property of the McFarlan twins. Paddle: owner unknown. I have already written it, on a napkin. I have other, real paper, (like this) but I don’t want to use it up too fast.
As well as the boat and paddle, the kids also gave me two beers and half a forty of rye. Good in case I get cold, they said. They really were nice kids. Some of them were in love.
Remember to wear a hat and eat the spinach when it comes up.
Your,
Etta.
Otto got the letter five days after Etta had dated it. He was cleaning the oven, following handwritten instructions on a yellowed recipe card—
NEEDED:
Baking soda and water.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Apply, wait, remove.
—when the letter arrived with the morning mail. Etta had been gone for one week. The first day he had tried going out into his fields, as usual, but couldn’t stop looking back, toward the house. Like Russell, with his deer.
The rest of the week Otto worked in the close garden plot or in the house. His stomach hurt whenever he got further away than that. He turned the garden soil and raked it out, then did the same the next day. Lining up the indents of the rake exactly, row to row. He would not plant anything, spinach or carrots or radishes, in the rows until Etta had reached Manitoba.
O n his family farm, as a boy, Otto’s before-dinner chore was checking the chicken wire. After dinner, he looked for rocks. Again he used his fist. If a rock was smaller than his fist, he left it. If it was bigger than his fist, he put it in a flour sack that he dragged behind him until it was almost but not quite too heavy to drag. Then he would take it to the edge of their land, to the ditch that separated it from the Palmers’, and dump the rocks there. This was Rocksvalley, and on Sundays, when they didn’t have to do chores, Otto and his brothers and sisters and, now, Russell, played Treacherous Journey there. If a rock was very big, too big for him to lift himself, he had to call out or run and get Harriet (4) and Walter (5), whose job was to drown the gophers who would otherwise dig and dig and dig their way through all the farm’s soil. Harriet and Walter would also be working in the fields, and had stronger arms that could lift bigger rocks. Most of the time, though, Otto could lift what he found. Especially now that Russell came with him. He was only five months younger than Otto, so Otto’s mother had taken to calling him Russell (7-and-a-half). She told him, you’re welcome to eat here, Russell (7-and-a-half), I certainly don’t mind; I bet it’s lonely over there all alone; but, if you’re here, you’ll do your share of chores too. Right?
Okay, said Russell. He sounded afraid. This made Otto happy, even if it meant Russell tagged along with him now, getting in his way.
Don’t your aunt and uncle have work for you on their farm? said Otto, his eyes scanning back and forth across the ground in front ofhim like a scythe, a system he had invented for finding all the rocks. Russell was walking a few steps behind, in case he missed any. This was Russell’s sixth day of helping.
No. They don’t believe in child-working, said Russell, someone could get hurt.
Hm. How’re you going to learn to do the farm yourself then, later?
I don’t know if I’m gonna. Besides, I go to school, said Russell. Because they were walking the way they were, one in front of the other, they had to say everything half-shouting. The wind blew crop dust up onto their tongues and the roofs of their mouths. Otto had taught Russell how to spit to clear it out, every ten minutes or so.
We go to school too, said Otto. Except in summer, like now, and harvest and Christmas and Easter. We can count up and down to ten. Even Winnie can. But that’s not going to teach you how to keep away a fox from eating all your chickens so nobody gets eggs at breakfast or in cake.
Well, said Russell, we don’t have cake much. He kicked a too-small rock. And I like school, he said.
R ussell, in essence, became one of the
As well as the boat and paddle, the kids also gave me two beers and half a forty of rye. Good in case I get cold, they said. They really were nice kids. Some of them were in love.
Remember to wear a hat and eat the spinach when it comes up.
Your,
Etta.
Otto got the letter five days after Etta had dated it. He was cleaning the oven, following handwritten instructions on a yellowed recipe card—
NEEDED:
Baking soda and water.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Apply, wait, remove.
—when the letter arrived with the morning mail. Etta had been gone for one week. The first day he had tried going out into his fields, as usual, but couldn’t stop looking back, toward the house. Like Russell, with his deer.
The rest of the week Otto worked in the close garden plot or in the house. His stomach hurt whenever he got further away than that. He turned the garden soil and raked it out, then did the same the next day. Lining up the indents of the rake exactly, row to row. He would not plant anything, spinach or carrots or radishes, in the rows until Etta had reached Manitoba.
O n his family farm, as a boy, Otto’s before-dinner chore was checking the chicken wire. After dinner, he looked for rocks. Again he used his fist. If a rock was smaller than his fist, he left it. If it was bigger than his fist, he put it in a flour sack that he dragged behind him until it was almost but not quite too heavy to drag. Then he would take it to the edge of their land, to the ditch that separated it from the Palmers’, and dump the rocks there. This was Rocksvalley, and on Sundays, when they didn’t have to do chores, Otto and his brothers and sisters and, now, Russell, played Treacherous Journey there. If a rock was very big, too big for him to lift himself, he had to call out or run and get Harriet (4) and Walter (5), whose job was to drown the gophers who would otherwise dig and dig and dig their way through all the farm’s soil. Harriet and Walter would also be working in the fields, and had stronger arms that could lift bigger rocks. Most of the time, though, Otto could lift what he found. Especially now that Russell came with him. He was only five months younger than Otto, so Otto’s mother had taken to calling him Russell (7-and-a-half). She told him, you’re welcome to eat here, Russell (7-and-a-half), I certainly don’t mind; I bet it’s lonely over there all alone; but, if you’re here, you’ll do your share of chores too. Right?
Okay, said Russell. He sounded afraid. This made Otto happy, even if it meant Russell tagged along with him now, getting in his way.
Don’t your aunt and uncle have work for you on their farm? said Otto, his eyes scanning back and forth across the ground in front ofhim like a scythe, a system he had invented for finding all the rocks. Russell was walking a few steps behind, in case he missed any. This was Russell’s sixth day of helping.
No. They don’t believe in child-working, said Russell, someone could get hurt.
Hm. How’re you going to learn to do the farm yourself then, later?
I don’t know if I’m gonna. Besides, I go to school, said Russell. Because they were walking the way they were, one in front of the other, they had to say everything half-shouting. The wind blew crop dust up onto their tongues and the roofs of their mouths. Otto had taught Russell how to spit to clear it out, every ten minutes or so.
We go to school too, said Otto. Except in summer, like now, and harvest and Christmas and Easter. We can count up and down to ten. Even Winnie can. But that’s not going to teach you how to keep away a fox from eating all your chickens so nobody gets eggs at breakfast or in cake.
Well, said Russell, we don’t have cake much. He kicked a too-small rock. And I like school, he said.
R ussell, in essence, became one of the
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