by Maria Tussing

Created on: May 28, 2008   Last Updated: June 10, 2008

The sun baked the dirt into pebbles, each step grinding them into my bare feet. The row of onion sets stretched out before me like the trail through purgatory. Judging from the expressions on my brothers' faces, their thoughts were following a similar path.

"While you weed the onions you can think about how you can get along," my mother said, hands on her hips.

The muttering from the next row over made me think Matt and Levi weren't contemplating how to bring peace to the family. Neither was I. I was gritting my teeth at the injustice. Just because we had a friendly, shouting disagreement about whose turn it was to set the table, we were sentenced to a morning of weeding the onions. There wasn't even any consolation in the idea that the punishment was limited, because once we were done with the onions there was always the tomatoes, the beans and the corn to be weeded. Not to mention that the weeds would grow back. Mom would never turn us loose on the lettuce or spinach. She could probably hear us already, "But we thought they were ALL weeds."

By the end of the rows of onions, the sweat dripping in our eyes and dirt firmly wedged under our fingernails, our thoughts had calmed somewhat. While at ages eight, eleven and twelve we weren't contemplating the brotherhood of man, we were no longer bent on murder.

The next day at breakfast our voices began to rise, "But I set it yesterday."
"Yeah, so. I did it the day before."
Mom came in from the kitchen, pancake turner in her hand. She raised one eyebrow in the manner that carried more weight than her 112 pounds and said simply, "Onions."
I set the table.

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