This charming collection of poems that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (The Yearling, Cross Creek) wrote in the 1920s were so popular that they appeared one-a-day in a New York newspaper for two full years. Organized by task, the poems graphically depict the life of a housewife (mending, baking, dusting, and the joy of a sunny window) with wisdom and humor. In the days before convenience stores and microwaves, Rawlings reminds us of the horror of having company show up with nothing fixed to feed them. Or in a more timeless vein, the disdain a harried mother feels for the neighbor who has all her Christmas shopping done and wrapped early.

KEPT HER FINGERS CROSSED, SAYS HER MARRIAGE IS VOID
UNIONTOWN, FEB. 25 -- Because she kept her fingers crossed during her marriage ceremony, Mrs. Mary Frances Wilson of Connellsville, told her husband that she had a right to break her marriage vows, according to testimony given by Davis Wilson, a P. and L.E. railroad conductor, who formerly resided at Newell, but who now lives at Uniontown. The husband, who was granted a divorce, said that when he objected to his wife's conduct she gave him the "crossed finger" alibi. Wilson declared that his wife's goodbye each morning when he left home for work was to hope that he would be ground to pieces before the day's work ended. The husband declared that he became so worried over his wife's actions that he cut his own throat and for a time lingered between life and death. He recovered weeks later and since that time he and his wife were estranged.
Indiana Evening Gazette - Feb 25, 1930