The Peaceable Kingdom

"She had a good many things to be thankful for. She had a strong back and a good stomach. She had work. She could get a good night's sleep at night, peculiarly as she went about it. Besides, her children were al straight and normal, not one of them with a hunched back like their father's. There was coffee in the world. There were loving friends to drink it with. And though times were hard and her wages so small she would have been ashamed to tell to the penny how much she got for her hard work, still she kept her family clothed and fed. Not like princes of course, but adequately, and she sent them to school. She could be as Linnea told her many a time, proud of herself. She could hold her head up with anybody."

My grandmother, mother, and sister have been urging me to read The Peaceable Kingdom by Kennelly since I could read. I think I have three or more copies from numerous people, creating a pressing reminder on my book shelf. I have just started it and with Sterling, it is taking me three months to read and I have only read half of it but every time I pick it up I read something like this and understand why it is an absolute favorite. Oh Linnea, to have your state of mind and solidarity. 

"If a person wanted to be perfectly honest, the good things in life probably came in this order:

Health. What good were servants in knee pants if your fingers and toes were dropping off with leprosy?

Good Looks. What use were gold doorknobs and being able to fry a chicken in butter if you looked like the devil before day? 

Intelligence. What good was taking a trip in a red plush Pullman car and having a sealskin coat, if you didn't know enough to pound sand in a rat hole and everybody had you tagged as a goof  the minute they laid eyes on you?

There would not, by the way, be the slightest use for any of these things in Heaven...All the talent in the world for money wouldn't be worth a snap of the finger there. Health? Anybody who flew around in the fresh air all the time and maybe sipped honey from the heavenly flowers like some kind of hummingbird would naturally be as strong as a horse. And suppose you were the best-looking angel that ever stepped foot (or flapped a wing) in Heaven, what good would that do you? About as much good as a sack of salt out on the salt flats...and what would smartness do? Suppose you were the smartest angel that ever added up a column of figures in his haloed head? Was God going to step down and let you take over? No, in Heaven the only talent you needed was the talent to get there in the first place..."