Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ONEROUS (03/02/17)
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TITLE: Tired fingers, tired backs. | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
03/07/17 -
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Now Franklin is right smart for a deafie. He uses his whole face and his hands to tell me what he’s thinking – especially about Molly Perkins when she passes by on the way home from school. He loves to imitate her swaying hips as her ankle length dress swishes through the puffs of dust made by her sandals on the pathway.
I just get tired of having to slash and sheaf the wheat while watching my brother in case he’s trying to tell me something. He’s three years older than me but sometimes it feels like it’s me that has to be the man of the house.
If mom wants to call someone for chores it’s me who can hear her hollering across the hills. If grandma Rose wants to go to town, it’s me that has to hitch up the wagon and take her since she doesn’t trust Franklin to protect her if someone tries to take advantage. If preacher Danvers wants to visit the widows and orphans it’s me that has to find the good book and try to read something to show we aren’t neglected.
Franklin’s fingers seem especially busy today: “look at the geese; look at those storm clouds; look at the way the horse’s ears are twitchin.” Of course, I may have some of that not quite right but he usually gets his thoughts across. I can’t imagine living without hearing.
One night I plugged my ears with cotton tufts and stayed under the blanket for a whole ten minutes. I couldn’t hear birds, chickens, wind – nothing. I tried to listen for mum humming as she sewed up my skivvies – nothing. I strained to make out the footsteps of Franklin or anyone – nothing. It almost sent me to craziness.
Farmer Klassen once told me in town at the feed shop that people used to think deafies were possessed. People used to lock ‘em up and beat the devil out of them. Sure glad we don’t live in those times. It just reminds me I got to watch out for my brother more.
Franklin’s usually smiling but today he keeps looking up. Mom wants us taking a load to the flour mill this afternoon.
“Get back to work,” I say, moving my lips and hands clearly so he can read them – no point, he’s not looking – just sky-watching.
Thunder crashes. There’s definitely a storm coming but that only means we’ve got to get this wagonload finished and down to the mill even quicker. ‘Why is it always me who has to make things happen?’
Franklin spent all day Saturday fishing in the stream out back and I had to clean all nine trout. Samuel, the farmhand, left to work with ol’ Mr. Holman and I had to stay up to help the sow with her piglets. Preacher Danvers needed a pie for the shared lunch on Sunday and I had to pick the apples for grandma Rose.
Of course, when Molly Perkins asked me last Thursday why I wasn’t in school anymore I told her it was ‘cause of Franklin. Somehow he read my lips and when she was gone he attacked me and gave me a black eye. Then, momma scolded me for being careless. “You should have been cleaning the plow, mending that pasture fence, whitewashing the house instead of pestering your big brother and carrying on with some girl.”
Sometimes having a deafie brother is a pain. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I first smelled the smoke. It was close enough to hear the crackling of the flames. I was in the wagon stuffing in the last sheaves of wheat.
I hollered to get Franklin’s attention as he slashed at the stand of golden grain. The horse bolted from under me and I was thrown like a sack of onions against the corner post of the wagon and then out onto a large rock. The pain in my side and leg was intense and I screamed.
Somehow, Franklin noticed me and carefully bent over me – his eyes speaking all the words he needed. He sniffed the air, turned and noticed the flames racing across the field. Picking me up as if I was another sheaf of wheat, he began to run.
We lost everything but us.
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I enjoyed the different perspective of the story. It really made me appreciate my sense of hearing in a new way.
I wondered why you didn't capitalize both Grandma and Rose.