Sunday Scribblings #237 - Harvest

Here's my Sunday Scribbling for the week - except this time, I wrote it on a Monday. I hope I'm not breaking any rules in the act.


-oo0oo-

A storm was on the way. The trees had felt it all day, turning their leaves inside-out in anticipation of the coming moisture. A brisk breeze had been building itself up for hours until it had become something much stronger, though not yet strong enough to be called a gale. Clouds had been marching steadily onward from the west, growing larger and darker with every passing moment. Evening came and went, and darkness fell.

The house was still dimly lit, even though the sleeping hour had come. The day had been an eventful one, between the picnic and the blackberry hunting and dinner with the folks. The little ones had exhausted their seemingly unending supply of energy some hours before. They had tried so hard to stay awake, but even the most intriguing book or cunning game could not keep the drowsiness at bay in the end.

The father walked through the house, slowly and noiselessly. He was bone-tired himself, for the weeks of harvest had been long. But now, at last, all the corn was stowed away in the crib, the wheat was laid up in bundles in the barn, and the potatoes and bulbs had been planted in fresh beds of earth to await the spring. It was nearly time to rest. But not just yet.

He came to the first child, asleep over her picture book. He plucked her gently from the rug. She was a little thing, still a baby no matter how many times she insisted that she was a big girl. He laid her in her crib, day clothes and all, and tucked a blanket around her.

Then to the kitchen, where a much bigger boy, to big to carry, was resting his head on the table. The father lifted him up under the arms and guided him to the first of two beds in the back room. Then he went back for the boy's younger brother, who was curled up in front of the dying embers in the fireplace, and brought him to the second bed. He carefully bundled them up beneath the quilts, knowing from the howling wind that the night would be a cold one.  

Finally, a girl and her sister, who was nearly old enough to call herself a woman, were reclaimed from sewing room and settled deep down in their soft bed of goose-feather tick. Then it was time for the father and the mother to turn out the lights, one by one, and make their way through the dark to their own perfect bed, where they could be burried together beneath the blankets to wait out the wind and the cold of the storm.

The wind howled. Rain began hammering the roof and walls. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The house was dark and warm and still, reaping its rest after so many weeks of labor. The harvest was at last complete.

-oo0oo-

I want to clarify my request from last time. Please comment if you want to . I have no way of seeing who reads this unless you do. What I meant by my note was that you needn't feel obligated to comment simply because you read my blog. But if you feel you want to say something, please do it (whether you're from Scribblings or not). And if not, then think nothing of it. Thanks for all your support, and for reading all these little bits of my every day. I hope they are worth your while.