Hardscrabble by Sandra Dallas

Author:Sandra Dallas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781585363759
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Published: 2018-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

The service was short because of the cold. People drank the coffee and ate a little of the cakes people had brought. Although many of the homesteaders were as poor as the Martins, they had all contributed something to the funeral—cake, soup, dried-apple pie, corn bread, a jug of buttermilk. But they ate only a little of the food. They knew it was for the Martins, who would be too caught up in their grief to think about meals. Then, because of the chill and because there wasn’t room in the soddy for everyone who had crowded in to eat and keep warm, they left.

The Hansons were the last to go. That was because Mrs. Hanson had told one of her boys to milk June, the Martins’ cow. “You got enough else to do without the milking,” she told Papa.

The Martins and Lizzie stood outside, watching the Hansons’ wagon go down the road, then listening to it creak and groan after they could no longer see it.

“I judged her harshly. I was wrong,” Mama said. “It is a lesson to me.”

“Sometimes people surprise you—for the better,” Lizzie said. Then she added, “It’s time for me to go, too.”

“No, stay, please,” Mama told her. “Stay for supper.” “Your family should be alone.”

“You are a part of our family.”

Later Belle asked Lizzie, “What did Mrs. Hanson mean when she said it’s a hardscrabble life? You said it too, once, the day we met you.”

“It means difficult,” Lizzie explained. “You have to work hard to make it out here. Life isn’t easy. You’ve already learned that. The land itself is hardscrabble—tough and dry as a board. And it has no mercy. Sometimes things are so rough that you want to give up, but you don’t. You keep going, and you know what, Belle? It’s worth it. I’ve learned that. So has your father. And maybe you have, too. I hope Carrie and your mother do one day. Things can be as dark as night, but there is always the yellow light of dawn. I think of the yellow light as a time of hope.”

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