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father would have delighted in the company of a tall, strong son, and I was already over 6’. He never chided me for my fear of guns or for my exaggerated sensitivity to killing. Later, I could laugh, saying that the only thing I ever shot was a bumblebee inside a morning glory—I would stick the barrel of my .22 rifle in on top of the bee and fire. My efforts at killing squirrels were always misses. I would level my gun, pull the trigger, and flinch, dismayed by a puff of dirt behind my intended victim, who sat there chattering.
    Each day Dad spent in the woods seemed interminable. Would he shoot himself or be killed by a bear? By twilight, as sunset stained the rich snow cover and dark was about to fall, my anxieties grew.
    When Dad bagged a deer, he gutted it where he shot it and then dragged it through snowy thickets to a copse near Sundsteen Road. Then he walked home, cranked up the Model T, drove to the spot, draped the gutted deer over the hood, and drove back home.
    First he sawed off the antlers; then he hacked off the head, which he threw outside for Fido, the dog. He flayed the hide. Later, it would go to a tannery, in exchange for pairs of gloves. We loved watching. Large pieces of venison he hung outside from an upright frame used for gutting and butchering. We would boil the ribs smothered in sauerkraut. Tougher, less-choice portions became hamburger. Much of the meat we wrapped in newspaper and stored on the kitchen roof Occasionally, Dad killed a second deer, usually a doe. This one Mother canned. The meat lasted until early summer.
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Christmas Tree
    Wednesday morning, December 20th. Shimmering trees were loaded with ice. My sister and I were dressed for the outdoors. “Get one with a good shape,” my mother said. “And be careful with that axe.”
    We rushed on skis over the packed trail, crossing fields, the south pasture, and on through birch and tamarack to the lake. Fresh rabbit tracks had broken the ice crust. I carried the axe. We whirred along for half an hour and then we halted before a superb view of frozen Minnow Lake.
    I shook a tree, a flaring spruce, freeing it of snow. It chopped easily. I tied a rope around it and secured the rope to my waist. “OK,” I said. “You lead, Margie.” The tree slid easily over the ski trail. We are exhilarated—cutting the tree was the first event of Christmas.
    I built a clumsy stand in the living room, away from the heater. The odor of crushed needles, saps, and resins was magnificent.
    We had few ornaments: Of a dozen glass pieces, my favorites were a pair of multicolored, miniature bass viols, and a small glass deer, missing its antlers. We made chains from the colored pages of old magazines glued with paste made of flour, water, and salt. I enjoyed fitting the pink and red twisted wax candles in their metal holders to the branches. We lighted the candles.
    We drew pictures for one another, to keep secret until Christmas morning. We had made presents for our mother: I decorated a box of safety matches with fancy paper taken from envelopes supplied by our teacher, and I carved a bar of Ivory soap into a squirrel. Miss Crocker sketched the animal, and I was near tears before I managed to whittle the creature free of the soap. Around its neck I tied a small bit of green ribbon and a medallion saying Squirrel. I hoped my mother would like it.
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The Christmas Program
    For three weeks, on wintry afternoons, huddled near the heating stove, we rehearsed the Christmas Program. Each of us had an individual recitation: Most were short winter or Christmas bits with humorous twists. We recited “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” in unison. Paper snowflakes covered the windows. The tree was decorated with homemade ornaments: flashing tops from condensed milk cans, tiny crosses covered with gum-wrapper tin foil, Santa Claus heads, feeble attempts at reindeers, crayola renditions of balls, dolls, books. And, of