Winter Days

Winter was a lot of fun when I was in the second grade. Since all the families in the Dundee N.Y. community decided to home school.

Right after breakfast we would go to one of the bedrooms that Mom had turned into a schoolroom. After we were done with our lessons for the day John and I were free to do whatever we wanted to.

We enjoyed playing in the snow or run out in the barn and feed hay to our horse, Jim. It was fun to let him eat out of our hands. His soft velvety lips felt good as he gently got the hay from our hands.

On the colder days we would watch Mom quilt or sew. We used to get a little chair and pull it up beside her and say. "Tell us about when you were a little girl" She would smile a little and start in by saying. "A long time ago there was a little girl with big brown eyes." John, David, and I would settle in comfortably as she told us about how she would ride with Grandpa to the ice house during the summer and how she and her sister Lydia had to take turns to go along.

It was hard to imagine her as a little girl but she was good at telling stories and before long it seemed as if we were transported back in time running along beside her as she ran to catch the school bus and shivered with dread when it turned over in a cold snowy ditch. We learned to know all her childhood friends and could see the house she used to live in just by hearing her descriptions.

One day we were once again listening to her stories as she was sewing. She was trying to get a dress done and David wanted to have some chocolate milk. She told him to wait a few minutes until she is done sewing. She had to stand up to measure something and David once again asked for chocolate milk since she was up anyway. She wanted to sit down to finish the last seam and David being a wise little four year old thought if he would pull the chair away she would fix him his drink right away. It didn't quite work the way he planned though. Because when she tried to sit down there was no longer a chair there and she fell on the floor. We all stood there looking at her in dismay. David felt really bad about it and had to cry.

Mom got up and finished the dress. But there was no chocolate milk for anyone that day.