Reading practice 5
Even at eight in the morning, the thermometer was heading up towards 80 degrees when my mother put me and my brother Kiran on the southbound bus heading from our home in New York City to our aunt and uncle's place in North Carolina. Her new job on the third shift of the garment factory gave us the potential for a better life ahead, but she was wary about leaving us alone at home in the evenings and overnight I had never been outside of New York City before, so I was nervous about moving, not to mention that I had never met my aunt and uncle before.
"Now Essie, you be on your best behavior, mind your elders and watch out for your little brother, you hear me?" Her words were admonishments, but I saw the tear in the corner of her eye and knew that she'd miss us over the next three months. She stood still, arm upraised in farewell, until her lemon-yellow dress became no more than a pinprick in the distance9
Kiran and I had promised each other that we would notice all the things that were different from New York while we were on our trip. In the bus, the heat of the road was balanced to some degree by the breeze blowing in through the windows We pressed our noses up to the glass, peering out as the dense thicket of buildings thinned, then disappeared altogether as we hit the unfamiliar farm country in the South. We chewed the soggy pickle and butter sandwiches our mother had packed for us, sucking the juice out from between the slices of white soft bread and watched the green fields rush by.
We were greeted at the bus station by Uncle Desmond a quiet man whose skin shone dark from working out in the sun. He said almost nothing as he took us back to his neat white house with its red barn that looked just like my mother's descriptions of it and the pictures in books I'd seen when I was younger. At first glance, Aunt Millie seemed the polar opposite of my mother. Where my mother was all sharp lines and tight angles, Aunt Millie was almost blurred, her hair looser and her hips more ample4. Still, her kind face and shrewd glance at our city outfits showed the same deep intelligence2
"We're gonna have to see if some of your cousins' old overalls can be taken up for you. Don't want to get your nice things scuffed up. Farm life's not easy on fancy dresses and patent leather shoes and you'll both be doing your share of the chores around here, that's for sure! Now your cousin Ike'll show you where to go to get washed up for dinner."
I had never seen so much food in my life before that first meal at the farm. Collard greens, biscuits with red-eye gravy, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese—I'd eaten most of these dishes at home, but here they tasted different in a way that was hard to put a finger on at first8. As though they were from somewhere, instead of appearing magically on our kitchen table. They tasted the way the farm smelled—of the animals and the earth1. I glanced over at Kiran, and he was digging in hungrily.
The next day, Kiran and I were roused early by Aunt Millie carrying two smaller versions of what, presumably had been Ike's old overalls. Ike and Desmond, who had both been awake hours earlier, came by carrying pails of warm milk, some of which would be put to household use while the main load was put by to be picked up by a cheese-making facility in Virginia.
Ike then taught us to gather eggs from the chickens in the henhouse6. This quickly became my favorite task over that summer. I loved going out into the early dawn, the air still cool and damp and feeling my bare feet sink into grass wet with dew3. I'd approach the coop with great care not to disturb the slumbering ladies, as I thought of them, making sure not to betray my presence by any quick movement or careless noise. Then, with infinite gentleness, I'd reach out my hands rustling under the soft feathers of the hens, sensing their respiration, their warmth, feeling for the smooth white eggs and placing each one I found carefully into my basket.
At night I would take a bath and Aunt Millie would take time away from her evening chores to braid my hair. But instead of the intricate patterns my mother liked to make, Aunt Millie gave me looser plaits and even sometimes gathered them into a single tail inching down my neck. Sometimes, when Aunt Millie seemed in an especially good mood, we would condition it with egg yolk and milk, which Aunt Millie would work into my hair gently massaging each strand, working the mixture deep into the roots7. Afterwards I was pleased to see how the brittle, frizzy ends softened.
My body became loose-limbed from the outdoor exercise and I noticed Kiran growing stronger and bolder as he ran through the fields with Ike. In the afternoons when it was too hot to do anything else, we'd lie in the shade of the huge oak tree, chewing on grass stems, lost in the sweet, green taste and our own thoughts510
