M'r FATHER BROUGHT WINTER
11
They remembered things together and Aunt Freda was glad, but
I wasn't glad.
Now that they had stopped hating each other I didn't see much
reason for either of them.
I saw even hate wear down with time under the need for food and
shelter. Time like rain fell on the hard clod and it melted and left
nothing but muddy tracks on the floor where two old men stood gos–
siping over a dishpan. I got a bucket and broom and scrubbed the
kitchen floor that night but I couldn't wash their tracks out of my
mind. I had grown used to their hating each other. I had watched
them and fed on their hate. Their hate was the only real thing in the
house, the rest was just working and eating and sleeping because
those things had to be done. Now they had quit hating each other
I felt as if the last thing in the world had gone back on me.
Our land was sticky and black and still too wet to plow by the
middle of the month, but I could see the plows going back and forth
in the sandy soil across the pasture. The woodpile by the kitchen door
was gone. We burned chips and corncobs. in the stove to warm the
room early in the mornings and in the evenings, letting the fire die
down through the day. With the fire out the room changed. It wasn't
the same even at night.
I can't explain what spring did to me. I had forgotten what
green grass looked like, but grass came up through the winter weeds.
I had forgotten the pear trees but they bloomed. I had even forgotten
the mulberry tree by the corral fence until one morning when I went
out to milk, there was that tree with its top broken out and its branches
twisted and hanging down- there was that old tree getting ready to
put on new leaves. I stood there with the milk pail in my hand and
looked up at the little brown sticky buds. They made me ashamed.
