The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig Read Free Book Online

ancient tagline might be coming: "
I can lie right down by it and go to sleep.
" But Morrie seemed to mean what he had just vowed.
    Finally, doubtless feeling the eyes of the audience in the back of the wagon on him, Father said only as much as seemed prudent: "I'll ask around." But the next thing we knew, here came his laugh by way of his nose. My brothers and I recognized one of his moments of inspiration. "On second thought," we heard him say. "I happen to know someone who needs a few cords of wood cut to see her through the winter."
    "Oh," Rose exulted enough for both her and Morrie, "just the thing!"
    Damon nudged me. Aunt Eunice and her woodpile both: Morrie was going to need his courage in the face of that work.
    Shadows were growing long by the time we crossed the Westwater plain and came into sight of our homestead and the Schrickers'. Whether or not Rose and Morrie took it as a greeting, Houdini came out to meet us at the road, barking so hard he staggered in circles.
    ***
    "U PKEEP," ROSE DECLARED AS SHE CAST AN EYE OVER OUR lodgings first thing the next morning. "That's every secret of a pleasant household, regular upkeep."
    The bunch of us, Father in the lead, trailed her from room to room. She had shown up before we set off for school or Father made his way out to the horse barn—truth be told, before Toby had his shoes on or Father had his first dosage of coffee
in him or Damon had the sleep wiped from his eyes or I had pulled myself together after a dream involving an eternal wait at a depot. The surprise knock on the door that early in the day froze the four of us until we remembered we now had a new standard of life, waiting to be let in. And everywhere Rose's gaze of inspection alit, ours following hers a bit apprehensively, some shortfall of housekeeping stood revealed like a museum exhibit of bachelor habits. Underfoot: we swept occasionally, but mopped never. Overhead: spider webs and soot clouded together in a way Shakespeare could have made something of. The upstairs bedroom, where Damon and I shared the big bed and Toby nestled in his corner bunk, displayed the individual clutter of each of us. If anything, we practiced downkeep. Damons sports scrapbooks lay around open when he was working on them, and he was always working on them. Over in his nook, Toby had a growing assortment of bones from the buffalo jump we had discovered, secretly hoping, I suspect, that he could accumulate a buffalo. My books already threatened to take over my part of the room and keep on going. Mother's old ones, subscription sets Father had not been able to resist, coverless winnowings from the schoolhouse shelf—whatever cargoes of words I could lay my hands on I gave safe harbor. All three of us had arrowhead collections; Rose must have divined instantly that it wasn't safe to put a finger down on any surface without a good, close look first.
    Still, people on Lowry Hill in Minneapolis must have had their own dusty corners and scatterings of things, mustn't they? Filing after Rose on her march through the house upstairs and then back down, we waited hopefully for her to say something such as "I have seen worse." She didn't say it.
    Instead, as her quick brown eyes took everything in, we could tell she was building a mental fist of some length. But nowhere on it, so far, was the one chore in the one room of the house that would do us some instant good. Maybe my stomach rumbled at me, or maybe I was merely determined to find out whether Can't Cook But Doesn't Bite meant what it sounded like or not. Maybe I did it to head off Damon, who tended to come awake like a bear out of hibernation, hungry and cranky. Or maybe I figured Toby deserved some morsel of reward for his overflowing adoration of Rose. In any event, after Rose pinned down Father on how long it had been since the chimney flue in the parlor was last cleaned, I was the one who said brightly, "The kitchen gets pretty hard use from us, doesn't it,