Read Online Fields of Home by Ralph Moody - Free Book Online Page A

swing a scythe.”
    The blisters on my hand hurt when Uncle Levi squeezed it, and I guess I winced just a little. He turned my hand over and looked at it. Then he reached for the other one and looked at it too. “Thomas, what in God’s world you been doing with this boy?” he asked sharply.
    “Ain’t been doing nothing ’cepting to try to learn him how to swing a snath and scythe,” Grandfather snapped back.
    “Why ain’t you put gloves on him? His hands looks like two hunks of half et dog meat.”
    “Ain’t going to have no lily fingered fiddler ’round here! Ain’t nothing the matter with them hands that time and work won’t cure. Did ever you see a decent dirt farmer wearing gloves?”
    I didn’t want to hear them wrangling the very first night Uncle Levi was there, so I said, “They’ll be all right just as soon as . . . ” but Uncle Levi cut me off.
    “Thomas, it’s a God’s wonder . . . ” He stopped right there, dropped my hands, and went back into the kitchen. Millie had just put a big slab of steak into the red-hot iron frying pan, and it spluttered and hissed so loud that I didn’t hear what Uncle Levi was saying to Grandfather.
    They kept wrangling all the time I was washing my face and hands and combing my hair, but they didn’t shout as much as they had been. Once I heard Grandfather holler, “Mary sent him down here to be made a man out of and, by thunder, I callate on making him one.”
    “Just like you done with Frankie,” Uncle Levi shouted back. “First thing you know he’ll be gone off somewheres to learn a trade.”
    For a minute, I thought I’d go in and tell them they didn’t need to worry, because I was going away right then, but Millie called, “Victuals is ready!” And the steak did smell awfully good.
    Millie didn’t act at all as she had for the past three days. She had on a pink calico dress that was starched so stiff it could have stood alone, and was as happy as if she were at her own birthday party. As soon as the steak was on the platter, she whisked half a dozen big baked potatoes and a pan of hot biscuits out of the oven, brought a jar of wild strawberry jam from the cellarway, and said, “Sit right down here by the window, Levi. It’s a sight for sore eyes to see you down here again. Thomas, he’s been feeling poorly since spring. It’ll do him a sight of good to have you here for a spell. Don’t know when ever I seen a piece of yard goods as pretty as that you fetched me.”
    “Ain’t nothing! Ain’t nothing,” Uncle Levi grumbled as he pulled his chair up to the table. “Scared something terrible might be the matter with Thomas, and didn’t have time to do much shopping. Ralphie, didn’t know you was here or I’d have fetched you something.”
    Grandfather didn’t seem a bit hungry when we first sat down at the table. He only took a little corner of steak onto his plate and then kept pushing it around with his knife and fork. Millie scolded at him a bit for not eating, then got a cushion and put it behind his back. She scooped out half a baked potato onto his plate, put gravy from the steak platter on it, and spooned him out some of the strawberry jam, but he still only ate a mouthful or two. After a few minutes, she looked up at Uncle Levi, and said, “Levi, you got any medicine upstairs in your valise?”
    She hardly had the words out of her mouth when Grandfather shouted, “Ain’t nothing the matter with me! Don’t need it! Don’t need the tarnal stuff, I tell you! I ain’t sick and I ain’t tired! I just ain’t hungry, that’s all.”
    Neither of them paid a bit of attention to Grandfather. Uncle Levi was in his stockinged feet, and had them up on the little shelf under the table. He let them drop to the floor, pushed his chair back, and said, “Wouldn’t surprise me none if there might be a drop or two up there.” Then, while Millie unlaced Grandfather’s boots and pulled them off, Uncle Levi went padding up the front