When the new shopkeeper arrived in the village he aroused great curiosity along with some scorn. He was deemed refined because his fingernails looked as if they had been varnished a tinted ivory. He had a horse, or as my father was quick to point out, a glorified pony, which he had brought from the Midlands, where he had previously worked.
He’s sitting there staring at a piece of paper in front of him. He’s trying to break it down. He says,
I’m breaking it all down. The ticket was $600 and then after that there was more for the hotel and food and so on, for just ten days.
If we hadn’t stopped on our way to the ceremony to look at the pen of black pigs, we wouldn’t have seen the very large pig lunge at the smaller one, to force him away from the feeding trough.
“Look, Frank, trick-or-treaters,” Carrie said, breaking the silence of the last hour. “What are they doing all the way out here?” “Here” was a country back road, eastern Alabama. Halloween, 1981.
All my life I have been trying to improve my German.
At last my German is better
She is feeling out of control and uncomfortable in her body (she is pregnant). He becomes annoyed: “You’re always calling attention to yourself. I have a very tough week ahead of me.”
Today I have learned a great lesson; our cook was my teacher. She is twenty-five years old and she’s French. I discovered that she does not know that Louis-Philippe is no longer king of France and we now have a republic.
The left hand prides itself on being more refined than the right hand. Yes, it is in fact a little slimmer, the knuckles are not as knobbly, and the skin is even a little smoother. But, says the right hand calmly, think of all the work I’ve done that you haven’t, over the years. Well, says the left, I’ve been there alongside you all the way, helping. But think of all the things you can’t do that I can, says the right. Think of all the skills I’ve developed.
I could share her when she was alive. When she was alive, her presence was endless, time with her was endless, time was endless. Our mother was very old already, and when we children stopped to think about how long we might live, we thought we would live to be just as old.
The book The Three Musketeers comes in the mail. It is much larger than we expected. Early the next morning there is a strange, fluffy orange cat on the fire escape looking in the window. Its eyes are wide and frightened.
During the week of October 24, 1846, George Holcomb’s turnip harvest was at its height. With his family and others, he pulled turnips on several days, sometimes topping them and sometimes leaving the tops on. He also began trading his turnips for goods and services, including: