Writing Samples

Fiction

Innocence

My dolly and I played in the sand. The air was heavy, a scant breeze shuffled the poplar leaves that hung green and silver overhead. As I dug and played I was unaware of the clouds building to the west over the hills. The men came in from the fields, jostling along on the wagon pulled by a sputtering little tractor. These men were strangers to me and I stayed away. They were here only for the harvest. From Manitoulin Island my father said. They ate in the summer kitchen, slept in the little loft over the drive shed. I had climbed up there once, during the day. The a ladder went through a hole in the floor. You had to hold on with one hand and swing over to get your foot over to the floor--akward for a big person, dangerous for a little person--me.

The floor was bare wood, swept before the workers arrived, dead flies lay in clusters on the window sills, a dozen or so cots stood unmade. There were rings on the floor to show were the roof leaked. Dusty sunlight beamed weakly through the dirt etched windows.

Stacked in one corner were the things that normally would have covered the whole floor; a half empty bag of fertilizer, broken machine parts, rusty “jack planters”, leaky hoses, broken chairs, what have you. The men slept here only for the harvest. They “primed” the tobacco--”primers”. I climed down, reaching my toes to the rung of the ladder, swinging myself almost too far to the other side. I shouldn’t have been up there.

But today I played in the sand. The primers went to the big wash tub that my grandmother put out, they dropped the bar of soap in the sand then washed their hands
with it. It scrubbed the tobacco tar off better that way. They waited outside the summer kitchen until my grandmother served supper. My mother was still out working. She worked on the tying table. They tied the tobbaco leaves to sticks before hanging it in the kilns to dry. Sometimes as they filled the kiln, leaves would fall off the sticks. That was my job, to pick them up and take them back to the tying table. When the kiln was full
they would shut the door and turn on the burners. My father slept out there then, in the bunk house. He had to make sure the kiln didn’t get to hot. It could burn down. The leaves cured slowly. Sometimes I could go with my father as he checked the kiln. With the doors shut it was dark, the burners hissed, above the sandy floor the tobacco leaves turned from emerald green to gold. I loved that smell of curing tobacco.

Soon my mother and father came in, mother put our dinner on the table. Grandmother came in and ate with us after serving the primers. They talked, my grandmother urged more food on me. I swung my legs and puddled in my food. As soon as I was done I could go out and play again. Everyone else would go back to work. I hung around the steps while everyone finshed eating. The sun was now slipping quickly under the building bank of clouds. A smart breeze rustled the leaves as the men came out the door. They smiled at me and said hello. My father followed them out.

“Looks like rain coming boss”

Yeah, looks like, we’ll try to get a few more boats in before it starts.

My father started up the little tractor and the men climbed on just as the first splattery splotchs of rain started to fall. The men jumped off and stood in the shelter of the drive shed as it quickly turned into a driving rain. I ran back into the house and watched out the screen door hoping for a chance to get my doll now stranded where I had been playing. A gusting wind came up and turned the rain side ways. The poplar trees swirled and loose leaves spun down. And then a suddenly it stopped. I opened the door and was about to step out. My mother put her hand on my shoulder and pulled me back in and in that moment, like someone opened a bag of marbles, hail fell. Little rocks bounced on the grass and the gravel drive. They pinged off the cars and filled the metal seat of the little tractor. For a minute they seemed to subside, then grew larger and louder again. Then hail gave way to rain again and after several minutes the storm passed. It felt cooler now.

I ran outside to where my doll lay. Her cloth body was soggy and her hair was muddy.

“I will have to give you a bath”, I told her.

As I ran back to the house I saw my father and mother walking towards the field behind
the barn. I ran after them, not catching up until they had reached the edge of the rows.
My father kicked at some broken leaves. They weren’t talking, just looking.

“I have to give my dolly a bath” I said.

I ran back to the house.

appeared in Dandelion Wine