The Dream

The sun was shining the day that he came in the wagon to take me away from my father’s house. We rode in the wagon barely saying a word. We were too nervous to speak. My husband’s farm was ten miles away from the farm where I had grown up in Tennessee. It was a small farm but would provide a good start for us.

I could hardly get my bearings as he dragged me from one sight to another. First, I got a glimpse at the inside of the cabin. Clean and new, you could tell the care he had taken in building it for us. And then he led me to the barnyard, and the henhouse, and we surveyed the chickens and the cattle.

We lived happily in the little house taking care of the chickens and cattle, tending our crops until the next spring. War erupted in the South, and unable to shirk his duty he made preparations to go and fight. My feet were bare in the cool, green grass as he went over the instructions one final time. Mind the corn. Have the neighbor across the way come and cut the hay. Send to my daddy for help when it came time to slaughter a beef. I promised I would be alright. I reminded him again that I could take care of our place until he came back.

I remember that one last look. I shaded my eyes as I looked up at him astride old Gray. He looked handsome in his uniform. I hoped he wouldn’t be gone long. We had no idea how much time would pass before he came home again. I felt a tremble in my stomach and thought it might be pangs of the grief I was holding back, trying to betray my emotion. So I stood there, my bare toes in the green grass watching him ride away . . .

It was cold early that fall. I went on and tended to the daily chores. I fed the chickens and milked the cow. I watched the hay cut and stacked in the barn. And I began to sew for the child who would soon be coming to fill my days. I happily wrote letters to him of all the happy news, the little happenings, and tried to hide the loneliness that I felt.

One day, I didn’t make it to the barn to milk or feed. I didn’t make it to the henhouse to gather the eggs. I didn’t make it to the spring to carry in the water. I couldn’t leave my bed. Consciousness floated in and out as I struggled to wake from dreams of heat and cold. I don’t know how many days passed before a neighbor stopped to check on me. I remember a jumble of faces. Mama and daddy came to me. I remember their voices. They sounded far off and muffled from my bed in the corner. I lost the struggle and they buried us—me and the baby under a tall, old tree in the front yard.

He came home. Spared of bullets and fever to find the little house empty, there was no wife and no child to greet his homecoming. Years later you could find him sitting in a straight backed chair staring at the little stone in the yard. Yearning for all that he had lost, he lived out his days in the little house.

 

 

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This is a sad tale but one that was a fact for so many; to me that is what makes it powerful. It has the ability to suspend disbelief with the exception of the narrator being dead of course. I have visited so many Civil War graveyards that it is an unlikely truth. But so is the thought of 30,000 Americans dying on one battlefield in one day; yet, it happened. The letter of one soldier read, " In the morning I looked out on the mountainside and you couldn't see the ground but just bodies on top of bodies as far as you could see and the steam was rising off the dew between the corpses making them look like they were burning. The sounds of muffled cries and dying groans drifted up the hill. I went behind a rock and got sick" The practice of putting flowers on graves was started by Confederate widows and sweethearts (a fact most folks don't know) When the Union wives saw the women doing this, they were so moved by such devotion that went beyond death that they too took up the practice.
A wonderful story you have written here.

[Sammy]

I greatly admire the precision of your language.

[Gathering_Stars]

There is so much to this story, it breaks your heart! It's like a rewrite of Cold Mountain kind of, and I know the story is different I guess that is just what it reminds me of. I almost feel lik eyou should expand on this : )

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Wow! That is a gut-wrenching story. It packs so much description and so much emotion in such a brief narrative. I can feel the cold grass on her toes, I can feel her nervous stomach as she watches him ride off and most of all ... I can feel the dull ache that he must have felt every day in that chair looking at that stone.

[TL Boehm]

Wow Emily I missed this one. This thing has great potential - refreshingly different from the Cafe norm of ghouls and ghosts and sexually charged vampires. Well done. and I love the descriptiveness of this piece

[Xtabber]

Wow. First person ghost story. I enjoyed the historical aspect of this, and was thinking, "Oh, ho hum, the husband will die and the widow will grieve, blah blah." So glad I was wrong!

I spotted a couple of typos, but nothing serious.

If you want to really BANG the impact of your ending, you can leave all discussion of the house being empty out, until the very end. Have him sitting on the porch, looking at the little stone, of me and our baby...

Nice job! :)