(A Chick Evens
story out of Minnesota, based on fact, 1957)
The Icy-Mississippi
Snow is on
the sidewalks, and in the streets, a thin layer covering the Mississippi River,
on top of four-inches of ice —the houses and buildings are all lit, fires
glowing in hearths, furnaces burning red hot, as I rush out into the cold early
Saturday morning brisk air to sell newspapers “Five Cents!” I’ll soon be
yelling once I get downtown, I tell myself.
It is December, 1957 and I’m ten-years
old, just turned ten-years old in October matter-of-fact.
I see people sitting in their houses as
I walk by: men, women and children—as if their minds are unoccupied, it’s 6:00
a.m., some of the houses are covered with blotches of snow, Minnesota snow can
get heavy if not sticky at times; some even appear to smile back at me as I
glance from one white house to another, they all seem white, one to the
other—with their shadowy silhouettes.
In the quiet morning cold, the houses
seem to whisper to me—as if they have secrets to tell—but I’m too young to stop
and listen, I’m not yet a hunter of tales.
Moreover, they can only tell me things I am too young to fully
understand.
Some of the houses are completely dark,
solid gray dark, inside those windows; I suppose the people haven’t crawled out
of bed yet. In other houses, I hear laughter as I walk down Jackson Street St.
Paul , Pioneer Press Newspaper, to get my stack of papers to sell on
the corner of Forth and Robert Streets. I even
can see the icy-Mississippi River from where I stand.
I pass a dozen more houses, two,
then three dozen, now I pass tall clusters and stiff looking buildings—with
locked tight doors, but I know they will open soon for the Saturday morning window-shoppers.
I start to yell “St. Paul
Slow moving, and slow speaking people
walk by and drive by in cars. I think my business is the most interesting in
town—but of course at ten-years old, who wouldn’t think so. There even seems to
be a touch of romanticism in this paper business, I haven’t a clue what’s in
the paper though, nor care.
No: 539 ((12-5-2009) (reedited 5-12-2010)) SA
