As told from a child:
I love staying with my Daddy’s parents. My Momma let me come over here more after I fell off rail carrying the eggs in the chicken house. Everybody laughed because I was covered with eggs! Mom didn’t think it was so funny though, because she says the whole cart could’ve crushed me, and lightning in a chicken house last year already hurt my sister.
My Grandparents have a really nice house down a gravel road a few miles from our farm. They have a farm too, but their chickens are biddies. That means baby chickens. But the rules are different with Grandmother, she doesn’t let me near that chicken house, though I like to watch biddies. Everything is the same everyday. My job is to do the biscuits. She does get upset if I eat a little dough and I’ve got to wash my hands to get the flour off. I didn’t have enough clothes, so she made me these cool little dresses with pockets out of the flour sacks! I don’t really like dresses, but I like these.
Everybody visits my grandparents every day! It’s usually to see my Grandaddy, because he’s a Judge, the kind that lives in the country. He doesn’t wear a robe or have a courtroom like on Perry Mason. His office is right here in the house. One day I found this cool thing to press into paper and make the American Eagle. But I must’ve done something wrong, because I got locked out. My uncle Martin stops by on the way twice a day. Joe the Constable stops by too. He’s real nice, but Grandmother says to stay away from him because he wears a gun. Grandaddy’s gun hangs right over his bed. He says it’s a shotgun, but I don’t touch it and it’s big, not like the little one Joe has.
I like it when people get married at my Grandparents’ house. But it’s usually in the middle of the night, so my Grandmother yells at my Grandaddy for letting strangers inside. So he opens the door, she holds the shotgun, and I’m in the back, all dressed down to my shoes. Then it’s just a couple of nice people, Grandaddy reads them something from a paper and they’re married! My Grandmother sits on the couch, and I sit on the heater, unless it’s winter.
Momma’s here to take me back home. I don’t want to go back. Daddy’s mad all the time when he’s home. When he’s gone it’s not so bad. He’s never at his own Momma and Daddy’s house when I’m there. But Grandaddy told me to tell the school if I wanted him to pick me up so I can stay with them whenever if I want to.
Plum Tree Books Youth Tube
http://www.wix.com/niamhclune/youth-tube1
I invite readers and writers to Plum Tree Books and Youth Tube for inspiring stories, music, and poetry promoting creativity for children. Every Child Is Entitled To Innocence.
Great experience as told from a child’s view. Loved the “…I sit on the heater, unless it’s winter.”
Very clever.
-Ella