Out of the Dust

This section summarizes Poem 54: “The State Tests Again,” Poem 55: “Christmas Dinner Without the Cranberry Sauce,” Poem 56: “Driving the Cows,” Poem 57: “First Rain,” Poem 58: “Haydon P. Nye,” Poem 59: “Scrubbing Up Dust,” and Poem 60: “Outlined by Dust.”

In January, the school performs well on standardized tests. Billie Jo yearns to share the news with Ma and hear Ma’s confidence in Billie Jo’s abilities. Billie Jo reflects on the quiet Christmas dinner she prepared for her father, regretting that she did not have Ma’s cranberry sauce: “but she never showed me how to make it” (101). The dust worsens in “Driving the Cows;” neighbor Joe La Flor allows County Agent Dewey to shoot some of his cattle because they are starving. It does finally rain, a good soaking and steady rain that makes mud of the dust and soaks through Billie Jo’s clothes on the way to school. The reprieve from dust and dryness temporarily quiets her growing desire to leave.

Also in January, old-timer Haydon P. Nye, a local resident who settled in the area when it was still open plains with buffalo and wolves, dies. Billie Jo sees the mud from the rain drying around the porch and steps.