To Hell With Togetherness by Jack Stout

Author:Jack Stout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publication Consultants

CHAPTER 16

RITA

We used melted snow for water. Many times each day someone went out and scooped up snow to fill all the pans that would fit on the stove. As the snow melted, the water in two pans were combined and one refilled with fresh snow. After we had some water, we strained it through a handkerchief to catch the birch seeds. We filled teakettles and milk cartons with water. One gallon of water was ten gallons of snow, so it took a lot of snow to drink, keep clean, do dishes and laundry. We always went to bed with pots of snow on the stove to melt and warm over night. We used the old rinse water to wash the next set of dishes.

We used Coleman lanterns that burned white gas for light. Each day the lantern had to be filled. We started the lantern as it was getting dark and went to bed when we ran out of fuel. One evening I was reading a book. The guy proposed and then the lantern went out. I tried matches and candles to find out what the gal answered. It was the next morning before I found out.

We had one large plastic mixing bowl. While I was at the school, Jack mixed pancakes in it. He didn’t get it washed, so the batter dried up and stuck to the sides of the bowl. I worked very hard getting that bowl clean. I tried soaking and a little batter would dissolve. I tried scraping and a little more would come off. It took three or four days to get it clean enough to use. If I made pancakes in it, I rinsed it out right away even though we didn’t do dishes until they were all dirty to conserve water.

There was a store in Palmer called Kosloski’s. It had been established when the people were moved to Palmer in 1938 to start farms. It carried all kinds of things needed to live in the Bush, like heavy socks for kids. Our purchase there was a chamber pot. The boys would use an empty can and then we could dump it into the pot until morning when one could see to take the pot to the outhouse to empty it. The boys had been stepping outside to the nearest tree until Jack flew over the cabin after there was snow on the ground. He came in and stated that from that date forward he did not want to see yellow snow. I think that as time passed, the men learned how to go without leaving yellow signs. Maybe they stopped writing their names.

We had to wall the basement before we could spend time on the well. We were afraid the basement would erode out from under us. In February we had a Chinook, a southwest wind that is warm. This one was about thirty-eight degrees. I didn’t know if it was good or not. We wanted a thaw to clear the land

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