Yonnondio: From the Thirties Read Free Page B

fellow workers across the street. Her mother turning down the yellow light and
     creaking into bed. All the sounds of the morning weaving over the memory of the whistle
     like flowers growing lovely over a hideous corpse. Mazie slept again.
    Anna Holbrook lay in the posture of sleep. Thoughts, like worms, crept within her.
     Of Marie Kvaternick, of Chris’s dreams for the boys, of the paralyzing moment when
     the iron throat of the whistle shrieked forth its announcement of death, and women
     poured from every house to run for the tipple. Of her kids—Mazie, Will, Ben, the baby.
     Mazie for all her six and a half years was like a woman sometimes. It’s living like
     this does it, she thought; makes ’em old before their time. Thoughts of the last accident
     writhed in her blood—there were whispered rumors that the new fire boss, the super’s
     nephew, never made the trips to see if there was gas. Didn’t the men care? They never
     let on. The whistle. In her a deep man’s voice suddenly arose, moaning over and over,
     “God, God, God.”
    The sun sent its grimy light through the window of the three-room wooden shack, twitching
     over Mazie’s face, filtering across to where Anna Holbrook bent over the washtub.
     Mazie awoke suddenly; the baby was crying. She stumbled over to the wooden box that
     held him, warming the infant to her body. Then she dressed, changed the baby’s diaper
     with one of the old flour sacks her mother used for the purpose and went into the
     kitchen.
    “Ma, what’s there to eat?”
    “Coffee. It’s on the stove. Wake Will and Ben and dont bother me. I got washin to
     do.”
    Later. “Ma?”
    “Yes.”
    “What’s an edication?”
    “An edjication?” Mrs. Holbrook arose from amidst the shifting vapors of the washtub
     and, with the suds dripping from her red hands, walked over and stood impressively
     over Mazie. “An edjication is what you kids are going to get. It means your hands
     stay white and you read books and work in an office. Now, get the kids and scat. But
     dont go too far, or I’ll knock your block off.”
     
    Mazie lay under the hot Wyoming sun, between the outhouse and the garbage dump. There
     was no other place for Mazie to lie, for the one patch ofgreen in the yard was between these two spots. From the ground arose a nauseating
     smell. Food had been rotting in the garbage piles for years. Mazie pushed her mind
     hard against things half known, not known. “I am Mazie Holbrook,” she said softly.
     “I am aknowen things. I can diaper a baby. I can tell ghost stories. I know words
     and words. Tipple. Edjication. Bug dust. Supertendent. My poppa can lick any man in
     this here town. Sometimes the whistle blows and everyone starts a-runnen. Things come
     a-blowen my hair and it is soft, like the baby laughin.” A phrase trembled into her
     mind, “Bowels of earth.” She shuddered. It was mysterious and terrible to her. “Bowels
     of earth. It means the mine. Bowels is the stummy. Earth is a stummy and mebbe she
     ets the men that come down. Men and daddy goin’ in like the day and comin out black.
     Earth black and pop’s face and hands black, and he spits from his mouth black. Night
     comes and it is black. Coal is black—it makes a fire. The sun is makin a fire on me,
     but it is not black. Some color I am not knowen it is,” she said wistfully, “but I’ll
     have that learnin’ someday. Poppa says the ghosts down there start a fire. That’s
     what blowed Sheen McEvoy’s face off so it’s red. It made him crazy. Night be comen
     and everything becomes like under the ground. I think I could find coal then. And
     a lamp like poppa’s comes out, but in the sky.Momma looks all day as if she thinks she’s goin to be hearin something. The whistle
     blows. Poppa says it is the ghosts laughin ’cause they have hit a man in the stummy,
     or on the head. Chris, that happenened too. Chris, who sang those funny songs. He
     was a furriner. Bowels of