MY FATHER BROUGHT WINTER
Mary King
THAT WINTER
I used to lie awake and see the house as if it were
a long way off, as if I were looking down on it. It squatted on the
fields like .a spider. The room where the fire burned all night was the
spider's body, the stove, its heart. The other rooms were its legs. The
legs seemed frozen and dead but they weren't dead, because through
the partition I could hear Bran snoring, I could hear my father
breathing, I could hear Aunt Freda groaning in her sleep. I used
to wonder what we were all waiting for.
Aunt Freda and Uncle Bran were my father's brother and sister.
They had a farm near Duncanville. When I got out of high school
and couldn't find a job they wrote me to come stay with them. Aunt
Freda had broken her hip and was still in bed. She said I could help
in the house until I had time to look around for a job. Jobs were
pretty scarce and it was hard for a fellow without any experience to
find one. I wanted to go to college but I didn't have any money and
I didn't know anybody.·
It
was November when I went to the farm. It wasn't so bad at
first. We were four miles from town. I was handy around a house.
Working my way through high school 1'd learned to do all sorts of
odd jobs. They had a couple of cows, and Bran taught me to milk
and how to skim the cream and make the butter. He had been doing
those things, as well as the field work, since Aunt Freda got laid up.
They traded the butter for groceries and kerosc::ne and matches. Some–
thing was always happening to the crops: too much rain, not enough
rain, caterpillars, or a freeze. They never made more than just enough
to live on and pay the taxes, but they had food to eat and a place
to sleep.
When I finished the work in the house I helped Bran in the
field. I helped him cut sorghum. We tied the sorghum into little
shocks like corn shocks, and when it dried we stacked it in a pile be–
hind the barn for winter feed for the cows.
It
was good to cut. The
cane knife felt good in my hand. I kept
it
sharp as a razor. It cut
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