THEY began with setting the home in order for the day, so that it might already be industrious when the sun climbed first the invisible horizon and then the branches of the dark trees. Fill the stove box with wood. Fill the milk pail with milk. (How that pail clanking against George's leg as he crosses the yard splits the seamless night, wakes the other children, who sniffle and yawn and root deeper into their warm beds, dreading the cold air and morning chores. Mother will find Marjorie sitting up in bed and wheezing. Darla will open her eyes and say, The sun's late. The sun's late! I'm sure it was up earlier yesterday! Mummy! Something's wrong! Joe will be found with a foot in the wrong leg of his overalls, grinning and asking for pancakes and maple syrup, his favorite meal.) Fetch the water. Make a fire. Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it?
