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

road.
    When we got back,
    we found the barn half covered in dunes,
    I couldn’t tell which rise of dust was Ma and
    Franklin’s grave.
    The front door hung open,
    blown in by the wind.
    Dust lay two feet deep in ripply waves
    across the parlor floor,
    dust blanketed the cookstove,
    the icebox,
    the kitchen chairs,
    everything deep in dust.
    And the piano …
    buried in dust.
    While I started to shovel,
    my father went out to the barn.
    He came back, and when I asked, he said
    the animals
    weren’t good,
    and the tractor was dusted out,
    and I said, “It’s a wonder
    the truck got us home.”
    I should have held my tongue.
    When he tried starting the truck again,
it wouldn’t turn over.
    April 1935

The Visit
    Mad Dog came by
    to see how we made out
    after the duster.
    He didn’t come to court me.
    I didn’t think he had.
    We visited more than an hour.
    The sky cleared enough to see Black Mesa.
    I showed him my father’s pond.
    Mad Dog said he was going to Amarillo,
    to sing, on the radio,
    and if he sang good enough,
    they might give him a job there.
    “You’d leave the farm?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    “You’d leave school?”
    He shrugged.
    Mad Dog scooped a handful of dust,
    like a boy in a sandpit.
    He said, “I love this land,
    no matter what.”
    I looked at his hands.
    They were scarless.
    Mad Dog stayed longer than he planned.
    He ran down the road
    back to his father’s farm when he realized the time.
    Dust rose each place his foot fell,
    leaving a trace of him
long after he’d gone.
    April 1935

Freak Show
    The fellow from Canada,
    James Kingsbury,
    photographer from the Toronto Star ,
    way up there in Ontario,
    the man who took the first pictures of
    the Dionne Quintuplets,
    left his homeland and
    came to Joyce City
    looking for some other piece of
    oddness,
    hoping to photograph the drought
    and the dust storms
    and
    he did
    with the help of Bill Rotterdaw
    and Handy Poole,
    who took him to the sandiest farms and
    showed off the boniest cattle in the county.
    Mr. Kingsbury’s pictures of those Dionne babies
    got them famous,
    but it also got them taken from their
    mother and father
    and put on display
    like a freak show,
    like a tent full of two-headed calves.
    Now I’m wondering
    what will happen to us
    after he finishes taking pictures of our dust.
    April 1935

Help from Uncle Sam
    The government
    is lending us money
    to keep the farm going,
    money to buy seed,
    feed loans for our cow,
    for our mule,
    for the chickens still alive and the hog,
    as well as a little bit of feed
    for us.
    My father was worried about
    paying back,
    because of what Ma had said,
    but Mrs. Love,
    the lady from FERA,
    assured him he didn’t need to pay a single cent
    until the crops came in,
    and if the crops never came, then he wouldn’t pay a
    thing.
    So my father said
    okay.
    Anything to keep going.
    He put the paperwork on the shelf,
    beside Ma’s book of poetry
    and the invitation from Aunt Ellis.
    He just keeps that invitation from her,
glowering down at me from the shelf above the piano.
    April 1935

Let Down
    I was invited to graduation,
    to play the piano.
    I couldn’t play.
    It had been too long.
    My hands wouldn’t work.
    I just sat on the piano bench,
    staring down at the keys.
    Everyone waited.
    When the silence went on so long
    folks started to whisper,
    Arley Wanderdale lowered his head and
    Miss Freeland started to cry.
    I don’t know,
    I let them down.
    I didn’t cry.
    Too stubborn.
    I got up and walked off the stage.
    I thought maybe if my father ever went to Doc Rice
    to do something about the spots on his skin,
    Doc could check my hands too,
    tell me what to do about them.
    But my father isn’t going to Doc Rice,
    and now
I think we’re both turning to dust.
    May 1935

Hope
    It started out as snow,
    oh,
    big flakes
    floating
    softly,
    catching on my sweater,
    lacy on the edges of my sleeves.
    Snow covered the dust,
    softened the
    fences,
    soothed the parched lips
    of the land.
    And then it