313° - W 30

The .upgl' sun Thursda Nov.10 I 3

THE EXCHANGE WELCOMES YOU

I

‘o coffee house for everyone"

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Gramnie Wood woke up and looked at her clod<. It was near tent o'clock, time to get up and get started

she really have to get up for?

She lived alone in her ouse, her eight children re all grown up and one; her husband was

day and even that be- tiresane when you had 0 one to share them with.

She thought bad< to the ays when all the family re hare, busy days they re, and certainly not ppy ones. Her hsrband ank, cared nothing for '5 wife or family, and *

for the day, but what did .

All the burden of the family fell on her shoulders. She would walk three miles to tom to any rurmage sale she heard about to pick up clothes for her children.

She thought about her daughter Rose, now living in the States. 'Ihey were so poor, all they had to eat was bread and molasses. Rose hated going to the store for molasses, which they got

in a big jar. She

wouldn't go unless she had a big bag to hide the jar in, but even then the other children used to laught and tease her for carrying a jar of molasses, and she would cane heme crying.

She became an alcoholic. She thought about her

son, Marvin. She used to give him letters to mail

to her sister in the States, and her husband would watch, take thé letter from him and tear it up. Her husband en— couraged him in any way, to anything that would hurt her.

He grew up and went to prison.

She thought about

Melvin, her youngest and ‘ her favourite. He tried

so hard to be friends with his father but he always ended up getting nowhere.

He became a helpless alcoholic when he grew up.

Not one of her. eight daildren bothered with

States. ‘ In fact she didn't even know. where two of her drildren were living.

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'Iheir childhood was unhappy, they just wanted to forget their parents.

'Ihey blamed their mother for staying with

7 their father, and letting

Mmabtsethemtheway hedid.

In the afternoons, she would sit at the kitchen window and watdi the cars go by; maybe, today someone would come to visit her, or the mail- man would bring her a letter besides the telephcne or electric light bill.

'Ihirking about it all, she wmdered if the long ago days were not better than the loneliness she now lived with.

Her sacrifice, if it was a sacrifice, had been useless.