Winter Houses

(A Chick Evens story out of Minnesota, based on fact, 1956)


The Icy-Mississippi


Snow is on the sidewalks, in the streets, a thin layer covering the Mississippi River, on top of four-inches of ice —the houses and buildings are all lit, fires glowing in hearths, furnaces burning, as I rush out into the cold early Saturday morning air to sell newspapers “Five Cents!” It is December, 1956 and I’m ten-years old, just turned ten-years old in October.
I see people sitting in their houses: men, women and children—as if their minds are unoccupied, its 6:00 a.m., some of the houses are covered with blotches of snow; some even appear to smile at me—with their shadowy silhouettes.
Some of the houses are completely dark, solid gray dark; I suppose the people haven’t crawled out of bed yet. In other houses I hear laughter as I walk down Jackson Street to the St. Paul, Pioneer Press Newspaper, to get my stack of papers to sell on the corner of Forth and Robert Streets. I even can see the icy-Mississippi from where I sand.
In the quiet morning cold, the houses seem to whisper to me—as if they have secrets to tell—but I’m too young to stop and listen, I’m not yet a hunter of tales. Plus, they can only tell me things I’m too young to fully understand.
I pass a dozen houses, two, then three dozen, now buildings, doors are now bursting open.
I start to yell “St. Paul Pioneer Press! …FIVE CENTS!”
Slow moving, and slow speaking people walk by. I think my business is the most interesting in town—but of course at ten-years old, who wouldn’t think so. There even seems to be a touch of romanticism in this paper business.


No: 539 (12-5-2009) SA