| Show Though it happened eighty yearsremember its every detail HOLE IN Dana Salt ago THE Lake SNOW Ekins City Utah Non-Professional First Place Division Short Story Tense bubbles of hot grease rose from the black-bottomed kettle and then relaxed returning to the hot liquid to rise again The wooden-spoon--an oversized oak one her mother had brought from I11inois--seemed to be simply an extension of the young womanarm as she rhythmically stirred the rendering lard The belching pot which contained the molten fat was connected totripod with three lengths of chain and hung over an outside fire just above Cox Sidwell who had months earlier was new to the but not to the the married necessities shimmering George of task hard coals Sidwell of wife just Adelia eighteen and mother work--processing the fat with the lye to make soap would insure clean clothes out the coming winter Rivulets of perspiration had throughgathered on her forehead bodies of her calico relief from tous breeze and on apron the back revealed of wet her neck circular the early afternoon weather came blew transiently from the north and the stain Her only whenportencooling her momentarily November mer haze in the year 1865 had been an endless Indian sum Yellow leaves of aspen quaked shimmering in the autumn pumpkins and winter squash bulged in pregnant orange growing season became to unusually large sizes with the extra long growing The chirping of crickets grew gquicker as nights colder and the sound of the more vociferous insects extended lamentably past sunrise in an attempt to rob winter offew cruel days The azure sky ever cloudless until today letters in The mixture of fat and 1ye now complete seemed to congealing satisfactorily Adelia removed the container be the was filled with migrating birds that made sky holding the newly formed soap from -39 the fire to let it cool |
