I’ll never forget that day.  Lela and I were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying our fresh summer vegetables, sweet ice tea and homemade cornbread.  It was summer time but not too hot for a Mississippi day.

  The old wooden door was open and the screen door allowed a nice breeze to come through every now and then.  All of the sudden without any kind of notice, Lela looked up, almost staring into space and said, “you know, one of these days I’m gonna go out there and dig up Hershel’s legs and put em with the rest of his body.  I almost choked on my tea.  I looked at her and ask, “What do you mean, where are his legs”?  Lela looked at me with a non-apologetic look and said, “out there side the garden gate.”  Lela was 77 years old and had lived by herself for quite sometime now.  She wore her hair in a bun sometimes wearing a bonnet, dressed in blue jeans, a button up blouse, boots, and a red apron.  Her smile was sweeter than honey and her heart as gentle as a lamb but don’t get her stirred up.  Lela belonged to the Sullivan clan that came from Sullivan’s Hollow.  I ask her why Hershel’s legs were buried by the gate and she began to tell me the story. Well you see …Years ago Hershel was a diabetic and he lost one of his legs.  Back then when they amputated your leg they would ask you if you wanted it or if you wanted them to take care of it.  Well she said, that was Hershel’s leg. I didn’t want them to just burn it.  So I took it, wrapped it up in a sheet, put it in a box and buried it out by the garden at the gate.  A few years later, well…Hershel lost his other leg and I did the same thing with that one too, so one of these days I wanna dig up his legs and put em with the rest of his body out at the cemetery.  I now understood what she was saying and even told her when she got ready to do it I would help her if she wanted me to.  We finished our meal and and after clearing the table we went out and sat on the porch swing.