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Winter
Frost,
the spring enemy, now put an end to the already spent garden. Overnight
it made silver all the masses of weeds and froze stiff the collards
and kale, making them ready to eat. Even the turnip tops benefited
from a bit of frost bite. The days grew shorter and shorter. Aunt
Merica gradually lengthened her night's sleep, making the fire in
the kitchen stove minutes later and later so as not to get too far
behind the sunrise. Daddy, as well, shortened his work day to conform
to the reduced daylight. The farmers around us felt less change.
We could lie in bed in the cold dark of the morning and hear them
out calling the cows, yelling to the dog, trying to get the herd
into the barn for the year-round same-milking routine designed to
keep up the flow of milk. Our old cow might drip a bit and the two
hogs might grunt determinedly but no drastic harm was done our food
supply by our growing delays in getting up.
As
the winter advanced, Daddy's work drew to a stop. In the bitter
cold he could not put up a house. He could not cover a silo. He
could not even do finishing work inside an unheated house. Unless
he went to Roanoke or some far away city to work inside a heated
building, Daddy was home all day. He took over the feeding of
the cow, the chickens and the hogs. He even gathered the eggs.
He read us stories out of magazines, skipping words he said we
shouldn't know. He carved a wooden man-doll for Joe since Joe
resented me having all girl dolls and he had no boy dolls.
Aunt
Merica no longer could sit outside the cellar, there at the milk
bench, to churn the butter. The churning took place in the kitchen
once each week. Gradually the cow was going dry which meant that
for some long weeks we would have no milk. Aunt Merica stored
butter in crocks of salt water in the cellar to tide us over the
dry spell. Mama arranged to get milk from a farmer until our cow
came fresh but we never seemed to have as much as when our cow
was milked.
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