A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Chapter 1

Valentine Sage Porter was just about ready to sew a bomb into Miss Maisy Lee's Pillow. Just stay cool, she told herself. Maisy Lee was having another phase where she thought that she had to humiliate Valentine, just to stay popular. Maisy and her gang of girls snuck up on Valentine where they started taunting her and pulling her hair. It resulted in throwing Valentines schools supplies. "I'll see you again, Dunce!" Maisy dramatically stated, and then with one swish of her strawberry blonde hair she bounced back confidently to her group of gaggling friends.

Valentine was fed up with Miss Maisy's hot headedness, but she must stay calm like her papa had taught her to. She muttered one of her papa's favorite quotes, "Until you learn to master your anger, your anger will master you." Sighing, Valentine picked up her school supplies that Miss Maisy had knocked out of her arms and started walking down the streets of Alabama. Everything was terribly dusty and little shanty's lined the streets. Rarely you would pass a brick house, or a car. As she was living in the Great Depression, it was not uncommon for her to see beggars lining the street

In order to escape all of the sadness, she rushed to Mr. Wallace's Dried-Goods store to look at all of the wonderful toys that were there. Mr. Wallace was an old grouchy white man, who was very tall with broad soldiers. He wore circular glasses, that were perched so close to the edge of his nose, that she was surprised they did not fall off and shatter. What made him worse, is he was Maisy Lee's father. He was always looking to get someone in trouble. Especially Valentine, because she was... Well she was- it don't matter she told herself.

Before she knew, it she was in front of Mr. Wallace's small brick toy store. Right when she entered the building, she wandered through the aisles until she saw it. The precious porcelain doll. Oh how how beautiful it was! With it's glowing skin, soft lashes, bright green kind-looking eyes, and perfect blonde curls that fell past it's soldiers. It had on a beautiful blue satin dress, with light pink trimming. She quickly stuck her hand in her pocket to see if she had enough money to buy it. Then she remembered she had no money, it was the great depression. Valentine looked around. Mr. Wallace wasn't lookin, so she carefully extended a hand until it touched those beautiful golden curls.

"Get your filthy paws off of that thing!" Valentine heard a voice roar. She whipped around, and in the process knocked the doll off it's shelf. She gasped as it fell to the floor, and then at the last second Mr. Wallace lunged at it and caught it. In the process, he had pushed Valentine, which caused her to trip and bang her head on a shelf. She felt a bump growing.

"Don't you know how much this costs? I know that you and your fool of a papa could never get enough money to buy it. So what on bloody Earth are ya doin touchin' it?" Mr. Wallace spat. As he advanced towards her, a piece of spittle flew from his mouth and landed on her face. Valentine winced.

Valentine looked down and slurred her words together. "Isarisir" She mumbled.

"What did you say?" He demanded.

"I am sorry sir for touching the doll. It won't happen again."

"It better not." He then grabbed Valentine by the hair and yanked her painfully out of the store.

Well thats one little bright ray of sunshine, she sarcastically thought. Valentine then trudged through the dusty streets until she reached her home.

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As soon as she stepped into the door, she walked straight to her papa and gave him a warm, crushing hug. "Well look who's home," he stated warmly and then hugged her back.

Valentine dearly loved her papa. She felt as if, because of him she had been granted many freedoms and joys. If it weren't for him, she would have been dead or had no home. Valentine was abandoned on the doorstep of a church when she was 1 years old. A preacher, William Catensburg found her and raised her. He always had been very loving and made sure that she knew that God loved her too. Papa had also been so kind to her and treated her like an equal, even though she was black. Valentine thought that it was only fair to him that she would try to do her best and always be thankful for what she had. Although at times, she couldn't help be jealous of white folk, especially Maisy Lee. She had everything. She was popular, pretty, and her skin color made her be treated very well. Valentine, well she felt that she was just the opposite. Her dark, dirt smudged face was rather shaped like a square, with a large squashy nose that unfortunately distracted from the only feature that was decent lookin. Her eyes. They were a soft, chocolatey brown and always seemed very thoughtful. Aside from that, Valentine was short and scrawny with bad hunched posture. She thought Maisy has everything and I don't, it ain't fair. She always told herself that she was not jealous of Maisy Lee, but deep down, Valentine knew she was.

No use worryin bout it now she thought, so she put a smile on her face, sat down and had a nice long conversation with her Papa. They each had a piece of bread for dinner, then Papa went to sleep in his bed while Valentine slept on the couch.

She thought about how lucky she was to have a couch to sleep on, when quite a few people didn't even have a home. Her father might not make much as a preacher, but it was enough to keep them goin. She thought, yes. I am very luck indeed, but life would be better if only I could have what Miss Maisy Lee had.