Early to Bed, Early to Rise . . .

 

Nickel Novel

Title: Farm Life

By: Bobbi Sue Jenkinson

 

On a farm there are always plenty of chores that need doing, and the farm where Daisey lived was not any different.

 

One morning, around 6am, Daisey, a nine-year-old girl with a vivid imagination, dashed out the front door of her family’s farm house and hurried to a suitable spot out on the front lawn. She then took a firm stance, stretched out her arms and leaned forward as far as she could.

Jeremiah, Daisey’s fifteen-year-old brother, heard her running and went outside, knowing his sister was always up to something peculiar. Upon seeing Daisey and the odd way she was standing, he immediately asked, “What in the heck are you doing, Daisey?”

“A storm is coming! And I’m gonna wrestle down the tornado when it comes, so it doesn’t destroy our house,” she replied sternly.  

Jeremiah looked up at the cloudless sky and scratched his head. However, he figured this was another one of his sister’s silly games and for that reason, he asked, “Want some help?”

“Sure! The more the better!”

Shortly thereafter, the children’s grandfather, Jedidiah, open the door and glanced at the two children. He shook his head, but he had no intentions of asking what they were doing. He simply sat down in his favorite chair, on the porch, like he did every morning, and commenced loading his pipe with tobacco. 

The children’s mother, Mary, just finished cooking breakfast, though nary a soul was sitting at the table, as there should have been. She called out a few times, but strangely heard no reply. Curious as to where her children might be, she went looking for them. A moment later, she heard bizarre hooting and hollering. She hurried out the front door and onto the porch. There she saw and heard her children wailing their arms and shouting for no apparent reason. Mary looked over at Jedidiah. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“What are you children up to now!” Mary shouted.

Without looking back, Jeremiah and Daisey simultaneously answered, “Wrestling a tornado!”

Mary, a gentle woman with a good sense of humor, was fully aware of Daisey’s frequent creative pranks, joined her children, wailing her arms and shouting.

It was truly a sight to see the three of them wrestling an imaginary tornado. Unfortunately, their fun was about to end when, Josiah, Mary’s husband, walked through the door and saw the unusual sight. He was a patient man with an even temperament, but there were chores that needed to be done on the farm.   

 

“Mary!” he shouted in a loud bellowing voice.  

Daisey quickly whispered to her brother, “The real storm is here.”

Mary, equally as quick, turned and hurried into the house, and as she wisped passed her husband, they both winked at one another.

“Jeremiah, I believe the horse stalls need shoveling!” Josiah said firmly.

“Yes sir” he replied and ran off. 

“Daisey,” her father said looking up at the sky.

“Yes, father?” she asked timidly.

“Looks like you won this time.”

Daisey let out a sigh of relief and hurried off to do her chores.

Josiah looked over at Jedidiah, his father, who was puffing on his pipe and asked, “Next time, if it’s not too much trouble, could you remind them to eat first?”

Jedidiah eased the ivory pipe from his old lips, paused a moment, and then answered, “Well, if’n I did that today, the tornado might have destroyed the house. Now, if’n it’s not too much trouble for you, could you ask your lovely wife to bring an old man a cup of coffee.”

j/k