Journal Entry 1
Pauline
“I am full of hate, and that, I know is wicked.” Pauline page 1.
It is cold as I pull the blankets off and place my feet on the cold floor, I pull off my nightgown as quickly as I can for it is making me shiver, I slip in to m undershirt and drawers , then my dress. I don’t put on my shoes for it would take to long and I don’t want to wait in line for the outhouse. I look at my sister Arlene she looks quite warm and her hands are curled in the pillow like sleeping birds. I go out to the outhouse and the cold is nipping at me. When I return to the stove room it is warm and I welcome it gratefully and line up behind Daddy waiting to wash – up. I smell the bacon cooking, and realise that I am starving. While I curl my toes some of the feeling I had lost is finally coming back. My daddy is missing two fingers on right hand Mama frowns at him because water drips from his through his fingers and sloshes on the floor. Mama leaves the bacon on the stove for a moment to hand Daddy a towel. I have no idea what time my Mama gets up but I know she has time to get dressed heat up the stove when she calls me in the morning. She must get up quite early. By the time Josh has washed up Mama has put the plates with grits and a curl of Bacon on the table and hands around biscuits. I push mine in my grits and it warms up as if it was made fresh. Daddy says grace. We start eating, Daddy and Josh are making snuffling noises while they shovel the grits into there mouth, Josh is much to impatience to use a fork while eating grits so he uses a tablespoon. Mama stares down at her plate before she eats then lets out a long low breath and begins to eat. I burn my tongue with my haste to eat, my body fills with heat. I have barely time to swallow my last mouthful when we all rise from the table “ Good-bye, Arlene. We are going now. “calls Mama into our bedroom. How could she hear? She is sleeping. Yes, we are leaving now. The dark still lurks over the mill, but we’re going out into the blackness while you, the favoured one, sleep, with a quit that brings warmth to you body. You get to sleep as long as you like. The softness of your bed, while the shape that was once filled with my presence grows cold. I have never bothered counting the steps to the mill but it is different everyday. Today the cold nips me through my sweater and swirls around my legs as I try to keep up with Mama. Josh and Daddy push way ahead with their long strides. Margaret and Katie pass in the dark. Their best friends, eleven like me, and Katie has her younger brother jimmy by the hand He stumbles along still partially asleep. They most likely do not see me. Maybe if there was only one of them, Katie or Margaret. With one I may have a best friend but, but as it is , that spot was already taken. For I am walking to the mill, I have left my hate behind in my warm bed with my sister. Arlene will wake when she wants and find her breakfast on the back of the stove. All she has to do before she starts to cook is make the beds and wash the dishes. By the time she brings us our dinner pales the sun will have risen to make a watery path to the top of the sky, and I will have tied more threads then I can count.
Arlene Journal Entry 1
“I am full of hate, and that I know is wicked.” –Arlene page 7. When my mother wakes Pauline, it already bubbles in my throat , ready to overflow. “Get up, Pauline. It’s time.” May mother says. The whistle blows like an owl hooting before he goes to bed. To- whoo, to-whoo. Trailing off as he flies through the woods. I cannot fly. Pauline cannot fly. In that we are the same. Like our mouths, and eyes like the jut of our chins. Like the part of our hair. Everything about us is the same. Only not. But now a bumping noise sounds through out the house, and I know what each one means. I hear Daddy’s heavy boots clunk and Josh’s quicker thuds, and the pots on the stove clink together. The sound connects me with their moning. The house grows quiet again. I can imagine every one around the table eating breakfast in the lamplight, can smell the salty bacon. I hear every one get up from the table and their shoes are shuffling on the floor of the stove room. I hear Mama come into my and Pauline’s room “Good- bye, Arlene. We are going now.” She says. Pauline says nothing she is glad to get out of the house to go to the mill with Katie and Margaret. She will laugh and talk all day while I am here alone and cooking and cleaning for the day. I get up and hobble through the warm stove room and out the back door. I try and move fast but the monster foot is dragging me down. The cold rushes under my night dress and I shiver, but I cannot afford to feel it. I must hurry. Relived I finally open the creaking door and I sit. Only a little pee has dribbled down my leg. I am alone I know but I dress before breakfast . I put on my shoes on my right foot a shoe like Pauline wears and on my monster foot it is a shoe Josh has out grown. Before we were born when did it happen? When did it become my foot and not hers? Did she wrest a good one from me in exchange for the one I have? I should like to ask her if she remembers. Or was it when my mother named us? This is Pauline the perfect one, and this is Arlene because of her monster foot. The grits are very stiff, the bacon warm and limp. I eat the grits right out of the pot on the back of the stove, a biscuit stuffed to one side. A little coffee remains strong and bitter and full of grounds. But I drink it out of Daddy’s cup before I begin to wash up. The chickens look at me with suspicion as I scrape the remainder of the grits onto the ground in front of them. One pecks at the shoe on my good foot before she ambles over and starts to peck at the congealed white mess. Four rooms make up our house. Three bedrooms and one stove room, in which we all eat and socialize in. The house will soon be filled with lint, I think if I did not stay watchful. I reach under our bed with the broom. Behind the slop jar. Behind Josh’s other old shoe. Come out! You can not hide under there! No one invite the lint in. It rides unbidden from the mill on their clothes like beggar lice catch a ride from the field. Every one shakes it off or combs it off, it gathers in piles under beds, on the top of Mama’s dresser, and in corners, where it tries to hide itself. When I came closer the lint lifts as if it can fly, but it settles again, agreeing to ride the broom straws. Once I have done the dishes and put them away, I have used all the water so I take out the water pale and take it to the front pump. The handle is freezing in my palm it makes tingles go down my spine. The cold makes the pump slow. The sun has begun it’s slow climb. Water sloshes over the side of the side of the pale, the handle of the pale is digging sharply into my hand. While I am waiting for the water to heat up, I go and get some wood from out side and while it is in my arms it is rough and prickly. They smell of turpentine. I hit the door with the back of my right heel and it stings. Josh spend all day splitting wood on Saturday, the ringing of the axe as it thudded against the wood sending splinters flying. I retrieve them and set them by the fire, they are great fire starters. The wash bored bangs against the sink. I scrub, my nostrils burn with the odour of strong soap. My knuckles sting when I miss the cloth and scrap my hand on the wash bored. Overalls are the hardest. So I put them off till last. I will wrestle you. I will scrub you with no mercy. Then I will wring you dry and hang you on the line in the cold repent . I will wrestle you , and I will win.
Pauline
“I am full of hate, and that, I know is wicked.” Pauline page 1.
It is cold as I pull the blankets off and place my feet on the cold floor, I pull off my nightgown as quickly as I can for it is making me shiver, I slip in to m undershirt and drawers , then my dress. I don’t put on my shoes for it would take to long and I don’t want to wait in line for the outhouse. I look at my sister Arlene she looks quite warm and her hands are curled in the pillow like sleeping birds. I go out to the outhouse and the cold is nipping at me. When I return to the stove room it is warm and I welcome it gratefully and line up behind Daddy waiting to wash – up. I smell the bacon cooking, and realise that I am starving. While I curl my toes some of the feeling I had lost is finally coming back. My daddy is missing two fingers on right hand Mama frowns at him because water drips from his through his fingers and sloshes on the floor. Mama leaves the bacon on the stove for a moment to hand Daddy a towel. I have no idea what time my Mama gets up but I know she has time to get dressed heat up the stove when she calls me in the morning. She must get up quite early. By the time Josh has washed up Mama has put the plates with grits and a curl of Bacon on the table and hands around biscuits. I push mine in my grits and it warms up as if it was made fresh. Daddy says grace. We start eating, Daddy and Josh are making snuffling noises while they shovel the grits into there mouth, Josh is much to impatience to use a fork while eating grits so he uses a tablespoon. Mama stares down at her plate before she eats then lets out a long low breath and begins to eat. I burn my tongue with my haste to eat, my body fills with heat. I have barely time to swallow my last mouthful when we all rise from the table “ Good-bye, Arlene. We are going now. “calls Mama into our bedroom. How could she hear? She is sleeping. Yes, we are leaving now. The dark still lurks over the mill, but we’re going out into the blackness while you, the favoured one, sleep, with a quit that brings warmth to you body. You get to sleep as long as you like. The softness of your bed, while the shape that was once filled with my presence grows cold. I have never bothered counting the steps to the mill but it is different everyday. Today the cold nips me through my sweater and swirls around my legs as I try to keep up with Mama. Josh and Daddy push way ahead with their long strides. Margaret and Katie pass in the dark. Their best friends, eleven like me, and Katie has her younger brother jimmy by the hand He stumbles along still partially asleep. They most likely do not see me. Maybe if there was only one of them, Katie or Margaret. With one I may have a best friend but, but as it is , that spot was already taken. For I am walking to the mill, I have left my hate behind in my warm bed with my sister. Arlene will wake when she wants and find her breakfast on the back of the stove. All she has to do before she starts to cook is make the beds and wash the dishes. By the time she brings us our dinner pales the sun will have risen to make a watery path to the top of the sky, and I will have tied more threads then I can count.
Arlene Journal Entry 1
“I am full of hate, and that I know is wicked.” –Arlene page 7. When my mother wakes Pauline, it already bubbles in my throat , ready to overflow. “Get up, Pauline. It’s time.” May mother says. The whistle blows like an owl hooting before he goes to bed. To- whoo, to-whoo. Trailing off as he flies through the woods. I cannot fly. Pauline cannot fly. In that we are the same. Like our mouths, and eyes like the jut of our chins. Like the part of our hair. Everything about us is the same. Only not. But now a bumping noise sounds through out the house, and I know what each one means. I hear Daddy’s heavy boots clunk and Josh’s quicker thuds, and the pots on the stove clink together. The sound connects me with their moning. The house grows quiet again. I can imagine every one around the table eating breakfast in the lamplight, can smell the salty bacon. I hear every one get up from the table and their shoes are shuffling on the floor of the stove room. I hear Mama come into my and Pauline’s room “Good- bye, Arlene. We are going now.” She says. Pauline says nothing she is glad to get out of the house to go to the mill with Katie and Margaret. She will laugh and talk all day while I am here alone and cooking and cleaning for the day. I get up and hobble through the warm stove room and out the back door. I try and move fast but the monster foot is dragging me down. The cold rushes under my night dress and I shiver, but I cannot afford to feel it. I must hurry. Relived I finally open the creaking door and I sit. Only a little pee has dribbled down my leg. I am alone I know but I dress before breakfast . I put on my shoes on my right foot a shoe like Pauline wears and on my monster foot it is a shoe Josh has out grown. Before we were born when did it happen? When did it become my foot and not hers? Did she wrest a good one from me in exchange for the one I have? I should like to ask her if she remembers. Or was it when my mother named us? This is Pauline the perfect one, and this is Arlene because of her monster foot. The grits are very stiff, the bacon warm and limp. I eat the grits right out of the pot on the back of the stove, a biscuit stuffed to one side. A little coffee remains strong and bitter and full of grounds. But I drink it out of Daddy’s cup before I begin to wash up. The chickens look at me with suspicion as I scrape the remainder of the grits onto the ground in front of them. One pecks at the shoe on my good foot before she ambles over and starts to peck at the congealed white mess. Four rooms make up our house. Three bedrooms and one stove room, in which we all eat and socialize in. The house will soon be filled with lint, I think if I did not stay watchful. I reach under our bed with the broom. Behind the slop jar. Behind Josh’s other old shoe. Come out! You can not hide under there! No one invite the lint in. It rides unbidden from the mill on their clothes like beggar lice catch a ride from the field. Every one shakes it off or combs it off, it gathers in piles under beds, on the top of Mama’s dresser, and in corners, where it tries to hide itself. When I came closer the lint lifts as if it can fly, but it settles again, agreeing to ride the broom straws. Once I have done the dishes and put them away, I have used all the water so I take out the water pale and take it to the front pump. The handle is freezing in my palm it makes tingles go down my spine. The cold makes the pump slow. The sun has begun it’s slow climb. Water sloshes over the side of the side of the pale, the handle of the pale is digging sharply into my hand. While I am waiting for the water to heat up, I go and get some wood from out side and while it is in my arms it is rough and prickly. They smell of turpentine. I hit the door with the back of my right heel and it stings. Josh spend all day splitting wood on Saturday, the ringing of the axe as it thudded against the wood sending splinters flying. I retrieve them and set them by the fire, they are great fire starters. The wash bored bangs against the sink. I scrub, my nostrils burn with the odour of strong soap. My knuckles sting when I miss the cloth and scrap my hand on the wash bored. Overalls are the hardest. So I put them off till last. I will wrestle you. I will scrub you with no mercy. Then I will wring you dry and hang you on the line in the cold repent . I will wrestle you , and I will win.
No comments:
Post a Comment