“Yes, I am!”
“What if they don’t have a plan for a new school?” Papá asked.
Rosa sighed. “I hate to think about that. But Mrs. Madden says that I must trust God to take care of me. He will help me get the education I want.”
“I hope so, Rosita I hope so.”
“Papá?”
“Yes, Rosa?”
“What about the new government project? Is it going to help save the farmland?”
“That is my dream. But we won’t know until we try. The scientists from the government say that we can recover the soil when the drought ends. If we do a better job of taking care of the soil, we can farm again.”
“And grass will grow for the cattle on the range?”
Papá nodded. “Yes, if the drought ends, grass will grow again.”
“You must keep your hope in God, Papá.”
Papá smiled. “You are becoming quite a preacher.”
“No, Papá,” Rosa said, shaking her head. “Mrs. Madden says that everyone can believe, not just the pastor. You must trust God to help you save the soil.”
After awhile, Rosa fell asleep with her head on Papá’s shoulder and her jacket pulled up around her face to keep the dust out of her nose and mouth. When Papá woke her, the air was quiet. She rubbed her eyes and tried to waken.
“Is it over, Papá?”
“Yes, Rosita, the dust storm has passed. In fact, the night has passed. It is almost morning.”
“We’ve been here all night?”
“Yes, Rosita. When the storm stopped, it was very late. I decided we would be safer to stay the night here.”
“Mamá will be worried,” Rosa said, “especially because I disobeyed her.”
“You will have to apologize for that, hija. For now, let’s concentrate on getting home.”
Dawn broke just as they finished digging their way out of the adobe hut. It was covered in dust, but the door had been only partially blocked because of the direction the wind had blown during the night. The morning air was still full of dust and looked hazy, but at least they could see where they were going. Rosa hung on to Papá as they walked alongside the fence. Sometimes, though, they could not see the fence because it was buried in dirt. With each step, they sank in the soft dirt. Their progress was slow. Sometimes they had to catch each other as they started to fall.
They passed a plow that Tío had left in the pasture, but they could barely see the top of it. This was the worst storm that Rosa could remember, even worse than the storm that had piled dirt on the school’s roof. Rosa wondered if Mr. Garcia had made it home the night before, or if his car would be one of the cars buried in dirt along the road.
“What about the cattle, Papá?” Rosa asked as she looked at the buried plow.
Papá shook his head. “If the dirt has buried the fence, I’m sure we have lost some of the animals, as well. We hardly have any left because we can’t feed them. We’ll just have to wait and see when we can get out on the range.”
Just then, Rosa spotted the house.
“Papá, look! The house is buried up to the windows! Even the front door is buried!”
“Hurry, Rosa, hurry!” Papá began to take longer strides, but the piles of dirt were too deep to run. Rosa did her best to keep up.
CHAPTER 13
Digging Out
Rosa and Papá scrambled up the front steps, which were covered with a drift of dirt. It was as if a blizzard had blown through and buried the house in snow, only it was brown, warm snow. Their steps stirred up the dust once again, and they covered their faces the best they could. Still they coughed and choked on the dirt they breathed in.
Rosa pounded on the front door. “Mamá! Tía! Are you all right?”
No answer came.
“Papá, what are we going to do?”
“We will dig them out, Rosita.”
Dirt had drifted up the front door past the handle. Papá began to push dirt around with his hands, looking for the doorknob on the front door.
Rosa’s shoes were full of dirt and so heavy that she had to try hard to lift her feet to move around. At first she clomped around, trying not to let her shoes slow her down. The shoes got heavier and heavier. Finally she just pulled off her shoes and clambered around the outside of the house in her stocking feet. Her socks would never be white again after all this dirt, but the important thing was to find her family.
The sun had risen fully by this time, making it easier to see what they were doing. Still, the mounds of dirt were overwhelming.
The first-floor windows were just as bad as the door. Dirt piled so high that no one could see out. Rosa tried to climb a pile of dirt under one window, but she soon sank into its softness. Flailing her arms, she tried to keep from sinking farther as she called for her father. Papá came right away, grabbed her hand, and pulled hard. Rosa flew out of the dirt pile, sputtering and coughing, her face brown with grime. She got back on her feet and brushed dirt out of her mouth.
“Mamá! Tía! Tío!” Rosa called again.
No answer.
“Rafaél! Juan! Can anybody hear us?”
No answer.
Rosa and Papá ran around the house looking for a way to get in. Dirt also blocked the back door.
Papá and Rosa stood side by side, breathing heavily but not speaking or calling out.
“Listen, Papá,” Rosa said. “I hear the baby crying.”
Papá listened quietly. “I do, too. And your tía is coughing.”
“Tía Natalia is going to be very sick from this storm,” Rosa said sadly.
“But at least we know they are breathing,” Papá said. “If Natalia and Isabella are all right, then I am sure the others are, as well.”
“So what can we do?” Rosa asked again.
“We need shovels. They are in the barn.”
“I’ll get them!” Rosa volunteered.
Papá glanced at the land between the house and the barn. The buildings were not far apart, but the path was deep under dirt.
“No,” Papá said, “I will go. You stay here and keep trying to call your brothers.”
Papá’s voice was firm. Rosa obeyed. She turned back to the house and called out for anyone to hear her, even Isabella. When she glanced toward the barn, she saw that Papá was having a hard time getting through the dirt to the barn. He was not even halfway there. Rosa ran from window to window, calling and calling.
“Rafaél, Juan!” Rosa kept calling.
Finally, outside the kitchen window, she heard a knock. She knew right away that it was her brother Juan, because he loved to tap out messages in Morse code and make people try to guess what he was saying.
“Juan, can you hear me?”
Juan tapped back y-e-s.
“Is everyone okay?”
Y-e-s.
“Go to the front door! Papá has gone to get shovels to dig with.”
Rosa dashed around to the front of the house.
“Papá, they hear me. They’re all right!” she screamed as she ran.
But where was Papá? He was nowhere in sight. The barn doors were still closed.
“Papá!” Rosa screamed. “Papá!”
Crawling through piles of dirt, Rosa moved slowly toward the barn, straining to see through the haze. Papá had fallen, but he stood up now. He was not close to the barn at all.
“I’m coming back,” he called to Rosa.
“What about the shovels?”
Papá shook his head. “We’ll have to do without them. I can’t get to the barn, and the doors are buried, just like the house.”
“I can hear Juan tapping,” Rosa said. “Everyone is fine.”
“Good.” When he got to the porch, Papá stopped to catch his breath. “Now all we have to do is get to them.”
Side by side, Papá and Rosa began to shove dirt away from the front porch. Handful by handful, the pile was moving. Some of the dirt slid right back into the pile, however. Rosa felt like they were not making any progress.
“We need a bucket or something,” Rosa said, “to carry away the dirt.”
“We don’t have a bucket,” Papá reminded her.
“I have a jacket,” Rosa said as she pulled the jacket off her back. “We can fill it with dirt, and I’ll carry it away from the house.”
“It will be a slow job.”
“It will be faster than just digging with our hands.”
“All right,” Papá agreed.
Rosa tied the sleeves of her jacket together and formed a bowl with the rest. She and Papá scooped dirt into the jacket, and she carried it away. Load after load, they kept moving the dirt. Rosa kept calling to Juan, and he kept knocking on the door in response.
“What is this?” Papá said in surprise as he reached into the dirt and pulled out something metal. “It looks like Mamá’s garden shovel.”
Rosa smiled sheepishly. “Yes, that’s Mamá’s shovel.”
Papá grinned at Rosa. “I’m sure your mamá told you to put this shovel away yesterday afternoon.”
“Yes, she did, Papá. I know I should be sorry for not obeying, but right now I’m glad I didn’t!”
“I am, too!” Papá leaned into the shovel and began throwing dirt over his shoulder at a faster rate. Now they were making real progress.
As they got closer to the door, Rosa heard scraping on the other side.
“Juan is digging, too,” Papá said.
“Do you think the house is full of dirt?” Rosa asked.
Papá nodded. “I’m sure it is. I know you helped Mamá stuff rags in the cracks, but the wind was too strong. This was a powerful storm.” Papá kept shoveling dirt. Finally, he threw the shovel down and reached for the doorknob. When he pulled it open, Juan fell out through the door.
Rosa couldn’t help but laugh. Juan had been leaning on the door when Papá opened it, so now he was sprawled on the front porch with his face full of dirt.
“I think you need a bath, Juan,” Papá said, as he helped Juan get up. “Where is your mamá?”
In a few seconds the rest of the family was at the front door. Rafaél had been trying to get out the back door while Juan worked on the front door. Tío was juggling his fussing baby daughter. Everyone hugged everyone else—and then hugged them again. Rosa took Isabella from Tío’s arms and kissed her face over and over. Juan raced out to find the animals, taking Mamá’s shovel with him. Papá told the story of how he and Rosa spent the night in the old adobe hut.
“Well,” Papá said, “I am glad to see that everyone is all right.”
After hugging Rosa, Mamá looked sternly at her daughter. “Rosa Margarita Sanchez, you disobeyed me. I told you it was too dangerous to try to look for your papá.”
Rosa looked at her dirty socks. “Yes, Mamá. I’m sorry. I know it was foolish.”
“Imagine how frightened I was when I discovered you were gone!”
“Yes, Mamá. I’m sorry.”
Papá shook his finger at Rosa. “Next time you listen to your mamá.”
“Yes, Papá.”
Papá looked at Mamá. “Our Rosita had enough sense to bring a lantern and matches. Without the light, we might not have found shelter for the night. So we are all well and safe. But we still have a lot of work to do!”
The floor of the big room was covered in dirt nearly a foot deep. The furniture was just as bad. Rosa walked through the house with Mamá and Papá and saw that every room in the house was filthy. It would take them days to get all this dirt out of the house, maybe even weeks. And then the wind would just blow it back in again, a little at a time.
“We must have half of Oklahoma in our house,” Rosa lamented. “Maybe we should just plant a crop right here in the kitchen.”
Papá smiled. “We’ll make the best of it. Remember, we have hope!”
Now Rosa smiled. “Yes, Papá, we have hope.”
Tía Natalia began to cough. Rosa ran and pulled a dishrag from a drawer in the kitchen, then rinsed it out with cold water. When she returned to the living room, Tío had one arm around Natalia and held Isabella in the other. The baby was fussing and wiggling. Rosa put the rag on Tía’s face and looked around. There was no place for Tía to sit down and rest. Every chair was filthy. Tía coughed so hard that Rosa was afraid her lungs were going to come up.
“Let me take the baby,” Rosa said as she lifted Isabella out of Tío’s arm.
Mamá made an announcement. “The first room we will clean out is Natalia’s room. She must go to bed as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do it!” Rosa volunteered. She handed Isabella to her mother, and the little girl wailed. Rosa knew she had a lot to make up for in Mamá’s eyes. “But what should I do with all the dirt?”
“Throw it out the window,” Rafaél suggested. “When we get the inside cleaned up, then we’ll worry about the outside.”
Rosa scurried into the kitchen for a bucket and a broom, then dashed up the stairs to Tío and Tía’s room. Downstairs, her brothers began moving furniture outside so the floors could be cleaned thoroughly. Rosa suspected that some of the furniture was ruined and would never return to the house. She could hear Tía Natalia coughing and Mamá telling Tía to sit in the kitchen to rest.
The sound of Isabella’s crying came up the staircase. She’s hungry, Rosa thought. Mamá will feed her. Poor Isabella doesn’t understand what is happening. Gradually Isabella settled down.
Over and over, Rosa filled the bucket with dirt and dumped it out the window, adding to the mounds on the ground beneath her. Finally, she had the floor clear enough to mop it. The only clean sheets she could find had holes in them, but that was better than sleeping in dirt, so she put them on the bed. With a damp rag, she wiped out Isabella’s basket. She decided right then that Isabella would sleep in her room every night from then on. That way Tía could rest better, and Tío could take care of Tía without waking the baby.
Rosa leaned on her broom, looking out the window and gazing toward town. Is it like this at everybody’s house? she wondered. What about Mrs. Madden and Henry? Are they safe? As soon as she could get out of the yard, she would go find out for herself.
Rosa hated the dust storms more than ever.
CHAPTER 14
Moving On
Rosa and her family were up most of the night cleaning rooms in the house so they could use them. Tía cried herself to sleep because she felt too sick to get up and help. Isabella settled down in Rosa’s arms and finally went to sleep. Isabella had a bigger basket now, and Rosa laid her in the basket in a corner of the kitchen. Then she helped Mamá take all the dishes out of the cupboards and wash them one at a time. Before they could put the dishes away again, they had to wipe off all the shelves. Towels and sheets and curtains and tablecloths were blackened. Everything in the house had to be washed before the family could use it again.
The Sanchez family was not alone. The whole town spent days digging out. In fact, people across several states suffered the same way Rosa’s family did. Families swept every floor. Women washed every black curtain, every black towel or tablecloth. Ruined furniture piled up at the town dump. Men searched for farm equipment and animals buried in the dust. Dirt in the engines ruined cars. Dirt in the attics made ceilings fall in.
The storm at the end of March had done enormous damage. This latest storm, in the middle of April, was the worst ever. It blew the hope out of many people. Only a fool would try to grow a crop that year. Too much wind, not enough water—farming and ranching were a hard way to make a living. For many families, the April storm known as Black Sunday was the last straw.
A few days after the storm, Rosa walked into town to see how Mrs. Madden and little Henry were.
“Hope, hope,” Henry said when he saw her coming. He was out in the yard with his mother. Relief rushed through Rosa. They were both all right. Mrs. Madden was beating the dirt out of the rugs that covered the floor in her house. The rugs hung heavily over a clothesline, and Mrs. Madden used a long stick to beat at them. Her face a
nd hands were already black with the dirt that flew out of the rugs.
Rosa smiled at Henry. “Yes, Henry, hope.” But she did not feel very hopeful. She lifted her eyes to Mrs. Madden.
Mrs. Madden put down her stick and tried to wipe some of the dirt off her face with her sleeve. She only managed to smear it around.
“Rosa, I’m glad to see you. Is everyone in your family all right?”
Rosa nodded. “I was worried about you.”
“We’re fine. Just dirty like everyone else.”
“I am so tired of being dirty all the time.”
Mrs. Madden nodded. “Yes, we all are.”
“Mrs. Madden, why does God keep giving us dust storms when we need rainstorms?”
Mrs. Madden smiled slightly. “I think you know how I’ll answer that question.”
“Hope. Hope,” Henry said.
Mrs. Madden laughed at her little boy. “I hope he still has that kind of hope when he’s a little older,” she said. “But Henry has it right. We hope in God.”
“And He gives us what we need when we need it,” Rosa said, finishing the thought the way she knew Mrs. Madden would.
“It is not for us to understand God’s ways.”
“I would like to understand them just a little bit,” Rosa said. “Papá says that more people are going to give up on farming and ranching and go to California.”
Mrs. Madden nodded. “Probably.”
Rosa was silent for a moment, thinking. “Maybe someone from town will find Téodoro in California and tell him to write us a letter.”
“That’s a very good idea.”
“Can I help you clean the rugs?” Rosa asked.
“Thank you for offering, Rosa, but I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of work to be done at your house, as well.”
Rosa nodded. “Yes, but we have a big family to help.”
“Reverend Madden helps when he can,” Mrs. Madden said. “Right now he is visiting someone from the church who is ill with dust pneumonia.”
“That’s very bad, isn’t it?” Rosa asked, thinking of Tía Natalia.
“Yes, it is, Rosa.” Mrs. Madden swung at one of the rugs. Rosa stepped back, but still the dust flew at her.
American Triumph: 1939-1945: 4 STORIES IN 1 Page 8
