A PRAIRIE MOTHER, Page 1

My mother's small feet keep the treadle moving quickly. I sit on the wooden plank floor watching this wonderful machine sew its way through the sturdy cotton fabric that she has recycled from the twelve one hundred pound sacks of flour that once held our year's supply for baking bread. She pauses only to remove the 14 loaves of bread from the wood stove oven. Breadmaking is repeated several times a week. The hum of her Singer sewing machine continues to fashion the underwear for her five children. I am number five, the eldest, a son will soon be thirteen. She hopes there will be enough fabric for hemming some needed dish towels. The old towels will soon be needed for diapers. Another baby will arrive the day after Christmas, 1927.

My three brothers and a sister, two years older than me will soon be walking the mile home from our one room prairie school. Our father will return from delivering a load of wheat by horse and wagon to one of the two elevators in Orion, some ten miles distance. Her mind is also on gathering eggs needed for preparing supper, first counting out a dozen to trade in at the grocery store in the town. The eggs with several pounds of butter she churned the day before will also be taken to the town grocery store for credit to buy cocoa, one of the few things she cannot grow in her large garden. There is enough milk to make up a kettle of cocoa, a favorite drink on a cool fall day when the children return from school. At three years of age I am not much help but follow her around the yard and pet our black border collie. With no refrigerator she keeps the extra milk for supper in a bucket in our unheated entrance shed. Milking our three cows can wait until after supper.