| Show was better to havelittle that you had earned on your own than to havehandout He had worked with the local beekeeper since he was nine and hadreputation of beinghard worker like his mother The family lived off the land growing all of their own fruits and vegetables on the small two-acre parcel Mama hadfine berry patch that she nurtured almost as carefully as she did her babies and the proceeds boughtlittle sugar and other necessities Clark listened to the chickens making their familiar chatter in the yard In spite of their chitchat he was grateful for them and the income that the eggs brought Besides their fanfare meant that it was morning the dawning of another day and this one would be the best one hehad forlong time He was done milking and he pulled Papaold boots from his feet They were so big and dirty that they nearly fell off by themselves but he was glad to not have to wear his own shoes out into the shed He reached deep down into his pocket to check for the coins He fingered their round edges as he sauntered back to the house It felt good to have some money in his pocket He mused over how he would make lots of it when he grew up and buy Mama lots of lovely things He had seen her eye the lamp in the hardware store admiring all the dangling pieces of glass the clerk called prisms Someday he would buy it and have it all wrapped up in fancy paper and give it to her for her birthday Last year she cried all day long on what should have been her special day Papa had died only two weeks before and he knew that she was still unsure of how it would all work out without him Even though he had not madelot of money he was consistent and when things got bad Clark remembered how he would always convince Mama they would get better They usually did He was there when she buried her babies one by one eight tiny graves in all at the cemetery near the edge of town But at his funeral she looked so alone standing against the November sky trembling in the wind likeleaf ready to fall fromtall cottonwood It made 113 |
