![\"IMG_6132\"](\"http:\/\/52.86.15.65\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/img_6132.jpg?w=300\")
<\/a>Tried to put myself in the mind of the boy, about my age, who listened to the mournful cricket song on a warm September night while his mother lay dying.Look around!\u00a0 It was a landscape filled with wonder and possibilities that I could only imagine.\u00a0 The old metal pump which had served its masters so well over the decades before water ran from kitchen faucets, stood forlornly in the yard, its usefulness now relegated to a quaint reminder of days gone by.<\/p>\nI pumped it vigorously up and down, up and down until my arm ached.\u00a0 When the cool water defied gravity to spill out onto the earth I grabbed the dented tin cup and filled it.\u00a0 The water was cold but tasted like the metals of the underworld and the rust of ancient pipes.\u00a0 I took a few sips and splashed the rest on my face.<\/p>\n
My sister found me at the pump.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome with me. I have a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
I followed her to the barn which was devoid of animals now but cool and filled with the clean smell of hay.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp here,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t tell Mom or Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked skeptically at the ladder which led high up to a loft.\u00a0 But my brave sister who was fearless and had a nose for adventure wouldn\u2019t lead me astray so I cautiously ascended the ladder, following her lead.<\/p>\n
From the top I could see wide gaps in the floor of the loft. Chasms that loomed like the Grand Canyon before my timid eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe careful, we\u2019re almost there.\u201d<\/p>\n
She reached under the straw at the base of a supporting beam and pulled out an egg, pearly white and flawless in shape.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did it come from?\u201d\u00a0I was surprised since there were no chickens in sight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a trick egg.\u00a0They put it underneath the chickens to trick them into laying.\u201d<\/p>\n
This seemed miraculous to me.\u00a0 A chicken would wake to find this magical egg in her nest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did it!\u201d she would exclaim. \u201cIf I did it once I can do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I hold it?\u201d\u00a0 I asked.<\/p>\n
She handed it to me and when I had satisfied my curiosity she carefully replaced it underneath the straw.<\/p>\n
The gaps in the floor showed the ominous depths to which I would\u00a0plunge in the event of a misstep.\u00a0 My nerve was running out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going back to the house,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Carefully making my way down the ladder, hands tightly clutching the rails, I heard my sister\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember, don\u2019t tell anyone.\u201d\u00a0 She lay on her stomach high above me, her head and arms dangling over the edge of the loft as she watched me leave.<\/p>\n
I walked inside the old house, a home built at a time when houses spoke and moved and breathed and had stories to tell unlike the mute structures of today.\u00a0 This house was new when its brother houses 150 miles away were being turned into makeshift hospitals where the groans of dying Union and Confederate soldiers could be heard for days if not weeks.<\/p>\n
My mother noticed me and called me into a room.\u00a0 She shut the door behind us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have something for you,\u201d she said.\u00a0 And then I remembered it was my birthday. \u00a0I\u2019d nearly forgotten.<\/p>\n
A matching brush and mirror framed in glittering pink plastic.\u00a0 And a bag of Hershey\u2019s Kisses.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy Birthday,\u201d she said with a smile and a kiss\u2026 a real one.<\/p>\n
When she was gone, I sat on a chair and unfolded the shiny silver foil from a Kiss. I put it in my mouth and tasted its chocolate-y delight. I tentatively held the mirror with my left hand and took a few practice strokes with the brush. But it was too nice really. I didn\u2019t want to sully it with loose hairs so I set it down carefully on the dresser beside its mirror mate.<\/p>\n
Then, unable to get the magic egg out of my mind, I stuffed a few extra Kisses in my pocket and went off in search of my sister.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a day so hot and close that only children could function at full capacity.\u00a0 This was the farm where my father had lived as a boy.\u00a0 It was difficult to imagine the formal older man roaming these hills and playing in this creek.\u00a0 Difficult to picture him coming in from a hard day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"IMG_6133\"](\"http:\/\/52.86.15.65\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/img_6133.jpg?w=224\")
It was a day so hot and close that only children could function at full capacity.\u00a0 This was the farm where my father had lived as a boy.\u00a0 It was difficult to imagine the formal older man roaming these hills and playing in this creek.\u00a0 Difficult to picture him coming in from a hard day of work and play to eat a slab of bread coated with apple butter and cottage cheese, a meal later dubbed the \u201cwhen-daddy-was-a-little-boy\u201d sandwich. \u00a0I tried to visualize him at the kitchen table, his upper lip sporting a happy young child\u2019s buttermilk moustache instead of the patch of hair that grew there now.<\/p>\n![\"IMG_6132\"](\"http:\/\/52.86.15.65\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/img_6132.jpg\")
<\/a>Tried to put myself in the mind of the boy, about my age, who listened to the mournful cricket song on a warm September night while his mother lay dying.Look around!\u00a0 It was a landscape filled with wonder and possibilities that I could only imagine.\u00a0 The old metal pump which had served its masters so well over the decades before water ran from kitchen faucets, stood forlornly in the yard, its usefulness now relegated to a quaint reminder of days gone by.<\/p>\n