Echos of Heritage: A True Story of My Maternal Grandparents

The sharecropper's look of love was tainted with fear as he watched his children play running games around the empty kitchen table.

It was the off season. Couldn't they sit still? All of this activity would only worsen the gnawing in their stomachs.

Sensing his discord, his pretty wife approached. "It's okay, Papa."

Smiling weakly, he laid his right hnd, withered from the polio that had struck in childhood, upon her distended abdomen. Two this time, the midwife assured.

Arising with the prayer of a kiss, he left for the hunt: A sack of flour and a bit of milk.