Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Mr. Hardly’s Money Handling
    It was Daddy’s birthday
    and Ma decided to bake him a cake.
    There wasn’t
    money enough for anything like a real present.
    Ma sent me to fetch the extras
    with fifty cents she’d been hiding away.
    “Don’t go to Joyce City, Billie,” she said.
    “You can get what we need down Hardly’s store.”
    I slipped the coins into my sweater pocket, the
    pocket without the hole,
    thinking about how many sheets of new music
    fifty cents would buy.
    Mr. Hardly glared
    when the Wonder Bread door
    banged shut behind me.
    He squinted as I creaked across the wooden floor.
    Mr. Hardly was in the habit
    of charging too much for his stale food,
    and he made bad change when he thought
    he could get away with it.
    I squinted back at him as I gave him Ma’s order.
    Mr. Hardly’s
    been worse than normal
    since his attic filled with dust
    and collapsed under the weight.
    He hired folks for the repairs,
    and argued over every nail and every
    little minute.
    The whole place took
    shoveling for days before he could
    open again and
    some stock was so bad it
    had to be thrown away.
    The stove clanked in the corner
    as Mr. Hardly filled Ma’s order.
    I could smell apples,
    ground coffee, and peppermint.
    I sorted through the patterns on the feed bags,
    sneezed dust,
    blew my nose.
    When Mr. Hardly finished sacking my things,
    I paid the bill,
    and tucking the list in my pocket along with the
    change,
    hurried home,
    so Ma could bake the cake before Daddy came in.
    But after Ma emptied the sack,
    setting each packet out on the
    oilcloth, she counted her change
    and I remembered with a sinking feeling
    that I hadn’t kept an eye on
    Mr. Hardly’s money handling,
    and Mr. Hardly had cheated again.
    Only this time he’d cheated himself, giving us
    four cents extra.
    So while Ma mixed a cake,
    I walked back to Mr. Hardly’s store,
    back through the dust,
    back through the Wonder Bread door,
    and thinking about the secondhand music
    in a moldy box at the shop in Joyce City,
    music I could have for two cents a sheet,
    I placed Mr. Hardly’s overpayment on the counter
    and turned to head back home.
    Mr. Hardly cleared his throat and
    I wondered for a moment
    if he’d call me back to offer a piece of peppermint
    or pick me out an apple from the crate,
    but he didn’t,
    and that’s okay.
    Ma would have thrown a fit
if I’d taken a gift from him.
    February 1934

Fifty Miles South of Home
    In Amarillo,
    wind
    blew plate-glass windows in,
    tore electric signs down,
    ripped wheat
straight out of the ground.
    February 1934

Rules of Dining
    Ma has rules for setting the table.
    I place plates upside down,
    glasses bottom side up,
    napkins folded over forks, knives, and spoons.
    When dinner is ready,
    we sit down together
    and Ma says,
    “Now.”
    We shake out our napkins,
    spread them on our laps,
    and flip over our glasses and plates,
    exposing neat circles,
    round comments
    on what life would be without dust.
    Daddy says,
    “The potatoes are peppered plenty tonight, Polly,”
    and
    “Chocolate milk for dinner, aren’t we in clover!”
    when really all our pepper and chocolate,
    it’s nothing but dust.
    I heard word from Livie Killian.
    The Killians can’t find work,
    can’t get food.
    Livie’s brother, Reuben, fifteen last summer,
    took off, thinking to make it on his own.
    I hope he’s okay.
    With a baby growing inside Ma,
    it scares me thinking, Where would we be without
    somewhere to live?
    Without some work to do?
    Without something to eat?
    At least we’ve got milk. Even if we have to chew it.
    February 1934

Breaking Drought
    After seventy days
    of wind and sun,
    of wind and clouds,
    of wind and sand,
    after seventy days,
    of wind and dust,
    a little
    rain
    came.
    February 1934

Dazzled
    In the kitchen she is my ma,
    in the barn and the fields she is my daddy’s wife,
    but in the parlor Ma is something different.
    She isn’t much to look at,
    so long and skinny,
    her teeth poor,
    her dark hair