Everything in This Country Must Read Free Page B

asked a question she said, Ask your daddy. And when we asked why, she said, Because your daddy said so.
    I thought maybe our poles would hold a banner just like that, with the King sitting high up on his horse. I asked Mammy but she said, Hush now son we’ve got a big job to do.
    *   *   *
    I KNEW WHAT TO DO from watching Daddy. We unwrapped the chains from the logs. The metal links felt dead in my fingers.
    Mammy had thin little wool gloves on and she offered them to me, but I said no thanks. She took off her head scarf. Her hair fell to her shoulders, black with little bits of gray. Her cheeks were red from the cold and she looked pretty like she does in old photographs. She reached into her dress pocket, took out some matches, went across to the kerosene heaters.
    When she struck the match it looked like there was fire jumping from her hands. In a few minutes the mill was heating. We pulled the last of the chains out from under the logs and one of them rolled across the floor of the mill. It bumped into the sawhorse.
    Mammy looked out the window, but the yard was empty except for the tracks we had left in the snow. She tapped on the windowpane and the ice on the glass shook. Then she took the chain saw down off the wall and said to me: Stand back.
    Mammy fired it up and the metal teeth ripped around and around the blade. She made a vee cut at first and I put pressure on the log so it would cut quicker. She sliced the log into three long sections and there was a bead of sweat on her forehead, just sitting there, not quite sure if it was going to fall down her face or not, but she turned off the chain saw and put her head into her shoulder, and wiped the sweat away.
    How long will it take? I asked.
    A few days, she said. They need them in time for marching practice.
    I saw some bats flying outside, past the window. They dipped around and went very fast.
    We bent down to lift the piece of log into the cutting machine. The wood was wet where Mammy had sawed it and I could feel it ooze down my fingers.
    We were breathing hard when we got the log in place. Mammy hit the switch and the sharp blade went along the middle of the log. When you cut trees you can tell how old they are by the number of rings, and I wondered if I cut myself open would I be able to tell things about myself, but I didn’t say anything because Mammy was staring into the machine.
    Do you think the pieces are too thick? she said.
    I wasn’t sure, so I said no, they were perfect.
    She gave a small smile and some hair fell down her face and she tied it back behind her head. She stood with her hands on her hips.
    Right so, she said.
    We took the first piece to the rounding machine and Mammy spent a long time making sure that everything was adjusted right: the blades, the buttons, the oil. She looked at me across the machine for a long time and said, It’s our secret, right?
    Aye.
    You won’t tell your brothers neither?
    No.
    God help me, she said in a whisper.
    Mammy turned the machine on. It clattered and she looked like she wanted to tell it to be quiet. The wood spun around and around and bits came flying off until it began to look like a pole. I started sweeping the floor. I put the bristles of the brush right down into the gaps of the floorboards just so I could get every little piece.
    There was a great smell of timber in the air. Mammy switched off the machine and ran her fingers along the wood and then she turned to me.
    Will you get the thingymajig ready there, love? she asked. She was pointing at the sanding machine. I ran across and got it. It wasn’t heavy.
    Plug it in there, good lad, she said.
    A little spark jumped out from the wall, blue like lightning.
    *   *   *
    WE MADE ONE GOOD POLE but Mammy said it was too late, that we’d try again the next night. We reversed the tractor out and left it in the courtyard where it was before and then we put the lock on the door of the mill. Mammy took a rake to the snow on the ground to get