TODAY we shucked corn after school. Sister Theo told us to line up on each side of two long tables outside the kitchen. Then Sister Cook sent out some big boxes of corn and we had to pull off the outer skins and corn silk. That’s what shucking is, peeling corn. We put the corn and the skins in different boxes. When Sister wasn’t looking one of the girls took a bite from the raw corn. Then she passed the corn down the line so we all got a bite. It tasted sweet and juicy. Somebody hid the cobs in the big garbage can filled with corn skins.
Then we all started to get happy, even the big girls. We started joking and laughing like Mum and Aunt Mamie and Yay-yah do when they’re cleaning berries or fish together at home. They tell stories and laugh all day while they’re working. Sometimes they have to work all night when the fish are running, and still they stay jolly and happy. Dad and Uncle Les bring in lots of fish. Mum cans the fish or dries them on little wooden racks in the sun with a small fire underneath to keep bees off. She puts some sockeye in a crock and salts it.
At home I shuck corn for my mum when she’s cooking for my dad’s haying crew. There’s ten to twenty workers, some with families. They travel by team horses and wagons. We used to too, before Dad got his truck.
One time when my dad was putting up the hay, we had all our wagons and tents in a circle up in the hills above the ranch. Mum cooked for everybody, and we all pitched in and helped. Me and Missy and Benny shucked corn. Dorothy peeled carrots and potatoes. Dad and Jimmy packed water from the creek. Some of the ladies helped Mum cook and tend fire. When the food was ready we ate on tables made of boards. We used logs rolled over as benches. There was lots of talking and laughing, most of it in Indian.
When it got dark some of us kids started playing Hide and Go Seek. That’s when I decided to ride the wagon wheel. One family was just moving off to camp a little further down the hill. I grabbed a spoke on their back wagon wheel and hung on as it moved up and around.
“Hold on!” yelled my dad. They stopped the horses, and my dad came running over. That’s when I got scared. He told me not to play with the wagon wheels because I might get my head crushed. Mum came over and told all the kids it was time for bed anyway. She made a bed out of fir branches in the back of the wagon for me and Missy and Benny. Then we slept under the stars in warm blankets, listening to Dad and his friends tell stories around the campfire.
You could smell the clay dust in the air, and the fresh cut hay, and the horses and campfire and the wild sage all around us in the hills. Then the coyotes started yapping. Usually we get spooked when we hear them. But this time with everybody camping around us the coyotes sounded friendly. Almost like they were laughing.