Scarborough, Ramona

Clover

By Ramona Scarborough

Fall 2020

"Papi, that burro is smiling at me.”

Diego’s father, Manuel, shook his head. “Burros don’t smile. Where do you get such ideas?”

Diego stared at his sandal pushing dirt around on the road and didn’t answer. He wanted to say, “But she looks like she’s smiling.”

“Stay right here. I’m going to bargain with owner.”

Diego waited until his father had started to walk away toward the adobe. A clump of clover grew next to a fence post. He yanked at the blossoming plant and placed it on his flat palm.

“Come here,” Diego said. “I’ve got something for you.”

The jenny ambled over and leaned her head over the fence. She opened her lips and grasped all the clover, then pulled it into her mouth, and ground it up with her big teeth.

He reached out, stroked her fuzzy head. and scratched behind her ear. Her smile got even bigger.

“I will call you Clover. Maybe Papi will let me ride you.”

Diego’s father came up behind him. “Don’t be getting attached to her. She’s a work animal, not a pet.”

But his father’s warning came too late. Diego looked into Clover’s big brown eyes and saw a friend.

“Papi, could I please ride Cl—the burro home?”

His father sighed. “I suppose, but she’ll be working in the field with me tomorrow.”

His father hoisted Diego onto her back. He sat up straight as they plodded along, looking to see if passers-by noticed. He remembered Mamá reading the Bible story about Jesus riding on a burro.

“Papi, can I feed the burro?”

Manuel rubbed his chin. “You must not overfeed her. Burros can be greedy and eat too much. Then they get sick. Can you clean up after her as well?”

Diego puffed out his chest. “I can do it.”

Mamá Rosita came out when they came close to their small home. She clapped her hands. “Oh, Manuel, what a beautiful burro. You picked the best one.”

She walked up to Clover and put her arms around the donkey’s neck. “Welcome, my little one.”

Manuel slapped his hand to his forehead. “What will I do with you two? This is not a new child born into the family.”

Rosita just smiled. “Come in, the tamales are ready and there’s beans and fresh salsa.”

“I’ll put the burro in the pen, then I’ll be there,” Manuel said. Diego’s eyes followed his new friend.

At the table, Manuel said, “I’m sorry, Rosita, I had to use all our savings for getting the animal. The granjero on the ranch wouldn’t come down on his price.”

“Mi Corazon, I rejoice. This donkey will make work so much easier for you. We must think of a name for her.”

Manuel stared at his wife. “Did you hear anything I said? Giving her a name only makes you and Diego become fonder.”

“Mamá, I already gave her a name. She loves clover, so that’s what I named her.”

“Clover, how lovely.” She stood. “Manuel, more beans?”

“Why don’t you just set an extra place at the table for . . . Clover.”

“Manuel, you are so funny.”

“Diego has offered to feed the animal and shovel the manure.”

“Diego, I’m so proud of you,” his mother said.

The sun was sliding down to the earth as Diego lugged the heavy bucket from the well.

“Work hard for Papi, so he will like you too,” Diego whispered in Clover’s ear.

But Diego didn’t have to worry. Just four days after Clover came to live with them, Manuel came into the house for dinner, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief

“That little jenny, she has heart. She pulls the plow with all her might.”

Rosita turned from stirring the pot of sopa on the stove. “Oh, you mean our little Clover.”

Manuel came behind her, put his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek. “I give up. Yes, Clover, our new child.”

***

In April, Rosita went to the market in Otumbo. This time instead of walking into town, Diego scrambled up behind her on Clover’s back.

After selling homemade tortillas, she brought Diego to one of his favorite places. A stand sold shaved ices with sweet syrup poured over it. Diego stood looking at the sign. So many flavors.

“Mijo, look at this.” Rosita pointed at another poster tacked on the front of the stand. The Otumbo Festival to Honor Donkeys. May 1st. Costume contest. Best costumed donkey wins $500.00. The woman with the most donkey knowledge becomes Miss Burro.

Rosita’s eyes shone. “Five hundred pesos. Can you imagine? Do you think we could bring Clover?”

“Do you think Papi would let us?”

Rosita stuck out her lower lip. “Probably not. Anyway, look at the winner’s picture from last year. We don’t have the money to dress up Clover like that.”

Diego nodded sadly. “I guess I’ll have the guava ice this time, Mamá.”

***

Back home, Diego fed Clover.

‘You are the best burro in all Mexico,” Diego said, pressing his brown cheek against her fur. “How would you like to dress up and be in a contest?”

“He-haw, he-haw,” Clover said.

Skipping toward the house, Diego could smell spices and tortillas frying. Mama was making Papi’s favorite, migas, with eggs, onions and red-hot chili peppers.

After Manuel finished a large plate full, he sat back and loosened his belt.

“Mi Vida,” Rosita said to Manuel, “I have a question.”

Manuel belched loudly. “Yes?”

“How would you like to attend a festival in Otumbo next month?”

“What kind of festival?”

“It’s to honor donkeys.”

“Are you joking me?”

“No, I think we should bring Clover.”

“Papi, please,” Diego begged. “There are contests, lots of food and music.”

Manuel groaned. “So now we are to honor Clover as well?”

“Manuel, the boy needs a little fun. He works hard. Feeds the chickens, gathers the eggs, brings in the wood . . . ”

“Yes, yes, I know what he does.” He put his hands out palms up on the table. “So, when is it?”

She pointed to the calendar hanging beside the fly strip. “May 1^st.”

Manuel turned to look. “You’ve already got it circled,” he sputtered.

Rosita shrugged. “Well, of course, how else would I remember the date to ask you about it?”

When Diego got in bed that night he couldn’t stop thinking about the contest.

He even daydreamed about it the next day while doing his early morning chores and while sitting on the hard bench at school.

He ran home afterward to find Mamá scrubbing clothes on her washboard in the tin tub.

“Mamá,” he said, “Can you help me think of a costume for Clover?”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking about it all day. I could sew together some of the flour sacks with patterns on them for a covering for her back. You could poke holes for her ears through my old straw sun hat. The daisies will be coming out by then, you could make a daisy chain and put it around her neck, and we could put some in the hat band.”

***

The day of the festival, Diego bounced out of his cot as the sun began getting out of his giant bed on the other side of the world. He threw on his pantalón, a shirt, and an old serape. He ran from one chore to another. He was panting by the time he came to the corral. He fed Clover, then went inside the gate and brushed her all over, paying special attention to the long hairs on the end of her tail.

Mamá came toward him as he picked daises near the dusty road. She wore a ruffly purple dress and had piled her long hair on top of her head.

“Give me a daisy too,” she said, “I’ll put it in my hair.”

As Diego led Clover in her finery toward the house, he thought she was smiling.

Manuel came out. His boots seemed stuck to the ground. “What is this?” He shouted.

“Now Manuel,” Rosita said. “This is part of the fun. They have a best-dressed burro contest.”

He shook his head. “Now I’ve heard of everything.”

“Papi,” Diego said. “The first prize is five hundred pesos.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Yes, five hundred pesos.” Rosita said, “Can we go now? We might miss the crowning of the new Miss Burro or all the tacos we can eat.”

***

The hot sun had risen high in the sky by the time they arrived. Diego rushed to the stand with the ices. Manuel dug in his pocket.

“Rosita, you get one too.”

Diego tied Clover to a post and got her a bucket of water. Clover didn’t look as pretty as when they started out. The daisies were hanging limp and the ends of her cape had dragged on the ground and become dirty.

He looked around at some of the other burros. One had tinkling bells tied to his short mane hairs, another had a sparkly horn on his head and silver stars on the reins.

He saw Mamá looking too.

“She won’t win will she, Mamá?”

She put her arm around him and squeezed his shoulders.

“No, probably not. Why don’t you take off the cloth? She’s probably hot.”

Manuel went to play horseshoes with some neighbor men. Mamá visited with some of the ladies from the market, while Diego joined in a sack race with boys and girls from his school. A girl named Elena knew about everything there was to know about burros. When she was chosen as Miss Burro, she jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

Miss Burro’s mother was wiping tears from her eyes. “That’s my daughter, Elena,” she said to the onlookers. A mariachi band began playing, and dust swirled as dancers filled the plaza. Rosita’s dress flared out as she twirled with Manuel. Later, the family regrouped, and they sat in the shade eating tacos.

A man shouted into a megaphone. “Now, the highlight of the festival. The parade of the donkeys to choose this year’s winner of the costume contest.”

“Andale, Diego. Go get Clover,” his father said.

“No, Papi. We took off her covering and the daisies are all dying. He sniffed. “She doesn’t look . . . she doesn’t look . . . ” He couldn’t finish.

“Didn’t we come to honor our donkey? We don’t have to be in the costume contest. Go get her. Come on, muchacha,” he said to Rosita, “Our family will walk in the parade.”

Diego obeyed and strutted down the street holding tight to Clover’s rope, but when they got even with the stage, Clover veered toward the man announcing the contest winner who sported a blond wig and a purple velvet cape.

“No, Clover,” Diego said, yanking on the rope. But Clover stubbornly disobeyed and pranced toward the ramp leading toward the stage. She pulled Diego along up the ramp. Clover stood right next to the winner.

“Well, what have we here?” the announcer boomed. “Another contender? Just look at this burro. I do believe she is smiling. Perhaps we should include a prize for the Mexico’s happiest burro.”

He motioned for Miss Burro to come forward. “You are an expert on burros. What do you think we should do for this—” He turned to Diego. “Does your burro have a name?

“Yes, Clover,” Diego said loudly.

“For Clover,” the man said.

Miss Burro took the big red bow from her hair and tied it around Clover’s neck. “You should give her some apples too. Burros love them.”

The crowd applauded as much for Clover as they had the winning burro.

Manuel had to come and pull and push Clover off the stage, which made the children laugh.

Finally, it was time to go. Slowly, the family retraced their steps down the dusty road toward home.

“Well, Clover,” Manuel said. “I did not know I picked an award-winning burro.

Rosita put her hand over her smile and winked at Diego.

Preserved

Ramona Scarborough

August, 2012

Hot summers in the 1950's, women in Vancouver, Washington went into canning overdrive. Bending over steaming kettles, mopping their brows with handkerchiefs, they did not consider themselves kitchen slaves, but efficiency and economy experts. Shelves sagging with pristine, preserved produce gave bragging rights or even turned the enterprise into an out and out competition.

Our family and the rest of the neighborhood began our endeavors as early as possible. In February, the mailman's pouch strap dug into his shoulder as he carried stacks of seed catalogs to the contestants. My father selected Early Girl tomatoes to beat Mrs. Higbee's fat, slower growing Bonnie Bests. The new corn hybrids promised Mr. Dolbeck, plentiful ears but didn't mention flavor.

While frost still covered the ground, we stuck dirt and seeds into open egg cartons, plunked them on our window sill and waited for them to hatch.

Freezing myself, I picked the lotus pods off Dad's cover crop and pressed out the miniscule black seeds that would be sown the next year. He then turned the plants under, giving our future contenders a dose of nourishing nitrogen.

A surgeon's care was given to transplanting the baby seedlings after the almanac assured us the frost was passed. A nest was dug, compost was nestled in the bottom for hungry roots, and water sprinkled for the infants to drink. They were then swaddled in cheesecloth blankets with just their heads peeping out.

At this juncture, investigators often showed up.

"Are those Blue Lakes by any chance?"

“You putting in Hubbards or Acorn squash this year?"

Its possible they did some algebraic calculations in their heads. "Hm-m, if he puts in X and Y, with this known quotient of space, that might equal more quarts on their shelves than mine." Every year, the lawns got smaller and the garden plots bigger.

Each vegetable that matured arrived on the dinner table fresh for a number of times but eventually ended up jammed in a jar, put into the wire canning rack and dunked in boiling water. The cucumbers lay bathing in brine and dill in ceramic crocks waiting their turn.

As soon as the U-pick orchards opened, fruit frenzy began. Wooden crates of apples, peaches, pears and plums were loaded into station wagons, pick-ups and car trunks. Plucking the ripest produce was just the beginning. The canning jars were unearthed from their hiding places in the cellar or back porch, scrubbed with hot, soapy water, scalded and set upside down on a tea towel. A controversy about which jar and lid, Mason or Ball, was best could spark a lively debate.

Now, the good housewives and children who had been pressed into service, got out their knives and peeled, cored, sliced and in the case of applesauce, mashed and cooked. Snap! The beans made a noise as my mother and I sat on the porch all afternoon trying to dwindle down the seemingly bottomless bag. Mama told stories that helped to pass the time.

My hands were purple for a week after squeezing grapes through cheesecloth to get juice to mix with pectin for jelly. When the paraffin to cover the top began to cool, I would snatch a bit and use it for chewing gum. No taste, just something to chaw on.

Like others in our canning community, we roamed the countryside looking for wild berry vines to stick our fingers and rip on clothes on, all for the preservation of our species during the winter. However, the resulting delectable jam was worth being pricked.

During the hottest part of the summer, when the canning began in earnest, our kitchen became a Turkish steam bath. Mama's housedress stuck to her back and drops of sweat tickled down my back under my blouse. When she had finished processing one full canner, she would slowly pull out the wire rack filled with heavy jars.

"Be careful of this hot water dripping off of here," she'd warn me.

She'd set the rack down carefully on potholders she'd knitted and with a clean cloth wiped each jar as she removed it to rest on a towel. Then, she would start all over on the next batch. On top of this all day job, dinner always appeared on the table before Daddy came home from work.

Some of the ladies of my mother's wide acquaintance acquired pressure cookers to speed up the task, so Dad gifted her with one. Even after she read the directions, I sensed she was a little afraid after noting the warning portion. She had reason to be. On season, I got a badly scraped knee falling off the neighbor's slide. Mama abandoned her stove surveillance to adminster first aid and forgot to monitor her modern wonder.

K-blam! The pent-up steam blew the lid clear to the ceiling. The jars broke and the contents, unfortunately stewed tomatoes, decorated our kitchen stove and walls. When my mother came back from her Florence Nightingale mission, my mother, who never swore looked as though she might coin a few new choice bad words herself. She sat down for a few minutes and viewed what the pressure cooker had wrought. Then she got up and scrubbed everything down. Next year, she retrieved her blue-speckled enamel boiler and canned without fear.

During the time I was growing up, most of the women I knew canned. If they didn't, they probably were "just plain lazy." Now, I don't know anyone who cans. Likely, there are secret cells of women in the United States somewhere who still uphold this sacred tradition.

Canned goods on shelves in stores today are not pretty. They are not a source of pride or the sign of a hardworking woman. However, back then they were all of those things and now, they are a special memory preserved in my mind.

Ramona Scarborough is the author of "Stranger Friends," a collection of short stories, two historical novels, The Autograph Book and it's sequel, Anna's Diary. She just completed Soft Kill, a suspense novella. Her stories and articles have appeared in national, regional and local magazines.