It is the year 1930, and it is summertime, in the
heart of the Dust Bowl of America. My husband’s gone, he hit the rails and we
haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since. That bastard left me with three
children to tend to on my own, and I can’t find work to save my life. It’s hot,
and there’s just not enough water in this damnable place. We don’t none of us
complain, though. Better the hot than the cold we know’s coming. That cold will
kill us all.
My
children, they’re good enough. Lucy does what she can to help her poor Mama,
though it ain’t much, her not more’n five years now. Thomas, well, he’s only
three, and he don’t talk anymore. Johnny’s my baby, and he’s only nine months.
He don’t make a sound, hardly even opens his eyes anymore. I feel his spirit
slippin’ through my fingers, there’s naught I can do about it. I can’t feed
him, I have no milk, and we have no food.
This
raggedy little tent shelters us from the worst of the sun and the wind, but it
smells to high heaven. My babies, their clothes is too small, and they look
like little ragamuffins, they’re so dirty. Another man come by today on his big
truck, pickin’ people out for work on his land. He didn’t give me so much as a
second glance, with my babies hanging on me. What work can I do?
I
can work, by God. I can work. But no one wants to give me work. I’m not afraid
of pickin’ cotton, cleaning up a house, or doing whatever I must to see to my
children. But no one wants to give me work. I hear their words, I’m too old.
Got them babies. Got an uppity look, that one does, she won’t do. But I’ll do,
that’s what they don’t know. I’ll do, because of these babies. That bastard
left us, but I won’t leave them.
When
the sun goes down, it gets colder. I have just the one blanket, and I tuck my
babies in close in that smelly old tent, tell them not to fear the flapping of
the canvas what sounds like demon wings. There’s no demons here, my babies. I
sing to them, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.” I try not to weep as I
remember our home, with their bed and the food and animals we had till our
country hit her knees and that bastard lit out.
I’ll
watch them sleep, keep the bad dreams away. Tomorrow, I’ll find work. Tomorrow’s
the day. I hug my little Johnny, cold and still now, to my breast and I stare
out at the moon. Tomorrow’s the day, I whisper to myself. I don’t even feel the
hunger anymore. Don’t feel anything but the determination to see my babies
safe. There’s nothin’ so important as that.
