६.१.

my uncle &

Oscar

by Harry Otis

Uncle Vince lived in a log cabin on the outskirts of Granite. A quarter of a mile away on her small ranch, Aunt Kate raised hogs and goats, while Emma kept house and tended their garden.

The only times the three ever visited us were at Christmas and Thanksgiving. After they left mother always sank into her rocker with a groan and said, "Your sister's filthy language would make a hired hand blush. She ought to have more pride." Whereupon Dad would puff his pipe and counter with, "Vince's citified manners are disgusting. I can't imagine where the fool picked 'em up. He's never been anywhere but Leadville and Denver."

Whenever I needed help with my lessons I went to Uncle Vince. Winter nights, with the coyotes sitting in a circle on the snow outside his cabin and barking at the moon. I'd find it

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warm and fragrant inside from the pine branches burning in the iron stove, and by the light of his kerosene lamp we'd go over my school work. One unforgettable Sunday in July he sat on the ground out front with his back against a cedar, a copy of Dorian Gray in his lap. After I joined him he began reading. It was the time of day that the sunflowers growing on each side of his doorway had their faces to the sun. At the finish they'd turned to a row of dark pines silhouetted against a crimson glow behind a rocky ridge.

Uncle Vince died in his 91st year. A telegram from Kate informed me that he was hospitalized and wasn't expected to live but when I arrived home autumn winds had blanketed a new mound in the cemetery with oak leaves. Kate took me there in her jeep then to his cabin. He had given her the key and asked her not to let any-

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