IT’S really cold out. The floor was so frozen this morning Sister let us kneel on our beds for prayers. There are ice flowers on the windows. It reminds me of the time my dad and Jimmy were listening to the Joe Louis fight on the radio. Missy and I were kneeling on Jimmy’s bed playing with the ice flowers on the window. We melted them with our breath and moved them around the window like boats. Jimmy got mad and put Missy outside because she was laughing too loud. Then she was crying at the window, looking in. I yelled, “Don’t worry, they’ll let you in soon.” Then my dad got mad and put me outside too. Missy kept quiet after that because she wasn’t scared anymore. Mum came and let us in. She was frowning at Jimmy and my dad.
When we are at home we have to pack water from the well. One night my dad told us to pack snow in buckets to put into the tub on the stove. We all went outside, and it was really cold. The snow was sparkling on the ground, and there must have been a million stars out. Dorothy showed us the Milky Way. Then my dad told Jimmy about flying saucers. He said someone in Scotland saw one. We all looked up thinking maybe we’d see one because the sky was so clear. Missy and I got scared and ran in the house. We screamed, then started laughing.
Benny was born in the winter, in December, when I was seven. I thought he was a kitten mewing. Then my mum told me to climb over the bed and look. There he was. His mouth was round. He was crying. I asked Mum where he came from. She said God gave the baby to her. I asked her if God put clothes on the baby first. She didn’t say.
She said it was a good thing I kept going into her room before Benny was born because she was almost going to pass out when she had him. Just me and Missy were home. Missy was sleeping. When my dad came home he went and got Dr. Benjamin. That’s why my dad named the baby Benjamin.
Mum kept telling me to go pack some water in my lard pail. My dad put a string on it so I can throw it in the well and get water like Jimmy. He packs water in big buckets every day.
We got in trouble over that lard pail one time. Missy put it on her head like a hat. Then she put it on me. “Let’s put it on the baby,” we said. We put it on Benny’s head but then it fell over his face. He started to howl. Nobody could get it off. Finally my dad had to get a tool that looks like big scissors and cut it off. My dad got mad and put us in the meat-house where he hangs the deer meat. We looked out the cracks and watched the chickens.
Not long after Benny was born Dorothy came home. My dad drove over to Kalamak to get her, and they came home late at night. The first thing Dorothy wanted to do was see the baby. She saw Missy sleeping on Mum’s bed and said, “Gee, the baby’s big.” Next day Dorothy told me that the baby came out of Mum’s tummy.