Before the hogan fire, when night has come, my father sings, my mother whispers, "Come sit beside me Little Herder."
From now till always I want to be my mother's Little Herder.
The sandwash and the waterhole, the dry grass patches and the cornfield hide away under the white blanket, under the snow blanket that covers the land.
The air is filled with falling snow, thick snow, soft snow falling, falling.
Beautiful Mountain and the red rock canyons hide their faces in snow clouds.
It piles the snow in drift banks against the poles of the sheep corral.
It pushes against the door of my mother's hogan, and it cries.
The wind cries out there in the snow and the cold.
My mother's hogan is cold. Snow blows down the smoke hole. Water drops on the fire.
The wet wood smokes and keeps its flames to itself.
The sun has not shown his face to tell us what time of day it is.
I do not like to ask my mother, "Is it noon now?" or "Is it almost night?" because she might think I wanted it to be time to eat.
There is no flour nor cornmeal to make into bread.
There is no coffee that my mother could boil for us to drink.
The corn my father planted in his field is gone.
There was so little. The corn pile in the storehouse was not high enough to last for long. It is gone.
There is food at the Trading Post in sacks and in boxes, in bins and in cans on the shelf.
There is food at the Trading Post, but the Trading Post is far away and snowdrifts and snow clouds are heavy between.
There is food at the Trading Post but my father has nothing left of the hard, round money that he must give to the Trader for the food.
There is no food here in my mother's hogan.
When it is time to eat, we talk of other things, but not of hunger.
This thing called hunger is a pain that sits inside me.
At first it was little, but now it grows bigger and bigger.
He lies with his head on his paws and looks at nothing.
He has worked hard, but there is no food.
The gray shadow dog stays outside close to the tree trunk making no sound asking for nothing.
If the snow keeps falling, it will be bad for the sheep.
The ruffles on my mother's skirts make pretty marks on the top of the snow whiteness.
My mother and my father shovel a round place clean of snow out near the sheep corral.