Snow

Written by John R. Mabry | 10-24-26, 1976 |

Bert's feet crunched the snow down, his tall form was a shadow on the horizon from where his mother watched. His frckle-less face drew back with aughter as a snowflake, landing on a long eyelash, blurred his vision. It has snowed the night before. His father, grim and silent had taken the horse to rown to find work. Bert knew the depression was hard, that they could not eat, that he had no shoes. Bert looked at his frost-biten toes, red, swollen, and calloused with fourteen years of barefooted walking. He stooped, puttin gdown the buckets of coal which was the only source of heat his family had, and rubbed his feet with snow; it didn't help.

He soon shook off this maroseness by inventing a game, "I step on a lot of things, so I'll try to guess what they are!," he thought. He shook his auburn hair sharply, his large hazel eyes brightened. He looked up from his fete, and smiled at his mother so that the sun shown off of his teeth. She waved, and he waved back. His foot came down upon something cold, hard and sharp. "A plowshare!," thought Bert, after all, he was in Farmer McDanian's field. Bert knitted his eyebrows, thinking of the tall corn that had once een here, its sweet smell that blew over the railroad tacks to his house, in the summertime.

Yes, it was a plowshare. Bert's long strides soon brought him into the next field, across the frozen river. What was that? Bert felt of it. It was hard, round. "A rock!" thought Bert. It was.

His stiff legs brought him into the next yard. He strode quietly, for several large dogs lived there. They were not friendly. Bert stretched out his leg again for another step. The sunlight on his pink toes made a dazzling effect on the white blanket of snow when he looked from one to the other. His foot alighted on something soft. "Summer moss," said he.

Bert was within yards of his house when a familiar voice in a tone unheard of by this person by Bert: a wild hoot of joy.his father, and he had good news, very good. He had found work, the president said that the depression was at an end, and that they would have money.

Bert's ears had to move back inches to make room for the corners of his mouth when he smiled.

Bert said to himself, "And maybe I'll have shoes by the next snow!"

For the first time in his life Bert's father smiled at him. "That you shall, lad, that you shall."