Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Write in the HISTORICAL genre (05/03/07)
-
TITLE: Prairie | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dee Yoder
05/09/07 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
“John, hurry.” I puff.
“My legs are hurting and my side is aching”, he cries.
“I know, but I can tell mother and pa are worried about us.” I can barely speak for the effort to keep running, to keep John moving ahead.
In my mind are the memories of the past; especially the burials of my two sisters. We dressed them each in their best clothes; dresses that had been carefully folded in Ohio before our long journey to the west. My mother struggled to let them go. I see her in my mind, skinny and frail, pulling the trunk out from the corner, searching through the meager clothing stored inside. We had dreamed of one day pulling those Sunday garments out in our new settlement, to wear to our new church, in our new life on the prairie.
Things had not gone as we’d planned. It was much harsher, much lonelier, much harder to make a daily life than we had ever thought it would be. The winter had tried to kill us all, but had managed to slip away with the two weakest before retreating into history. Now the season of rain and wind and hope had breathed down on us. But it was hard to see any hope in mother’s eyes. Her face wore the chiseled, guarded squint of loss. Her words were sharp and focused on plain living with no thoughts wasted on the beautiful, the extraordinary. I was stunned by her reply the first time I called to her to come and listen to the meadowlark that was newly returned. She had appeared at the Soddy door, her face red and perspiring from her work. I could see she was cross with me.
“There’ll be a hundred more meadowlarks to listen to before the summer’s done, Lydia. Don’t be bothering me about things like that.”
I’d watched her go back inside as if she were a stranger. My mother had been beautiful and happy and full of life before we started out on this journey. I wanted her back. I missed the way she used to pull me down beside her to examine nature up close. She’d never minded being interrupted before. Now, she worried about everything. Now, when I coughed in the night, I heard my mother stir. I felt her breath on my cheek and her hand graze my forehead. Some nights, she couldn’t resist waking me to ask if I was all right.
So we run to her and Pa, to calm her fears and to see his weary shoulders sag in relief. He turns to her. He pulls her to him and says with a faint smile, “See, they’re fine. Children must play, Anna, they must run and have time to dream.”
He comes to meet us and playfully tousles our hair. He says to her, “They need to be out of our sight, sometimes, to be happy to come home again, Anna.”
Mother raises her face to the late afternoon clouds. Her eyes seem to be searching the sky for the others. For a moment, her mouth trembles. Tears form but she blinks them away again and again. Her face softens, the hard squint slackens, and a small smile tilts her lips upward. The meadowlark sings his spring song and mother looks at me. She reaches out her hand to draw me near.
“Let’s go see if we can find that old bird, Lydia,” she says quietly.
I look behind me as mother and I walk into the field. Gyp is nipping and pulling at John’s pants. Pa is watching us walk away. I raise my hand and wave. He waves back. He gathers his tools and returns to his work.
We are making our life on the prairie; we are planting our hopes and dreams in this soil. Sometimes, they are watered with our tears.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
The word "had" is used a number of places in your story where it could probably just be eliminated.
Nice snapshot picture of the rough prairie life. Good job.