Free Grandpère by Janet Romain

them, and since their water dish is frozen, I scoop up a pail of snow. The chickens don’t really need water in the winter if they have snow. There are only two eggs, frozen almost solid. I give one to each dog, and they pack the eggs in their mouths back into the doghouse.
    In the shop there are about a dozen pine sticks. On spring days Grandpère wanders through the woods and ties the tops of young pine trees in a knot. Then the following year he cuts them. The top where he has tied them grows into a loop that makes a handle. They are all different shapes, so I pick out two with the nicest tops and take them in to him. He sets them by the stove to thaw out, and I get him a cardboard box to shave the bark into. I also bring in an armload of dry slabs to keep the fire going. He’s moved his chair close to the fire, which crackles pleasantly and sends heat all through the living room and kitchen. We have the electric heat on too, and the house stays warm even in the far bedroom. When it is warmer, we turn the electric heat off, but in this cold we need both.
    I go off to type up this last bit from him, but before I get started, I hear the dogs barking and go to the window to see what the commotion is about. It is Rose in her Jeep. Now she’s walking toward the house, carrying a large picnic basket with handles. I greet her at the door with a big hug. She is one of my closest friends, and today she’s supposed to be having a New Year’s party and dinner.
    “What are you doing here?” I ask.
    “Everyone who was supposed to come phoned and cancelled because of the cold, so I decided to come here,” she explains. “I only have two days off, and damned if I’m going to spend them by myself.”
    She has brought supper with Grandpère’s favourite dessert, berry pie. She goes over to the stove and gives Grandpère a hug too.
    “Well, you old reprobate, I hope you’re keeping busy.”
    “I don’t do much anymore, Rose. Anzel waits on me hand and foot,” he tells her.
    “There’s nothing to do for him,” I laugh. “He is so darned independent that I need to tie him in the chair so I can look after him.”
    She laughs and says to him, “Somehow I can’t see you letting her tie you in your chair. You would probably cut your way out and hit her with a stick for being so bold.”
    We all laugh. She is the same age as me and could have taken early retirement when I did, but she is so good at the home that they asked her to stay on. She loves her job and is more than happy to keep working. She is tall and thin, with long grey hair that is wound up on her head in a bun and held with clips. She dresses and moves with style and energy. Today she has on a long skirt, and when I comment on the skirt being cold for the weather, she shows us that she has on two skirts, one overtop of the other, and a pair of woollen long johns underneath.
    “I put these under my clothes in September and take them off in May. If it gets any colder, I’m going to double them up.” She asks, “Grandpère, how did you live in the bush when it was this cold?”
    “I don’t think we felt the cold the way we do now. We had warm clothes made out of fur, and we didn’t bathe so much. It was considered unhealthy to get wet in the winter, and we always had a fire. A fire heats a small space a lot better than it heats a big house like this. We had flat rocks that warmed up by the fire, and we rotated them around to keep everybody warm. All us children slept together, and when my father was trapping, my mother slept with us too. All winter we didn’t let the fire go out, because it was too hard to get it going again.”
    “Oh yeah, no matches,” Rose says.
    “We made fire with a dry stick. You wrapped a thong around it and pulled it back and forth in a small hollow in another dry stick till you saw smoke. Then you held it to a small pile of dry shavings mixed with pitch. Then you blew very gently on it till you had a small blaze. Sometimes it