Notes

In 1917, just as another hellish August was starting to come to an end along the border that divides Georgia and Alabama, pearl Jewett awake and his sons before dawn one morning with the guttural bark that sounded more animal day man. The three young men arose silently from their particular corners of the one room shack and pulled on their filthy clothes, still damp with the sweat of yesterday's labors. A mangy rat covered with scabs scuttled up the rock chimney, knocking bits of mortar into The cold great. Moonlight funneled through Babs and the change log walls in late and then milky ribbons across the red dirt floor. With their heads nearly touching the low ceiling, they gathered around the center of the room for breakfast, and pearl handed them each a bland auto flour and water fried last night and a dollop of leftover fat. There would be no more to eat until evening, when they would all get a share of the city cog the ad budget in the spring, along with a mass of boiled spuds in wild greens scooped onto dented templates with the hand that was never clean from a pot that was never washed. Except for the occasional rain, every day was the same.