(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Courtney Cochran, and I'd like to read a book with you today.

This book is titled "Home Place" by Crescent Dragonwagon, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.

Every year, these daffodils come up.

There is no house near them.

There is nobody to water them unless someone happens to come this way, like us this Sunday afternoon, just walking.

There is not even anyone to see them, but they still come up, these daffodils in a row, a yellow splash brighter than sunlight or lamplight or butter in the green and shadow of the woods.

They still come up, these daffodils, cups lifted to trumpet the good news of spring, though maybe no one hears except the wind, and the raccoons who rustle at night, and the deer who nibble delicately at the new green growth, and the squirrels who jump from branch to branch of the old black walnut tree.

But once someone lived here.

How can you tell?

Look, a chimney made of stone back there, half standing yet, though honeysuckle's grown around it.

There must have been a house here.

Look, push aside these weeds.

Here's a stone foundation laid on earth.

The house once here was built on it.

And if there was a house, there was a family.

Dig in the dirt, scratch deep, and what do you find?

A round blue glass marble, a nail, a horseshoe and a piece of plate, a small yellow bottle, a China doll's arm.

Listen.

Can you listen back, far back?

No, not the wind, that's now, but listen back and hear a man's voice, scratchy sweet, singing "Amazing Grace."

A rocking chair squeaking, creaking on a porch.

The bubbling hot fat in a black skillet, the chicken frying, and, "Tommy, get in here this minute.

If I have to call you one more time!"

And, "Ah, me, it's hot."

And, "Reckon it'll storm?"

"I don't know, I sure hope.

We sure could use it."

And, "Supper!

Supper time!"

If you look, you can almost see them.

The boy at dusk, scratching in the dirt with his stick, the uneven swing hanging vacant in the black walnut tree, listless in the heat.

The girl upstairs, combing out her long, long hair, unpinning, unbraiding, and combing by an oval mirror.

Downstairs, Papa washing dishes as Mama sweeps the floor, and Uncle Ferd, Mama's brother, coming in whistling, back from shutting up the chickens for the night, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Ah, Lord, it's hot, even late as it is."

"Yes, it surely is."

Someone swats at a mosquito.

Bedtime.

But in that far-back summer night, the swing begins to sway as the wind comes up, as the rain comes down.

There's thunder, there's lightning.

That's just like now.

The dry, dusty earth soaks up the water.

The roots of the plants, like the daffodil bulbs the Mama planted, hidden under the earth but alive and growing.

The roots drink it up.

A small, green snake coils happily in the wet woods.

And Timmy sleeps straight through the storm.

And the girl who wishes for a yellow hair ribbon wakes, then returns to sleep like Uncle Ferd, sighing as he dreams of walking down a long road with change in his pocket.

But the mother wakes and wakes the father, her husband, and they sit on the side of the bed and watch the rain together without saying a word in the house where everyone else still sleeps.

Her head on Papa's shoulder, her long hair falling down her back.

She's wearing a white nightgown that makes her look almost like a ghost when the lightning flashes.

And now she is a ghost, and we can only see her if we try.

We're not sure if we're making her up or if we can really see her imagining the home place as it might have been or was before the house burned down or everyone moved away and the woods moved in.

Her son and daughter grown and gone, her brother who went to Chicago, her husband, even her grandchildren, even her house, all gone, almost as gone as if they had never laughed and eaten chicken and rocked and played and fought and made up, combed hair and washed dishes and swept, sang, and scratched at mosquito bites.

Almost as gone, but not quite, not quite.

They were here.

This was their home.

For each year in a quiet, green place where there's only a honeysuckle-vined chimney to tell you there was ever a house, if, that is, you happen to travel that way and wonder, like we did.

Where there's only a marble, a nail, a horseshoe, a piece of plate, a piece of doll, a single, rotted, almost gone piece of rope swaying on a black walnut tree limb to tell you there was ever a family here.

Only deer and raccoons and squirrels instead of people to tell you there were living creatures each year still.

Whether anyone sees it or not, whether anyone listens or not, the daffodils come up to trumpet their good news forever and ever.

(upbeat music)