Children...
Children playing in the street... children laughing. From where I'm sittin', you can hear them plain as day. Got an idea they've corralled Ezra into some sorta magic show for young Joshua Potter's birthday. Or at least someone corralled him, suspect myself that Missus Potter an' Mary an' the other ladies all ganged up on him.
Didn't see much of that, children just bein' children, when we first got here - hell didn't see it at all. S'far as I recall there were only three of them in town, the Potter kids who lost their Pa so early, an' the undertaker's brat. None of 'em had much to laugh about then.
Weren't a place for kids anyhow. Still isn't, I guess, but it's better. Safer. Bit more... civil.
Hafta be careful not to say 'civilized', least not in front of Vin, but civil seems to be alright, once he understood the difference, or least once J'siah explained the difference, dunno if that's the same thing with either of those two. Civil's good.
But...
Hell! ... Ah no, nothin' to worry about, that was the Orley girls laughin', an' not stuck pigs. Pretty nice little things, but there's been more'n once we all thought someone was being killed, rushed out with guns at the ready... and it was Miss Letitia bein' all coy an' little Miss Lucille copyin' her. Hope to God that none of the other girls start up copyin' them both, or we'll be thinkin' there's murders goin' on all over town.
Still, at least they're happy. They're mostly pretty happy now, most of the little younguns, even if Ezra is threatenin' to leave town if they keep wakin' him up playin' lawmen and desperados under his window. They've got their small problems and hardships and their small sorrows, but that's how it should be, smaller. No tiny boy havin' to grow old before he's even grown up. Just... kid-sized is good.
We aim to keep it that way.
But...
Hey, that's Billy... and yeah, he's talked Ezra into somethin', I can tell. I know his laugh now. Didn't hear it at all those first few months, takes a long time for a boy t'get over what he had to. But he's gettin' there, jus' like the Potters have to.
It's still not a good place for little 'uns, sometimes I reckon Mary shoulda left Billy with the Judge, much safer. It ain't gonna be safe here for a long time... an' when it is, me and the boys, our job'll be done and we'll probably be outa this town.
Still...
It's good they can play games, and laugh and yell like any kid. It's a good sound. People hear it an' smile and feel good, as they should.
But... I don't.
It doesn't hurt like it did, there's that much. An' I don't think I let it show where they see it, there's that too.
But it still hurts some.
An' until that time when I hear Adam - my own, my dead son's - laughter again, it will never stop.
-the end-