Sylvia's Farm by Sylvia Jorrin Read Free Book Online Page A

in the news, Grandmumsiedo,” he says. “I read about it in the news!” Will he remember seeing me with my Weatherbee rifle and my dog Steele taking the sheep up the hill to the pasture? Will the stories he’s read and the things he’s seen blend fact and imagination in his mind about his grandmother, turning me into something a little larger than life, or distilling his memories of me into an essence rather than a diluted everyday self?
    I remember my grandfather’s bushy mustache, which I encountered when he stretched out his arms and bent down to kiss me, and my mother calling out, “Pa, don’t kiss her, you’ll scratch her face,” and I not wanting to hurt his feelings, running even faster to him, all the while knowing how scratchy that red brush on his face was going to be.
    I remember how crystal clear and cold the well water was that came from the pump when he drew me a glass, and how I followed him in the fields while he dug potatoes, picking up the tiny ones left behind, and the starburst of crinkles around his smiling eyes when he showed Arnold and Henry and me the baby chickens in the barn, holding them in his hands.
    But what surprises me so is to realize that I am exactly the sameperson I was when I was a little girl. The memory of the wall and my brother and cousin and the snake exists within me as I am now. It’s hard to explain, but the most simple way is to say how surprised I am to realize I was only six on the day of the snake. Grandpa died when I was seven, and the farm was gone shortly after that. I am exactly the same inside, planting potatoes today as I was picking up those tiny ones next to Grandpa when I was six.
    My grandson Mikhael is now older than I was when my grandfather died. He visits here less often than I visited the farm, lives here when he does rather than being whisked away in the great black Buick, when Sunday afternoon came to an end. I wonder what of my life here he will incorporate into himself, both memory and myth, and what traces of my grandfather and grandmother and great-grandparents shall remain with him and become alive in him. Will the kind of living memory of Grandpa and Nelly and the gun and the fox and the chickens that I never could have witnessed happening become in Mikhael a memory, reality intermingling with images from the stories I write to create a picture of me and Steele and the Weatherbee and the coyote and the sheep, my back to him, my face to the side, smiling, looking down at the dog, my rifle under my arm, walking up to the hill?

THE MAPLE LEAF
    A WEEK OR two ago, while driving along Route 10 in the early morning on my way to the village, I saw a single leaf on a maple tree had turned red. My heart stopped and panic filled my soul. Then just as suddenly, I realized that it was quite premature, for that tree had been slowly dying for quite some time, and it was not inappropriate to have a red leaf or two. I tried to dismiss the dread of an unprepared-for winter from my heart.
    My daughter Justine and grandson Mikhael were here for all of last week. For a total of nine wonderful days, Justine and I worked hard on the carriage house and the gardens, organizing Mikhael’s room, which had been for too long an ironing and laundry room, painted a great span of picket fence, made nine afternoon teas and nine dinners, twelve loaves of bread, numerous jars of jam, and in general added to the welfare and well-being of Greenleaf and increased the treasure of family memories. Justine did an incredible piece of artwork, enhancing the house. She is a decorative painter by trade and painted a series of leather-bound books appearing as if they were real in a corner of the living room. In other words I was, for a little more than a week, totally distracted from any anticipation of not being ready for winter.
    I went to Cooperstown with a friend this week and there they were and it was. “They” were a handful of orange and