Excerpt from All the Little Hopes by Leah Weiss, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When I wake it's late and I scramble outta the cave and scoot down the slick rocks, wondering if Ma and Pa's gonna be mad at me again for neglecting chores. I hope they don't send me to bed hungry. I run through the long shadows of the woods, clutching my dead rabbit, come out in the clearing, and stop confounded. Clothes is still on the line. No light is in the windows and no supper smell in the air. In the yard beside the chopping block, Pa faces the setting sun on the long slope of Mount Mitchell.

I get up next to him and say, "Pa?" but he don't answer, and I look over at the cabin that looks like nobody lives in it. Gloomy and sagging in the middle, it makes the innards of my belly clutch. I think to say, "Where's Ma and Ruth?"

He look down on me like it's great pain to pull his neck my way. "Oh, Bert. Hello, girl," he says polite as church, "Your ma's dead. Your baby brother, too. They inside growing cold. Ruth's gone to fetch help."

I can't hardly breathe from the shock. Ma's labor musta come on early cause I run away. Labor pains brought on by her girl who don't think of nobody but herself. A girl who give her ma grief every live long day. But I'm puzzled. Why would the Lord punish Ma and that little hope of a baby stead a me? I'm the one who shoulda got kilt or got struck blind. I look up at Pa, who acts like he don't know I'm here. I hold the dead bunny in one hand and try to take Pa's hand for comfort, but he don't take mine back.

Over the rise, Aunt Beulah comes marching in a flurry, and Uncle Bud behind, and the midwife from Baines Creek that Ma don't have need for. All of em is led by Ruth, who looks older than she did this morning. Nobody looks my way. They hurry to the cabin with mighty purpose, go inside, and commence to wailing over the dead.

Chapter 3
LUCY: LEGEND

Daddy signed the honey deal on May twenty-seventh, but Mama writes the letters to our soldier men. She doesn't trust Daddy to plead with Everett and Wade to come home, so she works to find the right words. Words that won't be censored in V-mail. She pours out a mama's love that will be seen by a stranger, copied on microfilm, flown to foreign lands, and printed off again. The letters will reach Everett and Wade in as little as two weeks. The next morning, she kisses the envelopes and hands them to me to take to the mailbox and pull up the flag of hope. Daddy doesn't ask what she wrote.

The next Saturday at first light, I help Mama load the truck with honey, eggs, and extra produce for market. Our customers know our honey supply has been cut down, so the selling won't take long. We'll make government money, but some folks will have to drink bitter tea and eat cake flavored with sorghum molasses.

Cora and Lydia stay home with Helen, and Daddy and Grady are in the fields, and Irene is already in town working, so it's only Mama and me pulling out of the driveway, crossing the bridge over the Roanoke River, past the Majestic where the much-anticipated Lassie Come Home starts today, past the Hollingston Pharmacy and Soda Fountain, the courthouse where on hot days you can chip ice off the block that sits in the shade under a tarp, and the Mercer County Reporter, where my sister Irene works. A small library is tacked on back, which Miz Elvira, the librarian, oversees. We cut down River Road to the docks and farmers market held on Saturday mornings. I heard somewhere that my town has five thousand citizens living within its confines, but I think some folks must have been counted twice or even three times. It's only at the opening of tobacco market that starts in late August and runs six weeks that my town swells with importance. Still, it holds six churches that maintain distinctions people love to debate.

Our market table is in the shade, and I'm lining the jars neatly when Tiny Junior shows up. He's a hard worker with a sweet disposition but a simple mind. He won't take pay for helping because his heart is pure. Today, Tiny Junior helps me unload the truck, then we sit on two weathered stools and watch the crowd grow. I slip him a new pack of Black Jack licorice gum Daddy bought for him. It's his favorite.

Excerpted from All the Little Hopes by Leah Weiss. Copyright © 2021 by Leah Weiss. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.