It Was Hard But Good

In the house it is dry and warm, but in the fields snowflakes fall and form. The winter air, wet and cold, on cotton stalks they find a hold. They play together, white on black, clinging in a pile on an old cotton sack. All up and down the wet gravel road, rocks start to hide under the white snowy load. We sit together around the warm wood heat, sitting our chairs with straddling feet. Grandmother wrapped in an old bedspread, holds a little baby, sleepy but fed. Over in the corner where the big box stood, we stack up kindling and a cord of wood. Around the radio we sit together and listen to the opera, news and weather. The light of day turns to night, the moon shines down on fields of white. I walk the path where feet had trudged with a dim flashlight, muck and mud, takes me down to the out- house shack, do my business and hurry back. We sit by the heater where the fire-light trace, the flickering light on Grandpa's face. So, I make my nest in the warm feathered bed with cover pulled up over my little toe head, saying my prayer before I sleep, asking the “Good Lord,” for my soul to keep. We wake in the morning to a snow covered day, “Keep the doors closed,” I heard them say. We go to town in a ragged pick-up truck, slide down the road in the snow and muck. Down at the store we warm our backs, gather around the heater both white and blacks Buy a grape soda with a five- cent piece, load up flour and a can of grease. As night comes around, we do our choirs bring in wood from out of doors, Sitting together around the heater to warm our feet, listen to the radio before we sleep.