Our neighbor’s house,
where I saw Pattress and the boy,
is long and low, and snuggled into the snow.
There’s also a garage that’s twice as high as the house.
Old cars and trucks and propane tanks
lie around the yard like lazy farm animals.
A mailbox sits on a post at the end of the driveway,
with DELL stenciled in white letters. Whenever I see it,
I sing “The Farmer in the Dell” in my head.
The man who lives there doesn’t look like a farmer,
and I never see a wife or a cow, but I call him
Farmer Dell.
Farmer Dell always wears the same thing—
green work pants, a plaid wool jacket buttoned to his neck,
and work boots. If it’s really cold, he wears a red-checkered hat
with the flaps over his ears.
Pattress is always with him,
and sometimes when Papa and I drive to school,
she’s sitting at the garage door.
But I haven’t seen that boy again.
Sometimes Farmer Dell is driving a backhoe,
clearing snow in the yard. In the afternoon
another car or truck will be lying in the nest he made.
Sometimes he’s walking to his mailbox
or standing beside it.
And sometimes he’s pushing a snowblower
down his driveway.
The snow cascades into a perfect trim,
like piping on a birthday cake.
Every time we pass by our neighbor,
Papa waves to him.
But no matter what Farmer Dell is doing,
he never waves back.
Each time he doesn’t wave back,
my mouth goes dry.
This morning, I ask, “Why?”
Papa says, “Maybe he can’t see very well.
Or maybe he doesn’t like us.”
That is why my mouth goes dry.
“But he doesn’t even know us.”
Papa shifts his hands on the steering wheel. “You’re right, Meems—
he doesn’t . . . yet.”
And then the spit comes back into my mouth
because even if Mr. Dell doesn’t like us,
Papa said the words,
so they don’t scare me as much.
Outside the car, light and dark and gray all stream by,
and I think, Drip, drip, drip.