Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
What’s that supposed to mean?
    April 1935

Migrants
    We’ll be back when the rain comes,
    they say,
    pulling away with all they own,
    straining the springs of their motor cars.
    Don’t forget us.
    And so they go,
    fleeing the blowing dust,
    fleeing the fields of brown-tipped wheat
    barely ankle high,
    and sparse as the hair on a dog’s belly.
    We’ll be back, they say,
    pulling away toward Texas,
    Arkansas,
    where they can rent a farm,
    pull in enough cash,
    maybe start again.
    We’ll be back when it rains,
    they say,
    setting out with their bedsprings and mattresses,
    their cookstoves and dishes,
    their kitchen tables,
    and their milk goats
    tied to their running boards
    in rickety cages,
    setting out for
    California,
    where even though they say they’ll come back,
    they just might stay
    if what they hear about that place is true.
    Don’t forget us, they say.
    But there are so many leaving,
how can I remember them all?
    April 1935

Blankets of Black
    On the first clear day
    we staggered out of our caves of dust
    into the sunlight,
    turning our faces to the big blue sky.
    On the second clear day
    we believed
    the worst was over at last.
    We flocked outside,
    traded in town,
    going to stores and coming out
    only to find the air still clear
    and gentle,
    grateful for each easy breath.
    On the third clear day
    summer came in April
    and the churches opened their arms to all comers
    and all comers came.
    After church,
    folks headed for
    picnics,
    car trips. No one could stay inside.
    My father and I argued about the funeral
    of Grandma Lucas,
    who truly was no relation.
    But we ended up going anyway,
    driving down the road in a procession to Texhoma.
    Six miles out of town the air turned cold,
    birds beat their wings
    everywhere you looked,
    whole flocks
    dropping out of the sky,
    crowding on fence posts.
    I was sulking in the truck beside my father
    when
    heaven’s shadow crept across the plains,
    a black cloud,
    big and silent as Montana,
    boiling on the horizon and
    barreling toward us.
    More birds tumbled from the sky
    frantically keeping ahead of the dust.
    We watched as the storm swallowed the light.
    The sky turned from blue
    to black,
    night descended in an instant
    and the dust was on us.
    The wind screamed.
    The blowing dirt ran
    so thick
    I couldn’t see the brim of my hat
    as we plunged from the truck,
    fleeing.
    The dust swarmed
    like it had never swarmed before.
    My father groped for my hand,
    pulled me away from the truck.
    We ran,
    a blind pitching toward the shelter of a small house,
    almost invisible,
    our hands tight together,
    running toward the ghostly door,
    pounding on it with desperation.
    A woman opened her home to us,
    all of us,
    not just me and my father,
    but the entire funeral procession,
    and one after another,
    we tumbled inside, gasping,
    our lungs burning for want of air.
    All the lamps were lit against the dark,
    the house dazed by dust,
    gazed weakly out.
    The walls shook in the howling wind.
    We helped tack up sheets on the windows and doors
    to keep the dust down.
    Cars and trucks
    unable to go on,
    their ignitions shorted out by the static electricity,
    opened up and let out more passengers,
    who stumbled for shelter.
    One family came in
    clutched together,
    their pa, divining the path
    with a long wooden rod.
    If it hadn’t been for the company,
    this storm would have broken us
    completely,
    broken us more thoroughly than
    the plow had broken the Oklahoma sod,
    more thoroughly than my burns
    had broken the ease of my hands.
    But for the sake of the crowd,
    and the hospitality of the home that sheltered us,
    we held on
    and waited,
    sitting or standing, breathing through wet cloths
    as the fog of dust filled the room
    and settled slowly over us.
    When it let up a bit,
    some went on to bury Grandma Lucas,
    but my father and I,
    we cleaned the thick layer of grime
    off the truck,
    pulled out of the procession and headed on home,
    creeping slowly along the dust-mounded