The girl laughed as she ran after the chicken. She reached into her pocket for some more seed and flung it, her arm arcing in the air. The chickens scurried to find seed and pecked at the ground.

GIRL: Cluck cluck cluck. Come eer. 

The girl circled her little hands around the breast of one of the chickens and raised it in the air triumphantly.

GIRL: I got one, Mama!

Mama smiled, wiped her hands on her apron and beckoned the girl toward the kitchen with a wave of her hands.

GIRL: Fried chicken tonight, Mama? Ooh, can I have honey with it?

Mama smiled at her again.

After the dishes were washed and dried and put up in the cabinets, Papa and Mama sat the little girl down in the den.

PAPA: You almost all growed up now, six years old. We got to prepare you for the world out there. We gonna learn you to protect yourself, hear?

GIRL: Yes, Papa.

PAPA: That’s my good lil girl. Now, being six years old is very important. It means you’re ready for some real responsibilities, hear? I see you helping Mama with the chickens and the cows.

And we appreciate that. But you are a girl. Girls are very special with God. God gave girls the power to make babies. Y’all got a womb. And this womb inside of you is like the resting place before a baby is born.

Mama scrunched her apron in her fists. She peered into the little girl’s face anxiously.

PAPA: This womb is very special, like I said. It only comes from God. And the only way God can bring a baby into this world is if the womb is a pure and clean place. God only wants a married couple to have babies. And a woman must be pure and clean before she is married.

Papa chuckled.

PAPA: Now, me and Mama don’t know when you gonna give us some grandbabies but it’s our job, see, to keep your womb pure and clean. You unnerstand what I’m saying?

The little girl nodded hesitantly.

PAPA: Good, now, why don’t you go get ready for bed? Mama will read you a story and I’ll be in after that.

The girl was thrilled. Papa usually went to the barn after dinner, never to her room. She felt overwhelming love for her Papa and hugged his neck.

PAPA: Off you go, lil one. As he patted her butt with his left hand.