During the Dust Bowl

    I wake up to hear my little brother coughing in the ever present darkness. Getting up, my bare feet sink into the carpet of dust that has built over the night, “Great, better get the broom later,” I mumbled to myself. “Jake?” I whispered. I walked to his bed, the layout of the house already ingrained in my memory since there never seems to be enough light coming in the house through the windows. Through my door, through the main room, turn right, and through the back door on the right. It used to be that Jake and I would share a room and this back room was storage, but once jake showed symptoms of being sick, the storage room was cleaned out and the small room became his so that he could get better. Shoving the dust out of the way, I opened his door and slipped through the small crack that I made. “Jake, are you alright?” I whispered.

    “Sam,” he broke into a fit of coughing, “Sam, is that you?” He tried to get up from his bed.

    “Jake! Don’t push yourself!” I whispered fiercely, “Lie back down on your side, Uncle Jeff said it’s better for breathing.” He turned on his side and coughed a little more. Uncle Jeff isn’t really an uncle, more like a close family friend, he takes care of us for free because of this fact and because our mother was no longer with us. Back when the black blizzards were first starting in 1931 and where my first memories started, mom had been pregnant with Jake for about seven to eight months already. She looked big, plump and ready to burst, but dad was always worried, a few of our neighbors had already died from a sickness caused by the blizzards that people later called, “dust pneumonia,”, and dad was worried about mom’s fragile state.

    One day, mom started coughing and dad turned crazy with worry, but mom said, “Don’t worry dear, I just have a small tickle in my throat is all, nothing to stress over. Besides, it’s bad for the baby,” she said this while smiling with her gaunt face and softly rubbing her swollen belly. But dad was still horribly worried, so he left town to get a childhood friend of his, Uncle Jeff, who had become a doctor in a neighboring town, he slept on the small couch in the main room during his stay here. A few days later, mom suddenly cried in pain and Uncle Jeff said that she was in labour. My older brother, Keith, and I huddled in my current room for hours; holding onto each other while we listened to mom’s cries of pain and coughing and Uncle Jeff yelling instructions to her. Many hours later, feeling more like a million years to me, Keith and I heard the first cries our little brother, Jacob, whom later we called Jake. Dad told us to take care of Jake while Uncle Jeff got mom settled then locked us out of their room. Later, we heard dad start to cry and while I was still about 5 years old and thought that those were cries of joy, Keith, who was 10 and knew what the world was like before the black blizzards, knew that dad wasn’t crying tears of joy, but tears of the worst feeling that couldn’t be described by mere words.

    A few years later, Dad told Keith and I what had happened in his room after Jake had been taken away to be cleaned. He said, “After I sent you both out your mom quickly got worse. Jeff said that with the sickness that’s been going around, scarce food and stress, your mother’s body was too weak to survive and heal from the extra stress of giving birth.” Everything was silent for a while, then dad took a breath and said, “You know, before your mother died, she kept smiling and continued to try and calm me down, saying, ‘Don’t worry dear, everything will be alright,’ and others such as that. Then, right after that, she went into a coughing fit and gave her last breath and sighed while closing her eyes to fall into an eternal sleep. May God have mercy on her beautiful soul.” It was then that I saw how deep the pain of my mother’s death went in dad’s sand-gritted eyes.

    That same year, 1933, my older brother Keith left town for work, he said he was going to join the CCC, or the Civilian Conservation Corps, he said that in exchange for giving him work, food and shelter, the majority of his money would go to us. Before he left, I told him that if his luck ran out and there was no other place to go except to move into a Hooverville, then he better come right back here where he can help us instead of lying with the other city hoboes and their makeshift community, doing us no good.

    He laughed and smiled at me, saying, “Thanks for the good advice Sam.” Apparently, he got a job with the CCC and thanks to that, my family and I have been able to live longer than was probably supposed to happen, but with Jake getting worse and showing more symptoms of having Dust Pneumonia, I’m getting more and more worried.

    A large hand touched my shoulder and an old, haggard voice behind me said, “Sammantha? How’s Jake?”

    It was my Dad, I turned around and saw an equally haggard face and said, “He’ll be ok for a while, but he needs some water, however, with this black blizzard right now, and seeing as we are in the thick of it, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.” I turned back to Jake when he started to have another fit of dry coughs and patted his back.

    Dad was quiet for a moment then said, “Wait a moment,” and left. A few minutes later he came back with a pitcher, a window screen that we had to pop out so that we could board the windows, and a large, chipped wooden bowl. In the pitcher was a cloudy mixture of dust and water.

    “Dad, where did you get that?” I asked, surprised.

    “Yesterday, I got a bad feeling and went to grab some extra water and stored it somewhere safe. Now, I’m gonna try and filter the water to separate most of the dust from the water with this sieve,” he replied.

    “‘Sieve’? I thought it was a screen from our windows?” I asked.

     “No,” he said, “you can tell it’s a sieve by looking at its thick, curved frame so that the user has a strong grip for heavier loads. Anyway, Sam, slowly pour the water through the sieve and into this bowl for me; I’ll hold the sieve and try to get as much dust out as possible, alright?”

    I looked at him and nodded my head, “Yeah, I can do that, for Jake.”

    After carefully going through this task several times to get as much dust out as possible, I woke Jake up so that he could drink. “Sam?” He went into another coughing fit.

    “Shh, shh. I have some water for you, drink it carefully, it still has some dust in it, so it’s a little gritty.” His fragile, shaking hands took the cup from me and to his dried-out lips; gingerly drinking the water that seemed to relax him a bit more. He gave the cup back to me and laid back in bed.

    “Are you done? Or are you not drinking anymore because you think you’re hogging all the water from us?” I asked suspiciously.

    He gave a weak chuckle and said, “No, I’m done.” He gave a smile and shifted in bed.

    “You’re sure? Absolutely positive?” I asked skeptically.

    He sighed slightly and said, “Yes, Sam, I’m sure,” he then went back to sleep. Once Jake went back to sleep, Dad put the water back in its hiding space and I got dressed for the day. After sitting in one of the chairs in front of the door for a while I started to wonder when the black blizzard would let up so that we could restock on supplies and get all this dust out of the house. What seemed like the equivalent to half a day passed by with no change at all, I began to worry.

    “Dad?” I called.

    “Yes, Sam?” “How long do you think this black blizzard will be? It doesn’t seem to have lightened up one bit since this morning.”

    “There’s not much we can do but pray, sweetheart.” I didn’t like the answer, but there wasn’t anything I could say to counter him, sadly.

    “Sam,” Dad called.

    “Yes?”

    “What’s the date? I can’t seem to remember, these days everything just melds together,” he asked.

    “It’s April 14th, 1935, why?” I asked curiously.

    “I’m writing a letter to your grandparents in Washington the state. I’m thinking of sending you and Jake there where the environment is more calm than here and it’s easier to get medicine. Uncle Jeff will be going with you.”

    I was shocked and didn’t know what to say for a second, but I then stood up quickly, my chair fell over in the process, and yelled, “What? What are you saying Dad? Why? Why are you sending us away?” This was met with silence and, on the brink of crying, I said softly, “I-I don’t even know what to say Dad . . . do you not want us with you anymore?” Once this was said, I broke down crying and tried to stop the overflow of tears.

    “No~. Nononononono. That’s not even close to the reason for what I’m doing sweetheart, no . . .” He was silent for a while then said, “The environment here has become worse over the years and more of our friends and neighbors have died by Dust Pneumonia. I want you and Jake to live on, live long and happy lives where you’ll never have to worry about every single cough, where you’ll never have to worry about how far away you are from home or shelter in fear of getting caught in a black blizzard, where you can laugh and play in the sun like girls your age are supposed to and not fear for the next black blizzard to hit, and to not have to wear this ugly dust masks that hides your beautiful face.” He then put his hand on my wet cheek and I hugged him, I’m a daddy’s girl, what can I say.

    “What about you dad?” I asked, worried. He didn’t say anything at first, but then sighed and said, “I’m going to stay here incase a miracle happens and and the black blizzards stop.”

    “Are you crazy? You should come with us Dad! You’ll die out here like everyone else, like mom.” I cried. He sighed and said, “Sam, I’ve decided, what’s done is done and you and your brother are going to Washington, end of story. No buts.” He turned around and went to his room.

    I wanted to throw something, punch something, but there wasn’t much of anything around that I could do that to. I went back to my room and fell back asleep. When I woke up the next morning, it was sunny, which means that the black blizzard had finally passed. I got dressed and left my room groggy, “Time to broom out the house.” The dust in the house had covered everything. I went to the cupboard that was to the left of Jake’s room and that was when I finally heard someone crying. It sounded like it came from Jakes room, I immediately became distressed. I shuffled my feet through the dust and when I came to the door, I saw that someone had already moved the dust out of the way to open the door. Entering the room I saw my Dad hunched over and cradling Jake in his arms who lied still on the bed. It was then that I knew that Jake had died; he had died alone and in the dark.

    I don’t know how long my father and I kneeled by Jake’s bed and cried over his lifeless shell of a body. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, but the next thing I knew was a big hand had been laid on my shoulder. I looked up and saw my father’s eyes, eyes that had become dull and lifeless as well; so much so that he might have well been dead as well. He said in a monotone voice, “Pack your things, Sam. I’m sending you to your grandparents today.”

    “But Da-!” He cut me off and said, “Don’t. Just don’t.” He stood up and left the room. I looked back at him, pained and hopeless, much like everyone else I supposed who lived in the Dust Bowl. I turned back to Jake and cried some more while softly petting his thin, messy hair and the pained expression on his face, probably from coughing.

    Two hours later, Jake had been buried along with others who had died overnight and yesterday, when no one was able to leave their houses. When we went back to our house, we sat in silence in the main room for several minutes. Unable to take the silence any longer, I stood up and said, “I’m going to go pack now, I need the letter to grandma and grandpa, where is it?”

    “In my room in the drawer by my bed,” he replied.

    “Okay.” It only took me ten minutes with some crying in between to pack everything, in an environment like this, people my age don’t have much during these times. “I’m ready Dad,” I told him softly.

    He stood up and said, “Alright, lets go then.” We took the car to the nearest train station which was at least thirty minutes away by car. Once Dad bought my ticket and handed to me, we merely faced each other in silence.

     “Dad, I-” Just when I was about to say something, my Dad suddenly hugged me tightly, I was frozen with shock, but then I realized he was shivering for some reason, it was only sixty degrees outside. He whispered in my ear, “I love you Sam, no matter what.”

    That’s when I started to tear up again. I hugged him back as fiercely as I could and said, “I love you too Dad, stay alive until we see each other again.” Then I realized something, “What are you going to do if things get worse Dad? You’re planning on coming to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s, right?” Dad had a sad expression on and said, “Sweetheart, I’m a farmer, and like every other farmer here I am a stubborn old man who will do my best until the very end for my family and farm. If things get worse, then I’ll survive on through ‘em.” He smiled sweetly at me and with tears rolling down my face, I hugged him one last time.