And now, the VOA Special English program American Stories. Our story today is called Singing Woman. It was written by Ada Jack Carver in 1927. She won an O. Henry Award for the story. Singing Woman is about an old professional mourner in the southern state of Louisiana. She lives on Albertville, a community of French-speaking people of mixed race. They are part black, part white. Now, here is Mary Tillotson with the story.
Little by little, Albertville was changing and the old ways were disappearing. People did not even die as they used to in any brides with time to receive the sacrament and be pardoned for their sins. They died just anywhere, everywhere killed by trains or the growing number of automobiles that raced by on the big new roads. No wondered the buryings were often poor, hurried affairs without even a singing woman.
Oriate and her close friend, dead old Josie * were the only singing women left on Albertville. There was a time when a singing woman was as necessary as a priest. No one who amounted to anything would be buried without a professional mourner. Nowadays, people seemed to have lost the fear, the dignity of death. They did not care how they died or were born. They just came into and went out of the world, any old way. All these troubled Oriate. She sat in her corner and mumbled and grumbled to God about it. "Look liking nothing in right," Numbly used to be. It had been nearly 10 years now since Oriate had wailed for a funeral. Her friend Josephine had had the last one. That was 6 years ago when Madam Mary died. That made 98 for Josephine and 99 for herself. She was one funeral ahead of her friend. How proud Oriate was of her record. She, Oriate, had sung for more buryings than any singing woman in the parish. Of course, old Josephine was a mighty close second.
Oriate kept a record of her own and Josephine's funerals in a little black book locked up in a safe place. On one page was her own name Oriate; and underneath it 99 crosses in neat little rows of five. On the opposite page, was Josephine's name and beneath it 98 crosses in neat little rows of five. Well, they had served death long and loyally, she and Josephine. There was a time when as a special treat, Oriate would take out her funeral book and named the crosses. This one was Maradio barred, and this one she * her daughter. Here was all way who died at time of Coloracam in 1860.
Sometimes, Oriate wondered sadly if she would ever wail again. There was, on Albertville, only one-person left who, if he died, would want a wailing woman. This was Tony Fildbear, the only show on Albertville, older than Oriate. Tony and Oriate and Josephine had been young folks together. Now, it became a sort of game between the two women who would get Tony when he died. "If I get Tony," Oriate would say, "me, I have two more crosses than you, I will have a hundred." And Josephine sitting back in her chair would laugh, "minority if I get him we'll be even at them, my friend." Tony himself and all old men were pleased with the fast they made over him, sometimes he would joke with them when he met them in a church.
