I GET excited when it’s November because we get to go home for Christmas on December 21st. I can’t breathe when I think about it. I wish it was right now.
Another thing too. Mum sends our winter coats and boots in the middle of November. I can’t wait. My feet get cold when I walk to class, even though it’s not that far. My legs ache at night because our sheets are cold. Some girls sleep together to keep warm, but Sister gets mad and makes them go back to their own beds. Once one of the girls pushed her blankets off in her sleep. Sister saw her and came over to tuck her in. I wished she would come and tuck me in too. Next night some of the other girls tried it but Sister just got mad at them.
At home Mum makes all our clothes, even coats. She takes apart big clothes and makes all kinds of things from them. In the summer she makes us pedal pushers and dresses out of cotton flour sacks. Once she made me a blue satin bathing suit. Sometimes Missy and I fall asleep under the sewing machine when Mum sews late at night. We play under the table with pieces of cloth until we get tired and fall asleep. Mum wakes us up and tells us it’s time to go to bed. She picks up the coal oil lamp and takes us into our room. Then she tucks us in. At first the sheets are cold. Then it warms up and stays warm all night. Missy and I rub toes. When it’s really cold Mum heats up an iron on the stove and wraps it up in a towel to put at our feet. It’s nice and warm.
Sometimes when my dad doesn’t come home till late we climb into bed with my mum. She’s so warm. She smells nice. She lets us put our cold feet on her legs. When my dad comes home he tells us to get into our own bed. One time when I was really small I got to sleep in between my mum and my dad. My dad’s longjohns felt warm. I never get scared of the dark when my dad is home.
We have green wool blankets and homemade quilts at home. Mum made the quilts. They’re all colours. They are thick and heavy. She calls them her patchworks. The blankets at school are grey.
We have two stoves at home, a cookstove in the kitchen and a wood heater in the living room. The heater is like a big rectangle box. You can put large pieces of wood in it and it burns all night. Our cookstove takes small pieces of wood. It has an oven and round burners. There’s a water reservoir on the side that we fill up every day for washing dishes, and two heavy irons Mum heats up for ironing clothes. Every day Jimmy chops wood. He packs in big pieces for the heater. When we’re home me and Missy pack in small pieces. Benny packs in the kindling.
It smells real nice in the kitchen when there’s fresh chopped wood and wood smoke. I like it when the kettle whistles. It sounds like music, and the kettle rattles back and forth on the stove with a beat. Ta, ta, tum. Ta, ta, tum.