In A Short Story Of Christopher Columbus

was so curious about the woods and wild things. If Ina or Cornelius couldn't answer her questions about the workings of nature, Amelia would go out and study it until she figured it out for herself. One time she wanted to know about polliwogs. She kept asking Ina and Cornelius the same question, what happened first, did they get their legs then their tail fell off, or did their tail fall off and then they grew their legs? Neither Ina nor Cornelius knew, so Amelia went out and got some frog eggs from a boggy area nearby, brought them home quickly in her apron pocket, and put them in an enameled pan with some water. Then she watched the clear gelatinous mass with its little black specks for weeks. Finally they turned from black dots in the eggs

It made her feel better to know they had more food for winter. Then she went back outside to talk to Cornelius and check on Christopher. They had named their youngest son Christopher because they had traveled to a strange land where he was born in the early autumn. It was a remote part of the new world Columbus had traveled to, so they thought the name was appropriate. Every pioneer knew the story of Christopher Columbus and passed it on to their children. Cornelius was packing the last bit of mud and dried grasses between the rows of pine logs up under the eaves, and looked a mess where he had wiped his sweaty brow with his mud splattered arms. Ina could see he'd also used his trousers for a towel and they were streaked with mud all down the front of the pant legs. She'd have to do some heavy scrubbing on the washboard with lye soap to get them clean. He was doing necessary, dirty work so she expected and tolerated the very dirty

It wasn't something you could hire someone to do for you out here; you had to do your own hard work. She wished Rubin would start growing faster, put some weight on and be sturdy like Amelia. Then turning her thoughts back to her day in the woods she said to Cornelius.” There’s lots of fat squirrels over that way if you're fixin' to get some meat."
"Well I'll shoot some, but later on, they're close by and I kin shake them out of the nest and shoot 'em even when the snow starts.” he answered “I think I should go out and git us a deer though like we talked, maybe even an elk, so we kin put up more meat afore the snow starts driftin’ and I can't git far away to hunt. I was thinkin' I'd go out afore you get up in the mornin'." He finished up what he was doing and backed on down the ladder. "Probably over to thet bog area where their eatin' on thet green grass" he added. "I've seen 'em over thet way