Late spring always meant Dad’s disking the ground just past the barbed wire fence behind our house in preparation for planting the family garden. After a couple of days of preparing the rows and fertilizing the soil, we would all prepare for planting. All of us except Mom and Andy. Mom—well, she would have plenty to do later in the season. And Andy—well, evidently, being the youngest had its privileges.

Planting time was always the favorite part of garden season for my sisters and me. Dad would give us the bag of peas or butter beans or whatever it was that we were planting at that particular time and give us instructions on how many seeds to plant in each hole. Dad usually settled on four: “one for the cutworm, one for the crow, one to die, and one to grow.” He would...

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