MEMORIES...TIME TRAVEL Writer's Island Prompt

February 12th
Abraham Lincoln's birthday

The field was green and small yellow flowers appeared across the breadth and width of it. If you held the yellow flower under your chin and it turned yellow it meant something. The little boy had always loved those flower and that green field. When he had trouble sleeping or he was afraid he thought about the field and felt safe.

The little farm was 12 miles from town so they had never lived close to other people before. The little boy understood about the time to plant potatoes and how to tell if the corn were ripe. But he had no idea about sidewalks and puppy love and how your mother might break her back if you stepped on a crack. He tried to act grownup and tall. But the truth was he did not feel either one.

On the day that they moved he took a last look at the field with it beautiful yellow flowers and the corn field ready to be harvested next to the back fence. They were really scared about leaving the life that revolved about fields and harvest. But when their mother decided that it was time to move into the house in town, leaving dad behind to tend the fields, they knew there was no arguing with her. School, she said, was not a choice. Grown up people worked but children went to school.

That was when he began skipping over cracks. The boy next door had explained in serious tones about the dangers of the sidewalks, those in particular the lay in the front of their house. Their little house had two porches. You could stand at one end of the house and see all the way to the other. He loved the porches and the swing that hung at one end. All the neighborhood kids wanted to be his friend, well at least for a while, and the swing was a great place to whisper on the late summer evenings.

He knew that all old houses had things that lived in the walls. He tried very hard not to be afraid when the house mouse skittered up and down behind his bed. He knew his dad would want him to be brave but he also knew that, because his dad was back on the farm harvesting with a hired man, his mom would let him snuggle in beside her for a tiny little while before she walked him back to his room.

He worried about his mom. He knew she was lonely and he knew she was here because he and his sister needed to learn about Abraham Lincoln and the slaves. I know all about that stuff, he would tell her with a swagger. But he also knew that because of who they were, they would need to be smarter than anyone else. That was how his daddy had managed to own land and keep a house in town too. He had studied and gotten smart. His daddy always said it didn't matter what color your skin was. What mattered was how big your brain was. His daddy knew stuff that like and besides that he was really big and strong.

The cracks, as it turned out, were not hard on his mother back. And that Abraham Lincoln, he was a great man. He was almost as great as George Washington Carver. When the porch swing lost its appeal, the neighborhood children still came around. He would teach them how to do farm stuff and how to dig a big hole and where the best place was to look for worms. While he didn't know a lot of town stuff, when it came to country stuff, he was an expert. And it seems that being an expert made a guy look and feel big.

As it turned out the daisy business had its place in his life. Puppy love came soon enough and when they returned to town year after year in the fall, there was a girl or two that were willing to swing in the swing. He gave up trying to figure out that yellow flower thing and when he grew older he laughed at his children, holding the buttercup under each other’s chin to see if they could see the yellow. He smiled because he had finally come to realize that it just doesn't work on black skin. Not that it mattered.

When the little boy had grown old and his mind traveled back through time, he would always remember the feel of the swing and the smell of a daisy. He had loved that little house in town and all the people that lived around him. He was blessed in so many ways. He grew up without knowing that it was not only the buttercup that treated them differently. But as a very wise man said, oh so many years ago, it was the size of your brain. And, as he grew older the old man always added, the strength of your character.


note: I am trying to write from the perspective of other people. I am not there yet but I am learning.

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