MARGARET FLINDERS a.k.a. Polly Flinders

18 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW STUART FRIEBERT MARGARET FLINDERS a.k.a. Polly Flinders She plunges her dirty old clothes, up to the elbow, into boiling water. Her mother, rocking in the corner, has lost any usefulness but goes on rocking as if it were something right and proper, while her daughter Polly bandages first one arm, then the other but keeps on washing. At first sight, such a decision seems paradoxical, we might have expected it the other way around and spend the night inquiring but all anyone can say is, That Polly sure had pretty toes! One old man says, Wherever there's a fire there's bound to be cinders and this woman who has suffered so greatly will die washing those clothes, I reckon. Told my kids to come and see the lesson. (They never see the mother who's hidden from them by her moldy green sleep in the corner.) ...