The Well and the Mine Read Online Free PDF Page A

and pulling on her shoes with the curling rags still sticking out of her head. “Want me to get the eggs, Mama?”
    “You eat your breakfast and get your brother ready. We’ll see about them eggs after that’s all done.” I knew I’d have time to gather them before they finished up.
    She looked at me sideways. “You eat yours with Papa?”
    “I had all I wanted.”
    I headed out to the cow. She’d be suffering if I didn’t get to her before proper sunrise. The sky was already touched with pink, but I stopped at the chickens to throw them a handful of feed. Moses whipped her head around to greet me, rumbling deep in her throat. That signaled a bad mood, and I gave a wide berth as I grabbed the stool and approached her from the side. After a little cooing and stroking, she seemed calmer. I rocked forward on the stool, unevenly balanced on its three legs so you could flip backward if the cow was more ornery than you thought. She stayed still, and I pulled the pail under her udders. She was heavy with milk, and I welcomed the chore, the peace and routine of it. There’s a rhythm to good milking, like stitching at the Singer. Your fingers settle in to do the work, and your mind purely floats away.
    When Virgie was seven and Tess just a toddler, I’d been run to death trying to take care of the two of them, plus I was getting rounder and rounder every day with Jack. Tess had the croup, and I had to go feed the animals. So I had Virgie sit in the rocking chair pulled right up close to the fire, and I told her to hold Tess and not to move. I said, “She can’t get cold, now. She’s got to stay warm, so you don’t move from this fire. Don’t you move a bit.”
    By the time I came back, she’d baked them both good. Faces red as a sunburn. Tears in Virgie’s eyes, and when I started to fuss at her, she said, “You told me not to let her get cold, Mama. You told me not to move.”
    It’s funny—you’d think with that porcelain doll face, she’d be a selfish one. But Virgie’d lay down on a fire-ant hill if it’d help us, especially the younger ones. Ever since Tess was born, she’s been like that. Like one look at those mewling little faces woke something in her that tied her to them for good.

    Albert I CRANKED UP THE MODEL T, SLID ONTO THAT ALMOST-LEATHER seat, threw my coveralls and boots and cap on the floor. Every morning I made the drive to work I was glad for it. I watched my parents scratch and claw in the dirt in a little shack on land the Tennessee Company owned and promised myself and God it’d never be me, with my family and my home at the mercy of the same grabbing hands that decided my paycheck. To be a man, you need your own home, not company-owned land. Need your own land for crops and a few animals so strike or no, you’ve got some sureness of food. Built the house with my own hands, and pulled in every favor I was owed from brothers and friends. Always wanted to add a second story, but never seemed to be any extra.
    I didn’t bother closing the window flaps unless it was raining—I liked the feel of the sunrise to hit me on my face. I just barely got to see a bit of pink in the sky before I headed down No. 11. Those drives to work, with the bounces from the ruts in the road, cool smell of the wet grass, and the taste of sorghum still on my tongue, was the best time I had to myself. And usually I’d give somebody a lift, so it wasn’t really to myself. Then again, I wasn’t friends with many big talkers. Wished it took me half an hour to get to the mine instead of fifteen minutes. I’d drive the back way, keeping out of town and its waking-up sounds, just rolling through the almost-dark, trees on either side. I didn’t care much for town at all, to be honest, not like my girls, who were always wanting to go for penny candy or get a soda for a treat. Too much all crowded together for my taste.
    Jonah was walking by the side of the road not a quarter mile from the site, so I stomped the