" On Sundays she gave us as much chicken as we could eat, and on
other days we had ham or bacon or sausage meat. She baked either pies or
cake for us every day, unless, for a change, she made my favorite pudding,
striped with currants and boiled in a bag.
Next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most
interesting things we had to think about. Our lives centered around warmth
and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when
they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb and their hands
cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously:
feed and water and bed the horses, milk the cows, and look after the pigs.
When supper was over, it took them a long while to get the cold out of
their bones. While grandmother and I washed the dishes and grandfather
read his paper upstairs, Jake and Otto sat on the long bench behind the
stove, "easing" their inside boots, or rubbing mutton tallow into their
cracked hands.
Every Saturday night we popped corn or made taffy, and Otto Fuchs used to
sing, "For I Am a Cowboy and Know I've Done Wrong," or, "Bury Me Not on
the Lone Prairee." He had a good baritone voice and always led the singing
when we went to church services at the sod schoolhouse.
I can still see those two men sitting on the bench; Otto's close-clipped
head and Jake's shaggy hair slicked flat in front by a wet comb.
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