The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

It was cold now and dark came early. The color had leached out of the grass
in Butter’s field, and he’d started to grow thin. When I showed this to Susan,
she sighed. “It’s all the exercise you’re giving him,” she said. “He used to be
fat enough he could winter over on grass.” She bought hay and we stacked it
in one of the empty stalls. She bought a bag of oats too. Every day I took
Butter three or four flakes of hay and a bucket of grain. He still lived outside.
Fred said it was healthier for him, as well as being less work for us.
Back when the leaves had first started changing color on the trees, I’d been
alarmed. Susan promised that it happened every year. The leaves changed
color and fell off, and the trees would look dead all winter, but they wouldn’t
actually be dead. In spring they’d grow new green leaves again.
Susan had gotten over being surprised at all the things we didn’t know.
When she showed me how to cook or sew something, she always started at
the very beginning. “This is a needle. Look, it has a little hole on one end, for
the thread to loop through, and a point on the other end, so it can go into
cloth.” Or, “Eggs have a clear part, called the white, and a yellow part, called
the yolk. You break an egg by tapping it on the edge of the table, and then
cracking it open with your hands. Only over the bowl, like this.”
Susan said winter usually made her feel sad and gloomy, the way she was
when we first came. This winter, though, she was almost too busy to be sad.
She had to shop and cook and clean, and do the wash—she was particular
about the wash—and sew and go to meetings. But as the days grew shorter,
she did seem sad. She made an effort for us, but you could tell it was an
effort. She was always tired.
I tried to be helpful. I cooked, and sewed buttons. I went with her to the
shops. I learned to hem bed jackets. Meanwhile I still helped Fred twice a
week, and I rode Butter every day.
On a rainy cold Wednesday afternoon Susan sat slumped in her chair. I had
finished washing the lunch dishes. Jamie had gone to school. The fire was
burning low, so I added coal and poked it up a little. “Thank you,” Susan
murmured.
She looked frail and shivery. She’d spilled a bit of potato from lunch down
the front of her blouse, and not scrubbed it clean, which wasn’t like her. I
didn’t want her staying in bed all day again. I sat down on the sofa, and I