That+Book+Woman

THAT BOOK WOMAN
 * My folks and me-- we live way up as up can get.
 * But I am the oldest boy, and I can help Pap with the plowing and I can fetch the sheep when they take a-wandering.
 * The readenest child you ever did see-- that's what he says.
 * I was not born to sit so stoney-still a staring at some chicken scratch.
 * And even she can hardly spread her wings and fly.
 * So now she aims to school us herself.
 * But me, I am no scholar boy.
 * That's why I am the first to hear the clippitty-clop and spy the sorrel mare-- red as clay.
 * i am the first to know the rider is no man at all, but a lady wearing britches for all the world to see.
 * A hard day's ride and all for naught, I reckon.
 * For is she aims to sell her wares just like the tinker- man who travels 'round with posts and pans and such, it's but a plain and simple fact, we have no greenbacks here, no shiny coins to spend.
 * A poke of berries for one book.
 * My hands double fist behind my back.
 * I yearn to speak, but daren't.
 * To my surprise that lady shakes her head real firm.
 * She will not take a poke of berries nor a mess of greens nor any thing he names to trade.
 * These books are free, as free as air!
 * But here she'll come right through the rain and fog and cold.
 * That horse of hers sure must be brave, I reckon.
 * So here we sit tucked 'round the fire, no thought to howdy-do's this day.
 * Why, even critters of the wild will keep a-hid come snow like this.
 * But sakes alive-- we hear a tap tap tap upon the window-glass.
 * She makes her trade right through the crack to keep us folks from catching cold.
 * My horse will see me home, she says.
 * And thoughts they go a-swirling 'round inside my head, just like the whirly-flakes outside our door.
 * it's not the horse alone that's brave, I reckon, but the rider, too.
 * And all at once I yearn to know what makes her risk catching cold, or worse.
 * She does not laugh or even tease, but makes a place, and quiet-like, we start to read.
 * THis year the signs they all foretold of deepest snow, of cold eternal.
 * Not much, I know, for all your trouble- she says.
 * PHYSICAL CLUE Recipe for berry pie
 * Wish there was something I could gift you too.
 * Just chicken scratch, I used to figure, but now I see what's truly there, and I read a little out.
 * That's gift enough, she says, and smiles so big, it makes me smile right back.
 * to show their gratitude for what came "free as air", a family might make a gift from what little they had
 * While there were a few men among them, the jobs were mainly filled by women, in a time when most people felt that "a woman's work was in the home".
 * they were remarkable in their resilience and their dedication.
 * In Kentucky, creek beds and trails eventually became roads.