So Few on Earth - Josie Penny

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his shoulders to keep his pants up and put on his sealskin slippers. Finally, with a sigh of relief, he leaned back on his settle to wait for dinner.

      Mommy moved quietly around the house, her pinny snugly tied, hair combed and tucked neatly in a bun at the back. She was now ready to cook Sunday dinner — boiled seal meat topped with a duff, a couple of ducks, or some type of fish or seafood, depending on the time of year. Sunday dinner was always at noon, while supper was at 5:00 p.m.

      Aside from all the work, there was still time for play. One day Sammy and a friend from down the hill rigged up two tin cans with a long string that went from our upstairs bedroom window to Sammy’s bedroom window. Then they started talking to each other! Of course, I had no idea what they were doing. I’d never heard of a telephone. They had gotten the idea from somewhere, and I was all eyes and ears as I followed my brother’s every move.

      “Can I try, Sammy?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity any longer.

      “Oh, awright, Jos. Here, put dis on an listen real good.” He knew I’d kick up a fuss if he didn’t comply.

      I placed the tin can to my ear, but all I heard was a roar. “Don’t work. Can’t hear nuttin.”

      “Dat’s cuz yer stun,” he said sarcastically.

      The summer was passing quickly, and I was happy roaming the hills and enjoying myself. I loved to skip, and one day while skipping down the road, I fell and skinned my knee. I ran home crying to Mommy.

      “Ya bloody little fool, what now?” she grumbled, wrapping a piece of rag around my leg.

      “I was skippin an fell down, Mommy. Ouch … tis some sore, too!”

      My mother knew only one way to prepare us for the hardships of life.

      She felt she had to toughen us up. She didn’t like us to show emotion. If we were caught crying, she’d swear at us, call us terrible names, or smack us around a bit.

      “Whass de matter wit ya now?” she’d demand. “I’ll give ya sometin ta cry fer in a minute!”

      Suppertime was an example of how my mother viewed life. How well I recall her attitude when the big bell rang to call the fishermen up to eat.

      “Whass fer supper, Mommy?” I asked as I barrelled through the door and sat in my place at the table.

      “Never mine whass fer supper. Whatever it is, ya’ll eat it or do witout.”

      She said that because there were many days in the winter when there was nothing to eat. We were lucky to get a pork bun or a piece of molasses bread in the winter months. During summer, it was fried fish, stewed fish, baked fish, fish cakes, fish heads, or fish and brewis. Maybe Daddy or Sammy would catch a salmon, arctic char, or saltwater trout that day. When the berries ripened in late summer, we were in for a real treat. Along with tarts, Mommy made jam that we spread on her freshly baked buns and bread.

      I’ll always remember the unique scents on a hot summer day. The sea air was rich with aromas as I walked, skipped, or bounded about: seaweed as it warmed up at low tide, salt cod drying on the bawns, cod livers rendering out under the hot sun. But none of those smells were as strong as the stench of fish parts rotting on the beach. And nothing could beat the sweet fragrances of Mommy’s cooking.

      I was an inquisitive and observant child. In the summer of 1948, Mommy’s belly was getting big again.

      “Whass happened ta ya belly dis time, Mommy?” I asked.

      “Oh, Josie, ya’re too small ta understan, but ya will when ya gets bigger,” she said in a soft voice I didn’t hear often.

      Wee Edward was found (born) soon afterward, and I enjoyed my baby brother. Mommy would let me hold him if I was careful.

      “Don’t drop him,” she warned. “Feel dat soft spot on his head? Don’t touch it.”

      “Why, Mommy?”

      “Cuz ya might kill him.”

      That terrified me. I couldn’t figure out what she meant because she didn’t explain why touching that spot might kill him. The year before wee Wilfred had died at seven months old and had gone to heaven. I’d cried and cried and wondered and worried that I might have killed him.

      “Oh, Mommy, Mommy, I dint touch Wilfred’s soft spot,” I wailed.

      “I know, Josie. God jus took him ta heaven, dat’s all,” she crooned in a soothing voice.

      “Where’s heaven, Mommy?”

      “Heaven’s a good place. He’s safe an warm der,” she assured me sadly.

      “God must really love yer babies, hey, Mommy?”

      Sister Rhoda was now three years old, sickly, with terrible nosebleeds. It seemed there was always a bucket to catch the stream of blood from her nose. I didn’t understand what was wrong with her, and that frightened me.

      Mom had let my hair grow long since my return from the hospital with my shaved head. She would tell me over and over about my beautiful blond ringlets and how proud she’d been of them and how heartbroken she was when I returned with my head shaved and my gruesome scars exposed. The deep gouges left by the dog bites were constantly itchy, and I was always scratching. Soon the scars became sore and I had a head lice problem. It seemed impossible for Mommy to keep our heads clean, though she tried to desperately. Where we lived there was no salve or ointments or solutions to kill lice, so she guarded her fine-tooth comb as if it were made of gold. It was the only tool she had to combat the problem.

      “Come here, Josie,” she said to me one night.

      “Why?”

      “Cuz yer mangy, dat’s why.”

      I sat on the floor, and she went to work. With her thumb and forefinger she picked the lice out one at a time. Then I heard crack, crack, crack as she killed them with her thumbnail against the wooden bench.

      “Nobody’s ever gonna cut yer hair again, Josie,” she kept saying as she worked. As horrific as the lice were, they still left fond memories. It was during those gruesome occasions that I became closer to my mother. It was the only time I had real intimate contact with her. I can’t recall ever being hugged or cuddled by my mother. And even though she was wonderful with her babies, it seemed once we got bigger we were just “them old good-fer-nothin maids,” and that hurt.

      I loved my little sisters and brothers, but they were a continual blur of being found somewhere and then dying. Sammy and Mommy were very close. He could do no wrong. I became a tomboy and tried to imitate my brother, thinking maybe I’d receive some of that attention, too. Despite his closeness to Mommy, which I craved, I did love my brother very much.

      After the fishing season slowed down, there was time to jig for cod. That was when we got our winter supply of fish for our dogs and for our own personal consumption.

      “Wass ya doin, Sammy?” I asked my brother one day as he raced around.

      “I’m helpin Dad so we can go jiggin tomarra,” he said proudly. Sammy was big enough to help Daddy, and eager to learn. He had never stepped inside a schoolhouse or a classroom, but he could handle a boat like a professional. Sammy was meticulous in his work and was overjoyed when Daddy took him hunting. I could tell he was excited to go fishing with Daddy tomorrow.

      “Josie!” Mommy yelled. “Stay outta de way!” She gave me a bat on the shoulder.

      “I wanna go, too,” I said. “I won’t get in de way. I’ll be real good. Can I go, Daddy?”

      “No, Jimmy, pr’aps some udder time when yer bigger.”

      “But, Daddy, I’m awmost six, an I’m strong, too.”

      “No, Josie, ya can scream all ya like, but ya

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