7
7 So far Pa had never discussed making a garden. He had spent several days plowing the corn field until it was almost dark, coming in so tired that he went to bed without even reading his beloved Bible. Rennie always rechecked to see whether he had fastened the barnyard gate. Sometimes she felt as if she were the parent and he the child. She knew he didn't have the strength to follow that heavy plow back and forth around the hill, using his foot to turn over the iron shovel at the beginning of each new row. Now Pa had been gone for three nights. He had gone with Big Jed and Uncle Tom to a union meeting on Brush Creek. He was supposed to be home sometime today. "I believe I'll clean off the garden." Rennie thought. "If Pa don't mention it, I'll have to remind him to haul manure and spread it over our garden, then turn it under. He'll have to hurry. Lots of folks have already planted peas and potatoes. It's time to put out early onions." She hurried through her morning chores and changed Sarah Ellen and fed her. She fastened the cat upstairs, not wanting to have it in the room with the baby, and left the front door open so she could hear Sarah Ellen when she woke up. First she ruck the dead weeds from the strawberry patch. Next she cut the now-dry corn stalks and carried them, an armload at a time, to a large rock pile that had been in the middle of the garden for generations. Each year, as the garden was worked, more of the plentiful small rocks all over the place had been picked up and placed in one large heap. Burning corn stalks on the pile helped to get rid of snakes. The cabbage patch came next. Here, still standing, were the almost rotten stalks of the cabbage her mother had grown the year before. It was hard for Rennie to believe her mother had been dead for such a short while. All that seemed to have been in another lifetime, long ago. At first when she noticed someone going along the road around the other side of Lonesome Holler, she thought it was a man, but when the rider waved to her, she recognized Miss Rose, the nurse from the Community Center. "Rennie," Miss Rose shouted. "Can you tell me where the Halls live? Am I on the right road?" "Yeah, go right on up the Holler. They live in the third house on the right. Quite a fer piece yet to go." "How's Sarah Ellen?" "Right purt." "That's fine. I'll stop on my way back from Halls'. Jimmie Hall has a bad stone bruise on his heel." "Miss Rose is such a good person," thought Rennie. "Wish there was something I could do fer her. I don't think I got anythin ' she would have." A loud squall from the house told her Sarah Ellen's nap had ended. The garden was all cleaned up, so she put her rake and hoe away in the tool shed and returned to the house. "Sarah Ellen, someone is comin' to see ye. Let's get all purtied up." The cat was making almost as much noise as the baby; when she let the cat out, it made a fast retreat toward the barn. Rennie gave Sarah Ellen her bottle, propping it up with a pillow. Then she built a fire in the stove and began dinner. She would have to go to the spring for water. Pa was supposed to be home by dinner, and Big Jed and Uncle Tom would probably stay for dinner. So Rennie cooked a large kettle of potatoes, warmed up the leftover shucky beans, peeled three large onions, and baked a pone of corn bread. She was just taking dinner up when Miss Rose returned. "Did ye find the place?" Rennie asked. "Ye've not been gone long." "Yes," the nurse answered as she dismounted. She tied the mule up to the hitching block and came in. "But Mr. Hall wouldn't let me see the boy. In fact, he wouldn't let me come in. He threatened to set the dogs on me if I didn't leave at once. 'There's nothin' to havin' a stone bruise,' he told me. 'Had 'em all my life. Just stick your...
OR
