It was the summer after Daddy got home from the war. I remember it good cause the cotton pickin was bad that year and no one could get a job or even make a dime to feed themselves. Me and my brother Tom had to help Mama out a lot that year. We thought when Daddy got home from war things would be the same like before, but that wasn't at all. Daddy was different. People around here say war changes ya, and thats for darn sure about Daddy. He useta be happy, never had a care in the world, but since war he was always tired and at night he had "dreams", or at least that's what Mama called them, but thems look a whole lot like nightmares to me. .
Anyhow that summer was weird. Everything that year changed. Since I turned 13 I had to help out Mama in the field durin the school year so I was in summer school. Tom was always the lucky one goin to school learnin stuff, while I had to work my butt off. Just as well anyway he wouldn't of lasted a day in that hot blisterin sun anyhow. Besides he was too little, with his bony little fingers, he couldn't pick anything worth anything. Well when summer school started, Mama gave me an apple and sent me off. I hated summer school, the kids to stupid to listen to Ms. Landsberry at the beginin of the year talk about respect and how not to chew gum in school, all gathered in one room. School was always real borin, but easy for me cause I wasn't stupid or nothing we were just poor.
Work that summer was bad, Daddy couldn't get a job, maybe cause they found out he was in some kinda "mental place" after the war. He wasn't crazy; he was just there cause of them "dreams." Daddy always complained. When he had a job interview and came back without a job, Mama would always say " oh dear, here we go again, that man needs to calm his senses down." Daddy would always drive in, in our "2 cent car" hop out, walk up the stairs, through the door and slide into his "thinking chair.
