Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas

much during my lifetime. They’d gotten a good start.
    Dad and Bud came up onto the porch, stamping the snow off their feet and taking off their galoshes before stomping into the kitchen. Dad’s face was red, and he took off his plaid wool hat with the earflaps and rubbed his ears to warm them. “It’s colder out there than an old maid in December,” he said, going to the stove and turning on the fire under the coffeepot. “Remember there was a man up north got caught in a storm and froze his hands and feet? He wasn’t much good after that.”
    “Well, what’s your excuse? You never got froze,” Granny said, and Dad squeezed her shoulder, happy that her mind was with us that morning. I was, too. It was such a fine morning that Granny deserved to enjoy it.
    She reached into the dish drainer for green glass coffee mugs for Dad and Bud and took her china cup and saucer out of the cupboard. When Granny leaned over to set down the cups, I smelled cinnamon along with talcum powder, and I knew she’d already mixed up the yeast batter for cinnamon rolls for dinner. There wasn’t sugar for icing, but they’d be just as good plain.
    While I finished my breakfast, the three of them sat at the table with me, drinking their coffee, chatting about the storm and how glad they were for the moisture. They talked about the little things that needed doing, the way farm folks always did at the start of a day. I loved the comfort of that talk. Bud said he’d climb up on top of the barn and fix the lightning rod that had come loose in the wind. Granny mentioned she’d sure like a new cream separator, and Dad reminded her gently that he’d bought one just that fall. Mom came in, and they asked how the chickens had weathered the storm. The talk warmed me as much as the pancakes, and I thought there wouldn’t be anything nicer than having that conversation around my own kitchen table one day. I hoped my farm wouldn’t be too far away from Bud’s, and that perhaps Mom and Dad would live with me, and we’d remember when Buddy went off to war and how worried we were, and then he’d come home without a scratch. “Why, we worried for nothing,” I’d say, and Mom would agree. Then I thought I was getting kind of sappy.
    Mom turned on the fire under the teakettle and spooned fresh grounds into the basket of the coffeepot, and after the water boiled, she poured it into the pot and let the coffee drip. She was taking her cup from the drainer when we heard someone on the porch stamping snow off his feet. Dad leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs, and looked through the window in the door to see who it was. The light shone through the jewel-like panes of colored glass that framed the window, casting a rainbow of colors onto the floor.
    “Come on in, Mr. Watrous. Door’s open,” Dad called before the sheriff could knock.
    Sheriff Watrous opened the door and stood there a moment, kicking one overshoe against the other, but he didn’t get rid of all the snow, because after he came in and stood beside the door, a puddle of water formed on the linoleum, which was faded where Mom and Granny had scrubbed it over the years. “Cold as a witch’s behind out there, Mr. Stroud,” he said. “Ladies.” He touched his Stetson to Mom and Granny but didn’t take it off.
    “Here’s some hot coffee. I must have known you were coming.” Mom handed him a cup. “How you doing, Mr. Watrous?”
    “I’m doing pretty good,” he replied, sipping. You could tell the coffee was scalding hot by the way he drew in his breath after a taste.
    Dad asked Sheriff Watrous if he wanted a saucer to drink his coffee from, which surprised me, because Mom said drinking coffee out of a saucer was trashy. But she also said polite people made their guests feel at home.
    Mr. Watrous declined and took small sips of the coffee, and in a minute, he had drunk most of it.
    “What brings you out on a day like this? I thought you’d be sitting at the jail with your