shirt.
Later, when age and illness had accentuated the sharp nose and long delicate neck, she came to look like a bird. Sitting in church with her shoulders hunched up, she looked like a stork.
A cold rainy morning and we were still at breakfast, the time Papa and Verdell came in carrying a bushel basket between them, the dogs pushing through the door behind them, and laid the ducks out on newspaper spread open on the kitchen floor. Papa quizzing the boys, poking each duck in turn with the toe of his boot, drilling them on the names, and hushing me when I tried to answer.
Canvasback. Pintail. Teal. Mallard. Lila shooed the dogs out.
I remember my mother and Lila plucking ducks at a table in the yard, plucking chickens, plucking quail. I remember Lila working smoothly, steadily, with strong big-knuckled hands, and the angryway Mama jerked at the feathers and the tearing sound of the feathers coming off. They fished out livers and hearts with bloody hands and tossed the rest of the innards to the dogs.
I sat between them and when the down feathers went in my nose I snorted to get them out and Mama said to use a Kleenex.
I remember the dogs at Spring Hope, gun dogs mainly, English setters and springer spaniels for the most part.
I can recall the names of most and maybe even all of the dogs we owned over the years but the names of only three of my classmates.
Dana, Alex, Joseph, Henry, Big Boy, Bosco, Lucy, Beau, Venus, Rusty, Laddie, Cluny, Kirk, and so forth, were dogs.
The time Venus bit Jimmy Watts. No one liked Jimmy Watts, and we were all glad when Venus bit him, except Mama, who had to drive Jimmy home and apologize.
The fact that Mama’s little dog Margaret ate sugar lumps, was given scraps at the table, and became almost too fat to walk.
The fact that Margaret was afraid of Papa and sat between Mama’s feet when he was in the room.
I remember crying when Mr. Tully, who brought us firewood, ran over Lucy with his truck. Thornton said you could see her insides.
How Margaret just vanished, killed by a coon or an alligator probably, Papa said, nodding in the direction of the river.
I told people at school that an alligator ate my dog.I remember the stray dogs that crept in from the highway, mangy, cowering, half-starved curs that Papa called coloreds’ dogs, that slunk under the kitchen porch, where we would find them curled up in the dirt and lure them out with food.
That disappeared after a day or two, Mama saying they had run off, when actually Papa or Verdell took them out to the woods and shot them, I found out later.
At the desk writing, and becoming aware that I am talking to myself, reciting the names of dogs.
At my bedroom window last night, preparing to pull the shade, I looked out at the rain and saw Thornton standing in a doorway on the other side of the passage—Thornton the way he was then, I mean, not Thornton the man of today—but it was another little boy, obviously.
I have an image of Thornton stretched out on his back on the rug in my room, hands clasped behind his head, eyes wide open, fixed on the ceiling, and of me in the bed next to Mama, while she read to us from Peter Pan .
The many times, later, that we played Peter Pan and Wendy.
Peter Pan and Wendy consisting mostly of walking around in the yard while Thornton made up adventures and told them to me.
We were brother and sister in the stories.
Edward wouldn’t play.
Afterwards, while Thornton was in school, I wrote the adventures down in a book Mama made by sewing sheets of stationery together with shoelaces. We made drawings for the book and drewcolored maps of all the places we had been in the stories.
I remember holding Thornton’s hand and flying over the roof of the chicken house.
I remember “That’s mine,” and Edward balling the tarp up in his arms. Without the tarp we were left sitting in bright sunlight with our plates and spoons.
The book was called Peter Pan and Wendy at Spring Hope .
It was a book
Later, when age and illness had accentuated the sharp nose and long delicate neck, she came to look like a bird. Sitting in church with her shoulders hunched up, she looked like a stork.
A cold rainy morning and we were still at breakfast, the time Papa and Verdell came in carrying a bushel basket between them, the dogs pushing through the door behind them, and laid the ducks out on newspaper spread open on the kitchen floor. Papa quizzing the boys, poking each duck in turn with the toe of his boot, drilling them on the names, and hushing me when I tried to answer.
Canvasback. Pintail. Teal. Mallard. Lila shooed the dogs out.
I remember my mother and Lila plucking ducks at a table in the yard, plucking chickens, plucking quail. I remember Lila working smoothly, steadily, with strong big-knuckled hands, and the angryway Mama jerked at the feathers and the tearing sound of the feathers coming off. They fished out livers and hearts with bloody hands and tossed the rest of the innards to the dogs.
I sat between them and when the down feathers went in my nose I snorted to get them out and Mama said to use a Kleenex.
I remember the dogs at Spring Hope, gun dogs mainly, English setters and springer spaniels for the most part.
I can recall the names of most and maybe even all of the dogs we owned over the years but the names of only three of my classmates.
Dana, Alex, Joseph, Henry, Big Boy, Bosco, Lucy, Beau, Venus, Rusty, Laddie, Cluny, Kirk, and so forth, were dogs.
The time Venus bit Jimmy Watts. No one liked Jimmy Watts, and we were all glad when Venus bit him, except Mama, who had to drive Jimmy home and apologize.
The fact that Mama’s little dog Margaret ate sugar lumps, was given scraps at the table, and became almost too fat to walk.
The fact that Margaret was afraid of Papa and sat between Mama’s feet when he was in the room.
I remember crying when Mr. Tully, who brought us firewood, ran over Lucy with his truck. Thornton said you could see her insides.
How Margaret just vanished, killed by a coon or an alligator probably, Papa said, nodding in the direction of the river.
I told people at school that an alligator ate my dog.I remember the stray dogs that crept in from the highway, mangy, cowering, half-starved curs that Papa called coloreds’ dogs, that slunk under the kitchen porch, where we would find them curled up in the dirt and lure them out with food.
That disappeared after a day or two, Mama saying they had run off, when actually Papa or Verdell took them out to the woods and shot them, I found out later.
At the desk writing, and becoming aware that I am talking to myself, reciting the names of dogs.
At my bedroom window last night, preparing to pull the shade, I looked out at the rain and saw Thornton standing in a doorway on the other side of the passage—Thornton the way he was then, I mean, not Thornton the man of today—but it was another little boy, obviously.
I have an image of Thornton stretched out on his back on the rug in my room, hands clasped behind his head, eyes wide open, fixed on the ceiling, and of me in the bed next to Mama, while she read to us from Peter Pan .
The many times, later, that we played Peter Pan and Wendy.
Peter Pan and Wendy consisting mostly of walking around in the yard while Thornton made up adventures and told them to me.
We were brother and sister in the stories.
Edward wouldn’t play.
Afterwards, while Thornton was in school, I wrote the adventures down in a book Mama made by sewing sheets of stationery together with shoelaces. We made drawings for the book and drewcolored maps of all the places we had been in the stories.
I remember holding Thornton’s hand and flying over the roof of the chicken house.
I remember “That’s mine,” and Edward balling the tarp up in his arms. Without the tarp we were left sitting in bright sunlight with our plates and spoons.
The book was called Peter Pan and Wendy at Spring Hope .
It was a book
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