Cattle Upon a Thousand Hills

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Martha-Grace Duncan, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2021-01-01
• Publisher: Appalachian Review
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2021 Elsevier Inc., its licensors, and contributors.
• Final Published Version (URL): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3898627
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Appalachian Review
• Volume: 49
• Keywords: creative nonfiction; memoir; dairy farm; Appalachia
• Research Categories: Law

Abstract

Barn Burning Wood and hay kin burn. —William Faulkner I was two-and-a-half years-old when I stood at the living room window with my very pregnant mother, watching our barn burn down. “I think you kind of enjoyed it,” she told me later. “The neighbors came and threw snowballs at the flames.” No firefighters ventured out to save the barn or the animals lodged therein—ten cows, a horse, and a cat. Perched at the top of a hill, on a long dirt road, our farm lay twenty miles from the nearest city, in the extreme northeast corner of Pennsylvania. We were isolated at all times but especially in winter, when snow and ice left our home beyond the reach of the outside world.