Porch Music excerpt: Mother Nature

Here is a peak at sixteen-year-old Rose’s life, from chapter two, Mother Nature.

Momma stands at the stove, getting dinner ready for Papa and my big brothers. They come home from the fields every day, a few minutes past noon, tuckered out from farming. I’m a wondering if it be worse than washing dishes and clothes all day long. Our wringer is wore slap out, like everything else we got around here. Crammed full of diapers, it jitterbugs across the porch. You know, that old machine’s a lot like Momma. When it gets in a cranky mood, it shakes the whole house. But that washer is the onliest help I got, so I yank another diaper through the Maytag.