkins and Robert how the world was made.
"Robert, don't you want to come? You can bring Uncle Zotsby."
A voice that Alice didn't recognize replied, "I can't come, and Robert can't come, and Bill can't come, but I'll send Uncle Zotsby's dog. He'll dig the grave for you—dogs dig fine graves."