Out of the Dust Read Online Free PDF Page B

sleeping in the cold truck,
    not now. Not with the baby coming so soon.”
    Miss Freeland said they could stay
as long as they wanted.
    February 1935

Family School
    Every day we bring fixings for soup
    and put a big pot on to simmer.
    We share it at lunch with our guests,
    the family of migrants who have moved out from dust
    and Depression
    and moved into our classroom.
    We are careful to take only so much to eat,
    making sure there’s enough soup left in the pot for
    their supper.
    Some of us bring in toys
    and clothes for the children.
    I found a few things of my brother’s
    and brought them to school,
    little feed-sack nighties,
    so small,
    so full of hope.
    Franklin
    never wore a one of the nighties Ma made him,
    except the one we buried him in.
    The man, Buddy Williams,
    helps out around the school,
    fixing windows and doors,
    and the bad spot on the steps,
    cleaning up the school yard
    so it never looked so good.
    The grandma takes care of the children,
    bringing them out when the dust isn’t blowing,
    letting them chase tumbleweeds across the field
    behind the school,
    but when the dust blows,
    the family sits in their little apartment inside our
    classroom,
    studying Miss Freeland’s lessons
right alongside us.
    February 1935

Birth
    One morning when I arrive at school
    Miss Freeland says to keep the kids out,
    that the baby is coming
    and no one can enter the building
    until the birthing is done.
    I think about Ma
    and how that birth went.
    I keep the kids out and listen behind me,
    praying for the sound of a baby
    crying into this world,
    and not the silence
    my brother brought with him.
    And then the cry comes
    and I have to go away for a little while
    and just walk off the feelings.
    Miss Freeland rings the bell to call us in
    but I’m not ready to come back yet.
    When I do come,
    I study how fine that baby girl is. How perfect,
    and that she is wearing a feed-sack nightgown that
was my brother’s.
    February 1935

Time to Go
    They left a couple weeks after the baby came,
    all of them crammed inside that rusty old truck.
    I ran half a mile in their dust to catch them.
    I didn’t want to let that baby go.
    “Wait for me,” I cried,
    choking on the cloud that rose behind them.
    But they didn’t hear me.
    They were heading west.
    And no one was looking back.
    February 1935

Something Sweet from Moonshine
    Ashby Durwin
    and his pal Rush
    had themselves a
    fine operation on the Cimarron River,
    where the water still runs a little,
    though the fish are mostly dead
    from the dust floating on the surface.
    Ashby and Rush were cooking up moonshine
    in their giant metal still on the bank
    when Sheriff Robertson caught them.
    He found jugs of finished whiskey,
    and barrels and barrels of mash,
    he found two sacks of rye,
    and he found sugar,
    one thousand pounds of sugar.
    The government men took Ashby and Rush off to
    Enid
    for breaking the law,
    but Sheriff Robertson stayed behind,
    took apart the still,
    washed away the whiskey and the mash,
    and thought about that sugar,
    all that sugar, one-half ton of sugar.
    Sheriff decided
    some should find its way
    into the mouths of us kids.
    Bake for them, Miss Freeland, he said,
    bake them cakes and cookies and pies,
    cook them custard and cobbler and crisp,
    make them candy and taffy and apple pandowdy.
    Apple pandowdy!
    These kids,
    Sheriff Robertson said,
    ought to have something sweet to
    wash down their dusty milk.
    And so we did.
    February 1935

Dreams
    Each day after class lets out,
    each morning before it begins,
    I sit at the school piano
    and make my hands work.
    In spite of the pain,
    in spite of the stiffness
    and scars.
    I make my hands play piano.
    I have practiced my best piece over and over
    till my arms throb,
    because Thursday night
    the Palace Theatre is having a contest.
    Any man, woman, or child
    who sings,
    dances,
    reads,
    or plays worth a lick
    can climb onto that stage.
    Just register by four P.M.
    and give them a taste of what you can do
    and