Margaret

The sun shone through the window onto my right cheek. I stayed still until it got too hot to bear and then scooted over into the curtains' shade. My face was flushed now and I could feel beads of sweat starting to form at my temples.

I love the warmth of the sunshine on my skin, even if after awhile it becomes uncomfortable. Seems like a lot of things I love become uncomfortable after awhile. Horseback riding, walking, gardening--I guess if you do anything long enough it just starts to hurt. I don't think my daddy knows that though. He works all day, from the moment the sun comes up until the day is barely hanging on to the last of its light. Working hard has never seemed to bother Dad too much, but I guess if that's what you're used to every day for your whole life it might start to get easier.

I've noticed that too. The more you do something, the easier it starts to become. Or maybe you just start to get stronger and are able to endure it better. Either way, I suppose life is good to you in that way; it allows you to adapt to the hard stuff and still throws out some nice things too, like gardening, horseback riding, long walks, and sunshine on your skin.

"Margaret? Margaret! Are you in there?" My mama's voice jerked me from my thoughts and I blinked hard before answering, "Yes mama, I'm coming!"

I got up from my chair slowly and sauntered through the kitchen to the back door. "Have you gathered the eggs from the chickens this morning?" mama asked before I had even stepped outside.

I met her eyes for a moment as I walked towards her, but then looked down at my worn in leather shoes. I had gotten them just this past Christmas but with all the walking I do they were worn right in already and I was worried they wouldn't last me through the rest of summer. July was only just beginning and I couldn't help but think I still had a lot more walking left to do in them.

"Margaret?" my mama prodded.

"Oh...um, no mama I haven't been out to get the eggs yet," I answered. I get lost in my thoughts so easily these days. I turned nine-years-old the end of last year and I don't know why but something about being nine has made me curious about things I never seemed to care about before. It's also made me forget about things that I never used to forget; like gathering the eggs every morning from our chickens. It has been my chore ever since I can remember. There is so much to do around this farm that I started helping out any way I could just as soon as I could, even if that meant I broke a few eggs when I first started.

"Well you better get to it, your dad will be home from feeding soon and he's gonna need breakfast before he goes back out to the fields," mama said as she handed me the egg basket.

I nodded, "yes mama," I mumbled as I took the basket from her hand and started walking towards the chicken coop. I loved my chore of collecting eggs because I loved our chickens. I had them all named and Amelia was our newest addition--named after the woman pilot who flew from Hawaii to California all by herself this winter. Can you imagine? When spring came and we had new chicks I just couldn't get that name out of my head, so I donned my favorite one with it.

The rest had names too, there was Rose, a feisty red hen; Caroline, Bess, and Agatha, all Plymouth Rock hens; Eleanor and Greta, the two brown hens; and Shirley, Dorothy, Helen, and Nancy, the white ladies. They all kept little Amelia company, and I'm sure she was glad for it. We try to keep as many chicks as we can every spring because they don't take much to feed and we can use all the eggs they can give us, what with the food shortage from the depression and all. Hard as we try though, we can't keep the foxes away and we lose a lot of them too. The winters are cold and long here in our little corner of the world and chickens just don't do very well in conditions like that.

Mama says she doesn't understand why I name all the chicks, to her that's just getting attached and at the rate we lose chickens it seems silly. She says I'm just asking for my heart to be broken. I've never said it out loud to her, but I know I'd get attached whether I named them or not. I just care about small things like hens and their chicks a lot more than most people do. I came into this world a "tender soul" as my mama likes to remind me.

It's true though. I once saw a blue bird's nest of eggs fall from a tree and my heart was crushed. I have a fondness for birds and their young that I can't quite explain. I could watch birds all day and never get bored of seeing how different each kind is. I love watching Sparrows especially; my dad gets upset about their nests being all over every barn and haystack on the farm, but I can't help but love them. They are so resourceful. They're hard workers and are busy all day gathering materials and building nests.

Thinking about those sparrows inspired me to work faster and before I knew it my basket was full and I couldn't find any more eggs. I headed back towards the house with my basket in hand, excited to get some food in my belly; it had started grumbling about halfway through picking up eggs and I was really looking forward to having some hot wheat cereal to satisfy it. My dad always says we don't eat until our animals eat, but sometimes I do wish he'd let us eat before.

Our house isn't large, just a small cottage, but it is shaded by big trees and doesn't get too terribly hot in the summer, and in the winter it is nice and cozy because of our wood-burning stove. The place will be quite warm by late afternoon, so that's when my siblings and I usually head down to the river to play in the cool water. Thinking about that soft flowing current rushing over my feet and legs, cooling me down, and listening to the birds chirp and the dragonflies buzz around gives me goosebumps. Afternoons down at the river are my favorite part of summer, I just have to make sure all of my chores are done by lunch so I have time to walk down there and back before the sun sets.

As I get close to the house I feel something rolling around in my right shoe. A grain kernel or a small rock maybe, seems I'm always getting little pieces of debris in my shoes. Whatever it is, it's floating around my toes like a horse fly that never seems to want to buzz around anywhere else but right by your head, just relentlessly making its presence known. I sit down on the back steps to rid my shoe of such a pest. I yank off that shoe and stick my good eye right in its opening, squinting my other eye tight so I can see inside. I call my left eye my good eye because the right one is a little bit lazy. My mom says it's endearing, but the kids at school don't think so. It's been the subject of much torment from my classmates, seems everyone has something to say about my lazy eye. Everyone except Lee that is. My cheeks flush at the thought of his smiling face, always sticking up for me and making sure the other kids never poke fun at me if he's around.

Just then my eye seems to adjust to the light and I can see clearly inside the dark cavern that is the inside of my shoe. Sure enough, the pest is just a tiny rock, it couldn't even know the trouble it was causing me. I quickly turn my shoe over to dispose of it and watch as it bounces off the wood step and onto the dirt beside it. “Humph,” I breathe. As I put my shoe back on I glance up at the sky. It's a beautiful day, blue skies with only a few of the whitest clouds you ever did see scattered high in the air. Perfect clouds for finding shapes later when I'm down by the creek, laying on the cool grass, the smell of sweet honeysuckles filling my head, dizzy from the day's work. I wonder if I'll be able to see Amelia Earhart's plane zooming around up in that same sky. I still can't believe it. A woman, up there in the sky with wings at her control, flying from here to there; free as a bird and as close as a woman can ever get to being one I suppose.

“Margaret!”

This time my mother's voice startled me so much I toppled right off our back stairs and landed in a heap on my side. Luckily the egg basket was safely out of my hands. I jumped up and straightened my clothes just before Mama pushed open the back door to call me once again. I did not need another lecture about how idleness is of the devil. My parents are never impressed with me always day-dreaming when I should be working. I just have so many ideas that even working doesn't seem to stifle, and being outside seems to make them flow at a rate I can hardly keep up with. If I had a bucket that could catch ideas I'd just put them all in as they come and take it to bed with me to ponder them later. As it is, if I don't pay them any mind when they come they float away with the wind and I never can seem to get them back in quite the same way as when they first appeared.