UP ON THE RIM

by Dale Eunson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 1970

When Dale Eunson was five, Papa relayed a proposition to homestead on the rim up north of Billings, and Mamma said ""Let's do it."" As a milliner who became Papa's second wife (though the only mother Dale remembered), she was slighted by the townsfolk, and Mama ""never subscribed to the Beatitude that the meek shall inherit the earth."" She was powerless to curb Papa's profanity, though, that being ""as natural to him as breathing,"" but Ire was as soft and ready to please as he was staunch. So the old upright piano went along, and for Dale he bought Shep, a collie pup who was a nuisance around the farm but had a lot to say for himself. Too much, Papa thought, and later Mamma paid Christian Science practitioner Mrs. Schultz two dollars ""to fix it with God so I could not understand Shep any more."" That night the drought broke, they might still get 25 bushels to the acre if not last fall's optimistic 45. . . and Shep killed the biggest rooster. To Dale's why? he retorted that ""the old devil had caught one of the hens and was standing on her."" Papa explained about roosters and hens and thought maybe Dale had better tell Shep (so much for heavenly intercession). But the rooster and the hens didn't prepare Dale for Mama's distressed ""My Time Has Come"": alone with her in a blizzard, he plunges through dark drifts to the neighbors' sure that she is about to die, then kicks himself in the morning for having been so blind. In dryland farming the refrain is maybe next year. . . but for the boy Dale these two years (1910-12) are bountiful: he is even dubbed a bully--a distinction he'd never dared hope for--when he trounces Oscar Newcomb for making fun of his (undercover) baking. Nostalgia with nettles, and distinctly, acutely up on the rim.

Pub Date: April 15, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION