me. I invited her. I didn't care if she helped or not. I'm not like Dad, looking for a mule.
I see a red fox run across the plowed furrows. He disturbs a group of does gleaning.
Soon as we harvest, we spread manure and plow. Sometimes we spread more manure after then in spring we plow again, and we plant. We pull from this earth, and Dad says there is no boss like it, none as cruel and unfeeling, like the land.
My mind flips through so many things. I wonder what Sobe ate for supper. I have not eaten. If I had gone to the house, Mom would have given me something, but with it worry for Shaun. He is a distant relative, a second cousin is what we call him. Maman's brood are all girls so they've followed husbands across three states. Dad's are around us spread out over two counties. Well, all but the one sister in Arkansas. Somehow Shaun is tied to her, but not by blood.
Shaun found his way to us. He was newly married. And I don't want to think on all of it.
They come for work. An endless stream. And food. Sometimes they have wagons piled with goods and family, sometimes it's a truck and even when they are Negroes, they look like us. Just like us and if you can't see the sameness, you're blind cause they gobble Maman's sandwiches as fast as anybody.
"Our people work," Dad says. I think he says it to keep the hard times off of us.
But Maman rebukes him when he says that. Others do not have work. Mom keeps it before us, how blessed we are in these times, but Dad grouses about the government stepping in.
President Roosevelt put many young men to work in the CCC. Including veterans of the Great War who flocked to those camps and a dollar a day and three square meals, more food than most have known before. And the uniforms are nice and neat and better than some of the clothes the farmers wear. They may only have to work an eight-hour day, which sounds like heaven, but they do a lot of good things like build roads and plant trees.
You have to be eighteen to get in, but we've known of some younger, a boy one year older than me—fourteen. We met him at church last year. His father put him out. Said he had to make his way there were too many at home and no food.
But another said that boy left camp. Homesick.
"See there," Dad told me. "Watch yourself."
Guess that kid and plenty like him don't have the job of 'carrying on.' I wonder what it would be like to be so free.
But Dad worries where it will go. It was bad before Roosevelt made these jobs. Dad worried we'd have a revolt worse than the time North, fought South.
But now he worries that people will look to the government for their livelihoods. That would be terrible, he says. There would be nothing solid to it but the next government check and where does something like that end, he says with the pounding finger.
Mom says he is too English in his thinking. Dad says he is American in his thinking. He doesn't like being called English. He's Irish he reminds us unless he's in a mood to love France. But he is not ready to serve one of the fascists like over in Europe even if he comes with offers of milk and sweets. That's what he tells Mom.
Dependence on the government will kill a man's will to work when he is given money he hasn't earned, Dad says. We could make a sampler on that one, but then we don't need it, it's burned in our brains.
When Dad gets going, and the Bible is put away for the night, and Dad has his glass of wine, Maman tells him to go to bed. Last she heard, she often says, he was not elected president.
I might like to try it, being the son of a president. But it's never going to happen unless you count the co-op or the school board.
I am nearing Shaun's house. And I feel his pain in a way I can't explain. His and others before him. I try not to. It's Joseph Maman always says has this soft heart. He's the one that cries at the beginning of butchering every year though he would deny that.
I do not cry very much. When I'm angry sometimes, where no one
I see a red fox run across the plowed furrows. He disturbs a group of does gleaning.
Soon as we harvest, we spread manure and plow. Sometimes we spread more manure after then in spring we plow again, and we plant. We pull from this earth, and Dad says there is no boss like it, none as cruel and unfeeling, like the land.
My mind flips through so many things. I wonder what Sobe ate for supper. I have not eaten. If I had gone to the house, Mom would have given me something, but with it worry for Shaun. He is a distant relative, a second cousin is what we call him. Maman's brood are all girls so they've followed husbands across three states. Dad's are around us spread out over two counties. Well, all but the one sister in Arkansas. Somehow Shaun is tied to her, but not by blood.
Shaun found his way to us. He was newly married. And I don't want to think on all of it.
They come for work. An endless stream. And food. Sometimes they have wagons piled with goods and family, sometimes it's a truck and even when they are Negroes, they look like us. Just like us and if you can't see the sameness, you're blind cause they gobble Maman's sandwiches as fast as anybody.
"Our people work," Dad says. I think he says it to keep the hard times off of us.
But Maman rebukes him when he says that. Others do not have work. Mom keeps it before us, how blessed we are in these times, but Dad grouses about the government stepping in.
President Roosevelt put many young men to work in the CCC. Including veterans of the Great War who flocked to those camps and a dollar a day and three square meals, more food than most have known before. And the uniforms are nice and neat and better than some of the clothes the farmers wear. They may only have to work an eight-hour day, which sounds like heaven, but they do a lot of good things like build roads and plant trees.
You have to be eighteen to get in, but we've known of some younger, a boy one year older than me—fourteen. We met him at church last year. His father put him out. Said he had to make his way there were too many at home and no food.
But another said that boy left camp. Homesick.
"See there," Dad told me. "Watch yourself."
Guess that kid and plenty like him don't have the job of 'carrying on.' I wonder what it would be like to be so free.
But Dad worries where it will go. It was bad before Roosevelt made these jobs. Dad worried we'd have a revolt worse than the time North, fought South.
But now he worries that people will look to the government for their livelihoods. That would be terrible, he says. There would be nothing solid to it but the next government check and where does something like that end, he says with the pounding finger.
Mom says he is too English in his thinking. Dad says he is American in his thinking. He doesn't like being called English. He's Irish he reminds us unless he's in a mood to love France. But he is not ready to serve one of the fascists like over in Europe even if he comes with offers of milk and sweets. That's what he tells Mom.
Dependence on the government will kill a man's will to work when he is given money he hasn't earned, Dad says. We could make a sampler on that one, but then we don't need it, it's burned in our brains.
When Dad gets going, and the Bible is put away for the night, and Dad has his glass of wine, Maman tells him to go to bed. Last she heard, she often says, he was not elected president.
I might like to try it, being the son of a president. But it's never going to happen unless you count the co-op or the school board.
I am nearing Shaun's house. And I feel his pain in a way I can't explain. His and others before him. I try not to. It's Joseph Maman always says has this soft heart. He's the one that cries at the beginning of butchering every year though he would deny that.
I do not cry very much. When I'm angry sometimes, where no one
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