Sometimes ain't nothing colder than the truth

Ain't no cold suffers a person quite like wet, rainy cold, specially when you sick. I was walking back to the house with the early November rain driven by a brisk wind beatin me down till I had to actually bend over to make headway. I plum had the deep bone chills, burning with fever and too sick to even eat. My tonsils was swolt slam shut till I couldn't swaller, but I hain't told nobody yet cause it cost ten dollars every time we went to the Doctor and as much as the shot hurt, the talk about "spent money" hurt me even more I reckon. Dr. Saunders kept the big old hypodermic needle soaking in some kind of pink or blue liquid. I don't rightly remember cause I couldn't look at it long, knowin it was coming my way. Seems like the big end was made in a circle and he run his finger through that circle there at  the top of the plunger. Always asked me if I wanted it in my butt or in my arm. Truth be known the butt felt better, and you didn't have to watch the circumstances but I didn't like dropping my blue jeans in front of nobody...so I always managed to somehow squeak out the word "arm." Thinking bout the Doctor musta shortened the trip cause I finally made the front steps and Grandma said "Leave them muddy shoes on the porch." I shook and shivered almost like ol Bob our Bird Dog did when he was wet. "Come here" Grandma said. "Child you burning up with fever, tomorrow you got to go to the Doctor". "Open your mouth and say aaahh"....I did as told, she was only four foot six and weighed about eighty four pounds and yet we all did what she said without question. "Umpph swolled shut" she said. When Daddy stopped in that night from Claude Daniels on the way home, she told him bout it. "Won't be no Christmas this year, too many Doctor bills" he said. I was still shivering under a mounded pile of Grandmas handmade quilts, "nothing new there" I thought. Won't never no Christmas, no year. No tree, no decorations, no Santa Claus....we got a Christmas card or two and sometimes Apples and Oranges and mixed nuts and Christmas candy. Money went to clothes and food and the Doctor. Childhood without Christmas ain't right but none of the family ever had it and they lived, and I can live it too I reasoned. Ain't no cold suffers a person quite like a wet cold I thought, and finally drifted off....