Day by Day

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

 When they no longer had enough food to eat, Caroline noticed how thin and pale her mother was starting to look. She moved slower than usual, but never stopped moving, anyway. She was still nice and sweet, and supportive- Mimma, Caroline thought, who seemed to have a cool hand and a lap to cry on when the entire world was at war.

  They were all growing thin, for food was scarce. Reese was the only one who ventured into Tahlequah, for a blessed letter, for a small bag of flour or what else he had the money for. They didn't have much money, but Caroline never went to sleep feeling hungry. She didn't know how he did it- shooting any game he could kind if he walked down to Horse Creek, fishing in the streams and such. People were beginning to grow scarce, too. It was seldom they heard the noise of someone riding down the road, just as it was seldom Reese saw anyone in town.

   For awhile, Indian Territory was forgotten by the hands of the Yankees and the Rebels.

 When her father did venture into town, Caroline saw him slip a loaded pistol into her mother's apron, and knew Mary concealed one as well. She was afraid of the armies, and was quite relieved when they seemed to have abandoned that small corner of the Territory.

   The snow fell, the first shower light and amounting to little, though it covered the ground in a thin sheet of white. Clouds hung ominously low in the sky, promising drifts and feet of snow, and littered the land with flurries every now and then.

   Caroline was drawing water up from the well, having had to break the icy layer over the top to draw the water. The wind was cold, penetrating the layers of her skirts and her worn shawl, her head graciously covered with her pink bonnet. Almost all of her clothes were wearing out, as well as her one pair of boots. In the house, she wore her pretty slippers, to save her boots.

   Christmas was two weeks away, but Caroline knew that it wouldn't be a good one like those sweet ones in the past. There would be no mission barrel, no candy, and no church Christmas dinner. She was beginning to wonder if they would even have a tree. Christmases seemed to lie in the old days, when she was a child and before she understood good and bad; right and wrong. She kept thinking about Orry, and kept thinking that he would get to come home for Christmas, despite the fact she knew he wasn't. He was where he was needed.

   She looked out. Patches of snow rested here and there on the dead farm land, once alive and well, but now, bleak and cold. How much things had changed. She remembered when the flowers dominated the land in spring. They were long gone, now. It seemed all the flowers had gone, along with the people. It seemed like they were the only tiny house on the blustering earth, watching, trembling as their country played an incredibly competitive game of tug of war. She felt so empty and so terribly numb. And it seemed that the war would last forever.

  Reeling the bucket up, Caroline poured it into the free bucket, and used both her cracked hands to tote the bucket, sloshing it as little as possible, to the house so that Mimma could make tea out of dried marigold. She felt so very old and tired. We wished she had something to lean against- something she could see and hear. Not God. She felt so forgotten, herself, like He had turned away. The feeling was frightening, and cold and lonely.

   Her back felt like it was going to snap into two pieces, and for the first time in her very young life, she realized she truly was tired. Sick of the monotony. Sick of being hungry, and even sick of being sick. She just wished the war was over- and even that thought was beginning to wear out. Winter was harsh, made moreso by the shortage of food.

   As well as the sickness. It spreading, and had claimed three more lives. And she had heard so much about it, she was scared, but she didn't tremble the way she had. Something felt new in Caroline, a sort of listless, uncaringness.