The Clothesline

“Get your lazy tail out from in front of that damned television and hang these out on the clothesline. I wish the last television ever made was in the middle of hell swamp.”

I picked up the basket and pushed open the back door. A cold wind hit me. I balanced the heavy basket of wet clothes against my belly as I crabbed-stepped down the back steps. The diapers I’d hung out earlier were frozen stiff as a board. I moved the clothespin bag to an empty line and reached into the basket for the first piece of wet clothes. My chapped, red hand found one my ragged undershirts. The wind tried to rip the shirt from my fingers as I pinned it to the line. I worked slowly. When I finished the only thing that waited for me inside the house was a blank TV screen and an angry mama. I never knew what set her off these days, but she could get madder than a scalded hen at the drop of a hat.

Mama watched me from the back porch. “Stop dawdling and take those diapers off the line.”

“They’re frozen!”

“Bring them in and put them by the stove.”

With some difficulty I managed to unpin the frozen diapers and maneuvered them into the house where I deposited them on the worn rug in front of the woodstove.

“Don’t get too comfortable. I’ll have another load wrung out and ready for you to hand in a minute.” She disappeared to the porch where her old wringer washing machine was doing the shimmy under the weight of another load of wash. The Maytag was an improvement. Until Uncle Benjamin had Jess hook up the old machine, Mama had boiled our clothes over a fire in the side yard and scrubbed them on a washing board. Mama’s hands were red and raw I looked at my own cold-chapped hands and went into the bedroom to hunt for the Juergen’s lotion. I was rubbing onto her hands when Mama came in with another basket of wet clothes. “If you’re done pampering yourself, Mrs. Rockefeller, these clothes are ready to hang out to dry.”