Flowers in the Snow Read Online Free PDF Page A

decided if she were quick enough getting the eggs, she could sneak in for the cookies and eat them on the way home. As she dreamed of the crumbly, slightly stale, but still good gingersnaps her mouth started to water.
    The sidewalks were quieter today than normal, and people seemed to be scattering and heading away from the decorative fountain in the center of the grassy divide. Beatrice felt a nervous cramp in her side. Something seemed very wrong. Slowing her pace to a walk, she curiously inched closer to the place people seemed to be quickly leaving. A bit of excitement would be welcomed, but in an instant she was proved wrong. There were certain types of excitement better left unexplored.
    A man was slumped over the side of the fountain. He was a colored man, which was unusual to see on Main Street in the middle of the week. It was an unspoken rule the colored folks only came into town on Mondays and Thursdays. Beatrice didn’t know when they had decided that, but she just knew that’s how it had been for as long as she could remember. Her daddy had always avoided town on those days, saying it was too full of disease to be walking around. Since Edenville had pretty clear lines dividing where coloreds went and where whites went, Beatrice had spent most of her life around people who looked just like her.
    She crept toward the man and could see he was bleeding badly from a cut on his head, which was also quite unusual. The biggest shock of all was the realization that his blood was the same color as her own. She’d always assumed they’d have darker stuff inside them since their skin was so dark.
    Her mother had told her time and again to steer clear of the colored folk. They stayed over there, and her people stayed over here. Every now and then, though, one or two would come into the east side of town while Beatrice was there, and she couldn’t help but stare hard at them. They looked so different than she and her kin did. She watched them closely and decided they acted pretty much the same as anyone else she knew.
    Taking a few steps closer to the injured man, she figured he must have slipped and fallen, knocking his head on the fountain. Looking over her shoulder, she searched for a familiar face to help him, but everyone had moved on. The door to the diner that was always propped open this time of day was shut. The shades in the office building across the way had all been drawn. She thought for a moment that maybe none of this was real. Beatrice spent many afternoons dreaming up all sorts of wild stories to fall into. Could this just be another fantasy?
    She pinched the fat of her arm to make sure she was awake. Then it hit her. This must be a message from God. Her mother had often told her to listen closely and she’d hear what God wanted from her. This all made perfect sense. Just this last Sunday Beatrice had learned the story of the Good Samaritan.
    This was exactly the same. The Samaritans and the Jews did not spend any time together, and didn’t seem to be friends, Beatrice remembered. But when the Samaritan saw a Jewish man who’d been hurt he ignored the fact that the man was different and stopped to help him.
    Her mother was always telling her to walk in the light of God and find more ways to be one of his children. Always wanting to please her mother, yet never succeeding, Beatrice took this as a sign to be compassionate and help the man. Jingling the change in her pocket meant for the eggs, she ran into the general store and bought an ice-cold bottle of soda pop and asked Eli, who ran the store, if she could borrow the rag he had over his shoulder. With her supplies in hand she rushed over to the man, who was still propped up and groaning against the fountain. Upon further inspection she realized he couldn’t have just fallen here. His injuries were too severe.
    “Sir,” she whispered, “are you okay?” Her heart was thumping in her chest, but she pushed past her fear and reminded herself how