Page 19 - Spell of the Black Range

The Black Range Rag - www.blackrange.org
SPELL OF THE BLACK RANGE
deadly amanita grew there too — perhaps because of the power of suggestion its corpse- like whiteness was repulsive to me.
Perhaps I should try to describe this place I loved so much. To begin with, nearly everything we used was something one of the family had created. The house we lived in, most of the furniture in it, the fence for the garden, the well from which we got our water, the corral and shed for the stock, the circular fence of piled up stones which Grandma had built all by herself to enclose her potato garden farther down the creek, the substantial stone chicken house Grandpa had built — all represented hours and hours of work. Yet the making was deeply satisfying.
The kitchen was about sixteen 15 feet square, with a door and a window on the front or south side, and another door and window on the north side. The floor was of wide pine boards which Grandma kept scrubbed, Dutch fashion, to immaculate cleanness. A ceiling of white muslin strips stitched together was tacked to the rafters, and the walls were covered with the same white muslin. A major household undertaking was to take the whole thing down, wash it, and tack it back up. This was not done very often.
Grandpa had built a large table from lumber, which served as work table and dining table. We had one kitchen chair; all the other seats were square stools Grandpa had made. I think the stove and the chair were the only furniture in the kitchen not homemade. There was a large open cupboard in one end, holding the crockery and most of the cooking dishes. We had a large iron teakettle that
always sat on the stove, and also a large iron pot we usually used for heating additional water.
On the south wall, at right angles to the cupboard, a large packing box, perhaps four feet square, rested on the floor with the opening to the front, covered by a calico curtain. Flour, sugar, beans, and other staples were kept inside, and there was a working surface
15.The kitchen door and window, referenced here, are visible on the right end of the building. The “stoep” referenced earlier in the story is in front of the kitchen door.
16.The living room is visible behind the main group of people. The two windows with white borders, the living room door, and the “stoep” in front of the door are visible.
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