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church shoes, smeared with dust and dirt.
    “Martin,” he said in a grave voice I did not recognize. “Martin, look at me.”
    I raised my eyes and I looked up into his and felt the weight of his disappointment in me. I thought I could smell the blood from butchering on him. “Martin, we’re a family. And our family business happens to be hog farming. I know you are ashamed of that—”
    I shook my head quickly. That was not what I thought, but I didn’t know how to make him understand. He continued.
    “I know that the filth of what I do shames you, and that I don’t have your same schoolin’ shames you, too. But this is who I am, a hog farmer. And it’s who you are, too. At least for now. I can’t read your big fancy books and understand some of those big words you use, but what I do puts food on our table and those shoes on your feet. To do that, I need the help of my family. You’re the oldest, you got to help. You find the way that you can help, Martin, and you tell me what that is, but you got to do your share. You can’tbe runnin’ off into town when there’s work to be done. Understand?”
    I nodded, the heat of my own shame rising off my face.
    “You think on it, Martin, tonight. You think on it and tell me in the mornin’ what your part is gonna be.” Then he walked away from me, his head hanging low, his hands stuffed into the back of his work pants.
    I slept little that night, trying to find a way that I could be useful to my family. I did not want to mind my younger brothers and sisters, and I was not very handy with building or fixing things. What was I good at? I wondered that night. I was a good reader and I was good at mathematics. Those were my strengths. I pondered on these the entire night and when my father awoke the next morning I was waiting for him at our kitchen table.
    “I think I know how I can help, Daddy,” I said shyly, and he rewarded me with his familiar lopsided grin.
    “I knew you would, Martin,” he replied and sat down next to me.
    I laid it all out for him, the financial records of the farm, noting in as kind a way as possible the sloppiness and inaccuracies that they contained. I could help, I told him, by keeping track of the money. I would find ways of saving and ways of making the farm more efficient. He was pleased with my plan, and I was appreciative of his faith in me. We never flourished as a family farm, but our quality of life improved. We were able to update our utilities and install a telephone; we could afford shoes for each of the children all year-round, though I was still the only one who chose to wear them in the summer. One winter day when I was sixteen, soon before my father’sbirthday, I took the farm truck into town to the only department store, which sold everything from groceries to appliances. I spent two and a half hours looking at the two models of television sets they had available, weighing the pros and cons of each. I finally decided upon the twelve-inch version with rabbit ear antennae. I settled it carefully in the cab of the truck next to me wrapped in blankets to cushion any jostling that would occur on the winding dirt roads, and returned to the farm.
    When my father came in that evening, after taking care of the hogs, we were gathered in the living room, all nine of us, blocking the view of my father’s birthday present.
    “What’s going on here?” he asked, as it was rare that we were all congregated in one place that was not the supper table.
    My mother began to sing “Happy Birthday” to my father and we all joined in. At the end of the song we parted to reveal the tiny television set that rested upon an old bookshelf.
    “What’s this?” my father asked in disbelief. “What did you go and do?”
    We were all grinning up at him and my little sister, Lottie, who was seven, squealed, “Turn it on, Daddy, turn it on!”
    My father stepped forward and turned the knob to On and after a moment the black-and-white image of a