The jealous admiration of the watching men melted with the feast of new corn they allowed themselves that night. Plucked from the broken stalks that Mr. Garner could not doubt was thefault of the raccoon. Paul F wanted his roasted; Paul A wanted his boiled and now Paul D couldn'tremember how finally they'd cooked those ears too young to eat. What he did remember wasparting the hair to get to the tip, the edge of his fingernail just under, so as not to graze a singlekernel.
The pulling down of the tight sheath, the ripping sound always convinced her it hurt.
As soon as one strip of husk was down, the rest obeyed and the ear yielded up to him its shy rows,exposed at last. How loose the silk. How quick the jailed-up flavor ran free.
No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way thatsimple joy could shake you. How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free.
DENVER'S SECRETS were sweet. Accompanied every time by wild veronica until shediscovered cologne. The first bottle was a gift, the next she stole from her mother and hid amongboxwood until it froze and cracked. That was the year winter came in a hurry at suppertime andstayed eight months. One of the War years when Miss Bodwin, the whitewoman, broughtChristmas cologne for her mother and herself, oranges for the boys and another good wool shawlfor Baby Suggs. Talking of a war full of dead people, she looked happy — flush-faced, andalthough her voice was heavy as a man's, she smelled like a roomful of flowers — excitement thatDenver could have all for herself in the boxwood. Back beyond 1x4 was a narrow field thatstopped itself at a wood. On the yonder side of these woods, a stream. In these woods, between thefield and the stream, hidden by post oaks, five boxwood bushes, planted in a ring, had startedstretching toward each other four feet off the ground to form a round, empty room seven feet high,its walls fifty inches of murmuring leaves.
Bent low, Denver could crawl into this room, and oncethere she could stand all the way up in emerald light.