Munching crisp, hot spring onions beside Highway 16 or picnicking on cornbread down in the pastures on a sultry summer afternoon-these were the typical joys of growing up in rural America during the first half of the twentieth century. Here, the author captures the essence of that existence and distills it in her poignant poems. "The hall is gone where one Christmas afternoon I woke and tried to fly, from dreams of angels and partridges in pear trees-but I still make her pumpkin pie. This year when I 'Christmas Gift!' my first grandchild, Grandmother will smile somewhere to see me stand in the open door of another house, trying to fill her place." "Christmas Gift!"