Julie's Story

One girls story during the Depression. Written as a first person narrative

 

Summer

 

Julie Saunders is my name. June Bug when my grandpa is feeling playful. My story takes place sometime during the Depression, on a farm in the middle of anywhere. The wind blows over lifeless fields. It is dry, too dry for the crops to grow. We did not know it was the Depression then, we just knew we were poor. Poor somewhere in the state of Missouri. It was dry and no one had any money to spend. My pa bartered my two kittens to a neighbor who needed mousers. I think he got a bag of corn in return. I loved those kittens.

 

The farmstead is about a mile and a half outside of town. There is a small white house and tiny porch.  There is the fence needs to be painted.  There is a weather vane that blows constantly.  There is a rundown barn, almost a lean to with some scraggly chickens and a goat. I had a rabbit once of my own, she was white and fluffy but we had to eat her.  I cried and cried but mama hugged me quick and said it was either the rabbit or one of the chickens, and the chickens were more important for their eggs.  We are always afraid a fox or coyote will get in and steal the chickens, and then where would we be?  

. Mama is thin and drawn.  She has mousy brown hair, the same color as mine.  Her shirt dress is faded to a dingy blue and she always wears an apron but no shoes most of the time.  Her hair is in a loose bun and there is usually some hair hanging out around her face.  She is always caring for baby Steven, who is colicky and fretful and feverish.  He is not getting enough fresh food and there is not enough good food for good mother’s milk. Mama had other babies between me and Steven, but none of them lived.  She is so tired all of the time, trying to keep things clean and work our little garden patch.  But nothing grows because there is no rain.  The well is just a hole in the ground that you pull a bucket up from.  Before Pa left, he built a pulley because mama can’t pull the bucket all the way up without one.  Then he left at night without a word to me.  He used to just sit on the porch all day, not talking to anyone, so it is hard to miss him very much.  He was not really here before he left. 

 Pa left several months ago to find work in St. Louis but he hasn’t returned, or sent a letter or sent money.  Grandpa runs his still out in the woods, he will not tell us where so that if the customs men come, we can’t tell on him by mistake.  This is mainly how we get goods and what little money there is.  Grandpa barters his whisky for what we need.  It does not make him very popular with the women in the town.  We will often see a battered old truck or horse and wagon coming up the drive;  being announced by the dust they stir up on the dirt road.  Everything is characterized by dust here.  Then, just when they come into sight, they turn off into the woods and we know they are here to see Grandpa.  He meets them with their order so they d not know where the still is either.  He does not trust that they will not steal from him. 

 

It is pretty here, once you leave the farm. At the farm, there is only dust and discontent. I go to the woods as often as possible. There it is cool, and still alive. Not dead or dying. I slip away, still in my work overalls, and say hello to my forest friends. They whisper back on the wind and in the stirring of the leaves in the air. I sit, and am still, and the breeze caresses my cheeks, and dries my salty tears. Tears over the baby who is feverish and fretful. Tears over my mama who is worn down to nothing over trying to care for us. Worry over my pa who left to find work and has not returned. And finally, worry over my beloved grandpa, who is no longer that happy man who called me June Bug. More often than not now he slurs his words, and stomps and curses and will carelessly backhand you if you get too close when he’s in one of his moods. We can not argue with him, his hidden still is one of the only sources of income that we have. Aside from the few eggs we can collect and sell. The garden is dry and there is no one left to work the fields. 

 

I am only twelve, but sometimes I hear mama and grandpa talking that I am big enough to go into town to try to find work at the factory. I don’t want to do this; I’ve seen women with fingers missing and bad burns on their arms and faces from working in the factory. But I know I don’t have a choice. If Mama says I have to go to town to work, I have to go. They say that Nellie has just left the factory to have a baby and they can have me take her opening. So Tuesday morning, I slip into my only dress, and wash my hands and face, and walk slowly into town. I shuffle each step, not eager to get to town, but happy to leave the sadness of the farm for a little while. I don’t know what to expect at the factory, only that I am being sent. 

 

I finally arrive and the foreman, Mr. Harvey, looks me up and down. I don’t like the way he stares at me, lingering a little too long on my chest, and it makes me uncomfortable. I can’t look him in the eye and answer “yes” or “no” to his questions. Finally he grunts and leads me into the main workroom. There are at least a dozen women, working on looms. They sit and spin the thread, shifting the bobbins back and forth, while little children sit beneath their feet, and dart in to fix a broken thread here and there. I know that I am lucky that I did not need to come here as a child, for many of them will lose fingers trying to help their families. I am given a seat next to a lady who whispers her name is Betty. “But don’t talk while you work,” she warns. “They will dock your pay for that.” Betty shows me how to work the shuttle c**k, how to pedal and run the thread through my fingers quickly. I am clumsy at first, but Betty is patient and soon I have a rhythm going. I am not as fast as the other women, but I don’t draw attention to myself, and that is the important part at the factory. Not to draw Mr. Harvey’s attention to yourself. 

 

I talk to Betty at lunch sometimes.  We will share lunch; she is about ten years older than me and very nice.  She has two or three dresses while I just have one.  Hers are nicer too, a dark blue one with little blue flowers and a yellow one with red and green buds and a white collar.  She laughed and said she had to tat the collar herself but it did turn out nice.  Her husband runs the dry goods store in town so they have a little more than other people.  Men still barter or try to buy farm equipment, always hoping it will rain soon.    So Betty and I sit under a tree for the few minutes that we are given for lunch.  I drink water out of my tin cup and eat the bread that mama has packed.  Sometimes there is butter (if the goat gave enough milk to make butter after Steven has eaten) or a dried apple or some left over kale or potatoes.  Betty usually has sweet, fresh fruit and she will always bring me an apple or plum if there is enough.  She says that she is very fortunate that Mr. Bryant, her husband, chose her to be his wife.  There aren’t many men in town, she says, they have all left looking for work in the city.  But Mr. Bryant is kind, and, Betty giggles, since she isn’t very pretty, he could have picked someone else.  I think Betty is lovely.  She has shiny dark hair in little finger curls around her face and bobby pins to hold it in place.  Not like my hair that hangs around my face or is pulled back in a ponytail.  I’m not old enough to wear a bun.  I have to keep it pulled back at the factory because it can get caught in the loom. 

I ask Betty why she is working in the factory if she has a good living at the store. She confides that her parent’s have lost everything, so they have her work to send some money to them. There isn’t enough room for them to live at the store with them. “It’s just until we have children” Betty confides with a giggle. Betty likes to giggle a lot. I wish I had so much to laugh about. I know how babies are made, we had pigs for awhile. But Mr. Bryant is fat and, although he is nice, I don’t think I would want to do that with him.

 

After lunch Mr. Harvey will look out his window and if he thinks we are taking too long, he will come back out and yell at us. We quickly gather up our things and hurry back into the workroom, pausing only to tidy our hair, which seems ridiculous seeing as it is horribly hot in the workroom, and to put our lunch pails on the shelf. 

 

After working for the day, from about sun up to about sun down, my fingers are raw from handling the thread and my back aches from being hunched over the loom. But I don’t complain, especially when I get my two dollars on payday. I give the money to mama, who I know tries to hide some of it from grandpa so that he will not take it and do who knows what with it. It’s not my business to ask. The money goes into a jar on the shelf, or mama counts it out to keep track of how much is there. I know she is hoping that pa will write or come back soon. She told me once, although I didn’t ask, that he was a changed man after the war. I don’t really know what that means, only that maybe he was happy before he had me, or before the dryness started. But I don’t ask, just like I don’t ask Grandpa why he takes the money, or why he’s in a funny, ornery mood after he comes back from his still. A child does not ask these things. Even though I am working in the factory now, I am really still a child.

 

When I go to bed, I rinse out my one dress. I have work overalls but I can not wear those into town, so I must try to clean my dress each night. Only on Sundays can it have a proper wash. Mama frowns on doing any work on Sunday. But we don’t go to church. She says it is because Steven will fuss too much, that she can not keep him quiet for that long. And she does not make me go by myself. So on Sundays, I put on my overalls and, quiet as a mouse, I creep down to the creek to wash my dress. This summer, the creek has only been a trickle, but it is enough to get the dress wet and use some sand and the rocks to get it clean. Then I hang it over a branch and I go and sit in my favorite spot to listen to my woods. This is my world when I can forget. I know I should be doing chores so I can’t ever stay long. Somehow sweeping out the dust and watching Steven, or trying to coax the dry turnips out of the ground doesn’t count as chores to mama on Sunday. To her, a chore is lighting a fire to cook so we have always have cold meals on Sunday. Usually something that I’ve eaten all week, like cold biscuits and greens, or maybe some corn bread if someone has paid grandpa with a bag of meal. It always depends on what grandpa brings home. If it has been a really good week, he will come home with a new chicken. The men left in the town seem to place more value on what grandpa sells than on what their families might need. That is why Grandpa isn’t very popular with the other women in the town. 

Autumn

 

Usually, I am the only one who goes into town and mama will send a list with me, and after work some days, Betty and I will walk over to the dry goods store, and nice Mr. Bryant will meet us and get me the things on the list. Once he gave me a piece of penny candy for free. But grandpa was in a mood when I came home and he slapped me and threw away the candy. He thought I had spent a penny on it and not that it was a gift. I never brought home candy again.

 

Mr. Harvey, the foreman, was overweight, he had a big belly. He always wore rough shoes and a vest over his shirt, but no jacket. His shirtsleeves were always rolled up, but he didn’t wear a tie or a hat. Mama said a gentleman always wore a tie and a hat when he was in public. It was only okay to be in just shirtsleeves in your own home, and that’s only when you did not have company. Mama had a lot of rules about things. Lately though, she’s been too tired to worry about rules too much, so I try to remember them for her.

 

We found one of the chickens dead today, something got her but it was scared off before it could drag her away. So after work, grandpa and I worked in the dark to fix the chicken coop. I hope it will hold. The chickens make such a fuss when they are scared like that. I’m surprise it didn’t wake me up, but I am so tired after working in the factory all day, I sleep really hard. Steven’s fussing doesn’t even wake me up. But mama sleeps with him so she always has to get up to try to make him stop crying. He never wakes grandpa up either. He sleeps harder than I do. I think mama is afraid that he will wake up. He is my pa’s dad and I don’t think mama is very comfortable with him without Pa at home. 

 

Our house is small, with only the kitchen and front room, one room where mama sleeps, a tiny room in the very back where I sleep and grandpa sleeps up in the loft. Sometimes if he is out working at the still late, he will sleep in the barn. I don’t know if that is because he can’t climb up the ladder when he has drunk too much, or if it is because he doesn’t want to wake us up trying. I think it’s probably the first. 

 

My job before I go to work is to bring in the eggs that the hens might have laid during the night while mama milks the goat. Then, while I get cleaned up a little bit for work, like brushing my hair, mama will make a quick breakfast of porridge. I can have eggs if we can get more than two. If there is only two, then they go to grandpa and we have to make due with porridge. 

 

Then I walk down the road to work.  It is quiet in the morning; the sun is just coming up. One day Mr. Harvey drove by and asked me if I wanted a ride. I told him no thank you; I still can’t look him in the eye even though I’ve been working at the factory for over two months. “You’ll thank me for a ride when it’s cold out girl” he said as he drove off. Gravel kicked back at me. Dust too. But my, I’m tired of all of the dust! I don’t remember it being dusty like this when I was a little girl. Then, the fields were green and we had enough to eat and sell a little. Grandpa was happy, Pa was home and I was June bug. 

 

That morning Betty wasn’t at work beside me like normal. I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone until our lunch break, and I really missed the apples she had been bringing in for me. It was October and there were lots of apples in her store. Mr. Bryant had them sent in from places that weren’t so dry. St. Louis I think. He must be rich! What would it be like to marry a rich man and live in a house with electricity? That would be heaven. 

 

Finally Dottie told me that her mother died and she had to go to her funeral. But Lila told me she had had a fall and hurt her wrist, so she couldn’t work until it was healed. I never found out because Betty never came back and no one would talk about what happened to her. Mr. Bryant stayed in town, but he wasn’t as happy any more. Finally, about a month later, there was a for sale sign in the window of his store, and then he was gone too.

 

Soon a new girl took Betty’s spot in the factory. She was about four years older than me and already knew how to work the loom, so I didn’t have to teach her anything. She wore makeup and her hair was a very pretty blond. “Bottle blond” Lila said at lunch, as though she did not approve. I had heard of bottled blonds, but had never actually seen one. And the most outrageous thing was she wasn’t afraid of Mr. Harvey! I have never even looked him in the eye, but Stella could go right up and talk to him. And talk to him she did. She would talk, and laugh, and lean against the wall when he was around. She would even go to his office! No one else would dare do that. He would dock our pay for anything. The other women liked to talk about Stella at lunch, because she never ate with us but always disappeared into town somewhere. There was one cafe in town that served lunch and breakfast and she would go there with Mr. Harvey sometimes, or sometimes by herself. I never did figure out how she got enough money to eat at that café by herself. If she had that much money, why would she be working at the factory? Lila said she was on the lookout for a husband and was looking at Mr. Harvey. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to marry Mr. Harvey, he scares me. But when I said that to Lila, she looked at me not unkindly and said “some types of girls will marry anyone”. I really didn’t know what she meant; I couldn’t imagine anything much worse than marrying Mr. Harvey. One day Stella came in with a big bruise around her eye. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying. She left a few days later and we never saw her again. I asked Lila where she might have gone, and Lila told me she was the kind of girl who floated from town to town, looking for a better life. I asked if she might wind up in St. Louis since that’s where all the men went to find a better life and Lila just said “I suppose she might”.

 

Sometimes I would run down the road in front of my house, past the house as quick as I can and into the woods before anyone can see me. Sometimes I would come home before dark, and I always took the time to slip into the woods, to be by myself for a few precious moments. The woods are cool and green. Even with no rain, they are still alive. They are welcoming and I know where to go, I am safe there. I can be myself. I can be a child. There is no place to be a child outside of the woods. Don’t be sorry for me, this is my life and it is all I know. I don’t know anything different. I wish I could share my secret joy, the woods, with mama and make her happy. But this is the only life she knows too. There isn’t any other. The air stirs through the leaves, and the grass whispers and the limbs and leaves reach down in greeting. But I only get a few minutes here, because my mama is expecting me home to eat dinner. So I must go home.

 

Enough musing, I am being called in to dinner. Mama calls “Julie! Julie! Where are you?” I know that if I don’t go in quick, there won’t be any food left and I will have to go to bed hungry. We have turnips and cauliflower for dinner, a little bread and molasses. Mama is darning socks after dinner and I rock Steven to sleep. He is getting a little bit better, not so fussy. I am hoping that he is growing out of it. I don’t know what babies usually do since there aren’t any between me and Steven. Mama had a little boy and a little girl that lived until they were two, but they were right behind me so I don’t remember. A fever carried them off. I don’t know why I was able to grow up and they didn’t. It doesn’t seem very fair but mama just sighs and says that’s the way life is. I’m sure she misses her babies, but she never talks about them. 

 

Grandpa comes in after dark and mama gets him his dinner. She has kept his hot, wrapped in a towel on top of the stove. The stove is big and iron and makes the whole house hot in the summer. It’s not so bad, now that it’s fall and cooler outside and it’s nice beside it in the winter. I still have to learn to cook, to get the fire the right temperature. I am hoping that this drought will end and Pa will come home with money, so that I can maybe stop working in the factory and learn how to do the things I need to know to be a good wife. What good am I if I don’t know how to care for my husband’s home? I help mama darn socks, but I really hate to sew. I can not sit still for long enough. And the one candle makes me have to squint. Since I can’t see very well, my stitches aren’t very neat, but it’s only a pair of socks I’m working on, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.  

 

Grandpa is hunched over his dinner, muttering about the no good prices at the new dry goods store. He says everything went up since Mr. Bryant left and that the new owner is a penny pincher, he doesn’t like to give credit. If he would barter, they might get along better! Grandpa laughs. But he’s a Baptist man, and won’t touch the spirits. Plus Grandpa thinks some of the women in town have been talking lies about him. Doesn’t matter, he mutters, they all come to me sooner or later. After I finished the socks, mama sends me on to bed. I go out to the outhouse, and then crawl into bed. I hang my dress on the wall after brushing it out. I did not have time to rinse it today, but it wasn’t very hot so that’s okay. Mama is thinking she might have enough money to get material for a new dress for her. If she does, she will cut one of her nicer dresses down for me. Grandpa thinks that’s a waste, who is going to see us anyhow? But I think it’s a waste to buy seeds that won’t grow. But nobody asks me so I never say it.

 

Winter

 

A few months later, it is still dark in the mornings when I leave for work. Dark and very cold. The wind whips up my skirt and seeps through my thin coat. I have a scarf, but nothing on my legs. They are chilled and goosepimply. Mr. Harvey pulls up in his car and stops. He opens the door. “C’mon girl” he says gruffly. “Get on in. Can’t have my workers falling sick”. I climb in, even though I would rather walk, and he says “Don’t you even have a horse you can ride?” “No sir” I answer, thinking how dumb he must be. If we had a horse, we might be able to plow out the fields. Grandpa wouldn’t let me ride it to work! Really now, any horses we had were traded a long time ago. We go the rest of the way in silence and fortunately it isn’t very far. 

 

Since I didn’t walk, I am there earlier than usual and most of the women haven’t arrived yet. I eat my breakfast egg real quick, since I don’t know if I have some time or if I have to start work right away. No one tells you these things. The other women just seem to know, but I am never sure. Lila is already there and saw us drive in. “Harvey gave you a ride, did he?” She says and harrumphs. “He has his eye on you.” I am sure she is mistaken, I’m only twelve! And Mr. Harvey is practically ancient! Why, he must be at least thirty or who knows how old. I don’t answer Lila, since I think she’s nice but I’ve heard other people say she is a busybody. I don’t want anyone to think I am a busybody too, so I try not to talk to her too much. 

 

I have just started working when I heard a big crash over in the corner. I jerked around and my thread falls slack and then gets tangled up badly. I’m afraid I’ll get in trouble but no one notices me. A loom has fallen apart on one side and the woman working it is hurt. It has fallen on her leg and they are trying to get it off of her. Someone runs for the doctor and she tries to hide her cries of pain. I slowly work out my thread and think how lucky that there weren’t any children under her loom at the time. They would have been killed. Someone mutters that Mr. Harvey ought to be keeping the looms in better condition, or else we’ll all be damaged and hurt. 

Mr. Harvey has started doing little things around me, like brushing up against me when he walks by and coming over a lot to “inspect” my work. He never says anything though and hasn’t spoken to me since that day he gave me a ride in. Lila just gives me a knowing look. I try to ignore them both, since not being noticed seems to be the best thing to do to get people to leave you alone.

Spring

 

It is spring; the ground is warming up again. The winter has been long and hard. We did not have enough food for every meal, but could not kill all of the chickens for meat since we still needed their eggs. The goat did not give much milk either. Steven is finally growing into a chubby toddler, he can stand up and pull himself around, but he is not walking yet. A little bit of the strain is gone from my mama’s face. She knows Steven might make it. I know that she will feel better, a little more sure, after he turns two or three. But he is so much better than he was before! At least he sleeps through the night now. Pa still has not come back or written. No one knows where he is and no one mentions him anymore. It’s as if we don’t speak his name, he might still exist and might come back one day. No one is sure since he never sent money, or even a letter and he has been gone for about a year now. It would be better for mama to know one way for sure. That way, she could marry again if she needed to. The longer he is away with no word, the quieter Grandpa gets. He doesn’t talk much, just looks down the road toward town a lot, like he is thinking about something. It’s as if he has realized he is old. The loss of his son has made him old, I think. His bootleg is the only income we’ve had all winter.

 

Even though it is spring, we have not had enough rain. We are all hoping that it won’t be another dry year. We are all so tired of the dust, but it’s almost as if we don’t remember another world where everything wasn’t gray and gritty. In my woods, the leaves are starting to come out and it is greening again. The creek is more than a trickle since the snow is melting far away and making the waters run a little deeper. I am still working at the mill, but I still try to get into the woods in Sunday’s. The days are too short still, it is usually dark when I return home from the factory and I have to help mama with dinner as soon as I get home. Eating is just something we have to do. There isn’t anything on the table that we actually enjoy eating. 

 

One wonderful surprise was that not only did mama buy material for a new dress for her; she bought a partial bolt of cloth for me! Half of the bolt was damaged but since I’m not so tall, there was enough left over for me to have a new dress too. I haven’t had a new dress in years. My old one is pretty much falling apart. Grandpa still thinks it’s a waste of money, but since it came from my wages and since I can’t go to work in a rag or overalls, even he can’t complain too much. He still grumbles about it, but no one really listens to him anymore. The bite has gone out of him.

 

My dress is dark blue with little white and yellow and red flowers. There is a little round collar and little round sleeves. It has little white buttons down the front. My shoes are still scuffed and dirty and starting to pinch, but no matter. I almost feel pretty in my new dress. At least it covers my knees.

 

That morning when I wear my dress to work, the sun is just coming up as I walk along the road. It was almost a little warm and the birds were singing. I got a lot of admiration for my dress at lunch that day. I actually smiled a little. It felt really good to have something nice. 

 

After lunch, I saw my Grandpa go to the Mr. Harvey’s office and leave again. I was very afraid that something was wrong at home, but since he didn’t come straight in to get me, I figured it couldn’t be too bad. I didn’t know any other reason he would go to see Mr. Harvey. A little bit later, Mr. Harvey came to me and told me my mama had sprained her ankle and that I was needed at home a little early to take over her chores. I could go home an hour early. I thanked him, looking down. I still could hardly look him in the face.

 

I left an hour early and hurried home. When I was almost at my woods, I heard footsteps behind me. I walked faster, but whoever was behind me starting going faster too! I started to run and someone grabbed my arm and spun me around. It was Mr. Harvey! I suddenly realized his eyes were hazel and not friendly at all. In fact he looked very, very angry and I was very afraid.

 

“Well, Julie,” he said, practically spitting in my face. “You’ve been playing with me for this long. Now let’s see if you can avoid me”. I didn’t know what he was talking about! I had never played with him and he was scaring me! I tried to jerk away, but he held my arm too strong. His fingers bit into my arm and no matter how much I twisted or squirmed, he wouldn’t let go. I was right by my woods and I knew that if I could get to them, I could get away. Even though there wasn’t much leaf cover yet, I knew those woods and he did not. “Your grandpa promised you to me last year’ He said “How do you think you got that job at the factory? Do you think I NEEDED a twelve year old? I could have had my pick of women who knew how to do the work”. He spat. “I just needed to make up my mind if I wanted you. I’ve seen you grow, and I think you’ll do just fine.” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I tried to reach a rock, but my hands only closed on sand. I threw that in his face and as he yelled and grabbed at his eyes, calling me all kinds of nasty names, I turned and ran as hard as I could into my woods. I ran and ran, until I thought my sides would burst. I stumbled and fell, got up and kept running. Finally, I slowed down and didn’t hear him. I sat down by a tree and whimpered a little. I look down and saw that I had torn the sleeve of my new dress. I knew I could fix it, but it would never be new again. Then I thought, how could I go home? I couldn’t believe that Grandpa would make me go with horrible Mr. Harvey. I was only twelve! I’m still a child, my mind kept saying over and over. I started to whimper more, and cry a little, and finally decided I had to get a hold on myself. I had to get home and find out if all of this was true. Surely mama could do something about this! 

 

I got home and walked very slowly to the house. I wanted to make sure Mr. Harvey wasn’t there. Thankfully, he wasn’t. I came to the door and saw the mama was at the kitchen table. She looked afraid. She saw me at the door and made a little start. She turned quickly as Grandpa came from the back room, brandishing a cane he had recently started using. 

 

“You stupid, stupid girl!!” he cried, slamming the screen door. He came toward me, swinging the cane. “What were you thinking? Practically blinding Harvey” I had never seen him in such a rage. Spit was flying from his mouth but I don’t think he had been drinking. I realized he intended to hit me and I started backing away.

 

“But, but Grandpa. You can’t mean to make me go with Mr. Harvey, do you?”

 

“Of course you stupid girl! How else could I afford to get your Pa out of jail? Damn rascal, wasn’t gone more than a week before he landed hisself in a St. Louis jail. We need him back here, and Harvey was going to put up his bail money! Now you’ve ruined it! You’re just another mouth to feed. You’re Pa could bring in more money than you ever could, if I can keep him from rotting away behind bars!”

 

As he screamed, Grandpa kept advancing toward me, waving his cane at me and making me back up. I saw mama at the door, with her face white, her hand at her mouth, and suddenly I knew that she had known all about Pa, and about Mr. Harvey, that her ankle wasn’t hurt and there was a reason I wore that new dress today.

 

Before I could cry out to her or ask her why, why had she done it, I turned to run away. I hadn’t gone more than two steps before I realized the ground was giving away, that I was on the well. I heard a great crack, felt a whoosh around me and everything went black. I thought I heard someone cry out “Julie!”, but I never knew for sure.

Author's Note

This is one of a few short stories, really character sketches, I've been working on. I'm considering expanding this into a book w/ the story being told from different points of view. Or, I might keep it as part of a short story collection. Any thoughts on this, aside from the overall review, would be helpful. If made into a book, there would of course be more dialogue and action rather than a narrative.

Reviews

[just a touch of bitters..]

All I can say is wow. I usually don't find myself interested in Depression-era works, but this one drew me in. Wonderful description really helped make it more vivid and easier to picture, especially given my lack of knowledge of that era. I liked how you kept true to Julie's style of narration (by which I mean, keeping it relatively simple in her perceptions of things, given that she is only twelve) and the ending, although abrupt, was very good. Definitely captured my interest here - I really felt bad for Julie at the end when she supposedly "screws things up" for her family by refusing Mr. Harvey.

Well done and hopefully you do choose to write this into a book! :)