Bokelskere.no

The veterans ranked battles and wars according to loss numbers: three thousand at this place, sixty thousand in the trenches, twelve thousand at another. The more killed, the braver the warriors, not the stupider the commanders.

There was no excess in their gardens because they shared everything. They took responsibility for their lives and for whatever, whovevere else needed them. The absence of common sense irritated but did not surprise them. Laziness was more than intolerable to them; it was inhuman. Whether you were in the field, the house, your own backyard, you had to be busy. Sleep was not for dreaming, it was for gathering strength for the coming day.

As usual she blamed being dumb on her lack of schooling, but that excuse fell apart the second she tought about the skilled women who had cared for her, healed her. Some of them had to have Bible verses read to them because they could not decipher print themselves, so they had sharpened the skills of the illiterate: perfect memory, photographic minds, keen senses of smell and hearing.

Ignoring those who preferred new, soft blankets, they practised what they had been taught by their mothers during the period that rich people called the Depression and they called life.