Lum by Libby Ware

Author:Libby Ware
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2015-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Sides

1933

What a restless night, Lum thought as the sun streamed into her room. She and Al had stayed up half the night talking. Margaret had to be wrong about the supposed girlfriend. Only one thing on that man’s mind: his farm. He felt he’d be failing generations before him and his son if he lost the land. She started feeling the old resentment caused by losing her part of the family farm because she was a woman. Her brothers and other family members tried to make her feel they were being charitable for sharing their homes with her. She, who did so much work for them. Speaking of work, she wanted to make some pancakes served with good thick bacon and sorghum syrup. She was hungry since she hadn’t felt like eating the night before.

Since she could see her breath in the little room, she pulled on thick cotton stockings and her heaviest dress. When she stepped off the granite steps, she noticed that puddles remained. Whipped by the wind, corn stalks crackled. Was this the last year for a corn crop? Would cars be driving where the cornrows stood? What would childhood be like for Meg without getting lost in the rows of corn, tall stalks brushing against arms, being chased by roosters, and planting seeds in spring, summers spent picking beans, autumn canning? Margaret said children worked in mills. Did they get to stop work and go to school in the winter? Several families she’d known had left for mill towns, but she’d never heard anything from them afterwards.

A car drove up the wet road with Mr. Shapiro behind the wheel. She supposed he was going up to meet with Kenny and try to talk the Portugee out of their homes. She couldn’t imagine those sangers and moonshiners in some town. They knew these woods like she knew the inside of her apron pocket, but they had only a scrap of land and most likely didn’t have deeds. Could the Portugee and Mr. Shapiro even understand each other? Some of them talked in that old-fashioned kind of speech. Those mountain people could hold a grudge for generations.

“Good morning, chickies,” she sang out in a high-pitched voice, entering the chicken coop, so that mean old rooster could strut himself on out of there. “Got some eggs for me today?” Every morning was a discovery—what color eggs she would find. Brown eggs from the Dominickers, pinkish brown from the Delawares? Leghorns were always white. After gathering eggs in her apron, she headed to the springhouse for buttermilk.

Back in the kitchen, she breathed in the aroma of ground coffee. Oh, it was the smell she loved more than the taste. She measured scoops into the pot with cold spring water. She quickly made a pancake batter while the bacon cooked. The batter sizzled when it met the hot bacon fat in the cast iron frying pan. She scooped butter out of the mold onto a plate and set the table, returning to the stove in time to flip the pancakes.

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