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sidewalks. The driveway wall to the high side stopped the neighbors flowers; as they with wind tossed their peddles to our feet. My father stopped at the end of the driveway. And we all waited quietly, when we were with him. The sun saw my mothers silver hair, until a white glove stopped it's strength, And suddenly there was the silence of everybody's song without symphony. My mother knew as a child in an outside the city town, that if the family could have afforded a piano she could have learned to play. If all she had BETTER THAN THE ONE IN HER MIND to do was learn the notes; Then everyone would have sang; and she would have been the reason. Her happiness would have been complete, and never complicated; Joy would have filled her as she played and they sang. Her humility would have been real and unsinful; And when she had finished her friend and family would have clapped for themselves and hers; Then a wink she would feel, while in grinning Irish gratitude they would flatter the father and peal to the mother. THE DEPRESSION But she knew this happiness through lifes notes anyway, by following the ways of her mother in taking care of her younger brothers. She talked to them the way she wished she could talk to the astray boys her own age, who were listening to there own way without directions; Her mother taught her that only those tip toe through life truths brought success in making her brothers bathe, fetch fresh milk in the wind of level land winter, talk nicely to her on their way to school; and not to pretend to believe what she believed; that terrifying things touched the very soul of any man who tryed the tip toe thing; through the downtown graveyard at midnight; Only good things could happen; if she followed Fathers firm laws directed by her mother; Laws interpreted from the big world; The factory, the church;