The Truth in Their Rumors

Chapter 3

        The cotton plants of the sky began to loom over the land as the power of the sun and clouds shifted hands. Darkness began to cover the countryside, and the air smelt damp threatening us with a warm summer shower. A slight breeze began to slither by us, swirling around us and gently caressing our skin.  

            I turned to look at Mr. Emerson, and he smiled widely at me and I smiled back. “I have always loved the rain,” he said to me while gazing up at the clouds.

            “It is certainly good for the crops,” I said simply, for I did not enjoy rain as much as Mr. Emerson did.

            Slowly Mr. Emerson’s house came into my view. It was a large house made of burgundy bricks and many white pillars that created the porch of the house. It was surrounded by overgrown fields of grass that were nearly five foot tall, and each individual strand danced with the breeze that had found its way to our area of town.

            Once we reached the house, Mr. Emerson said for me to wait outside on the porch for him, and so I did patiently.  As I waited I looked out at the property that he owned, the land was certainly wild and free, for it looked as if nothing at all had been done to it. It was beautiful even without a single hand altering it.

           “It’s beautiful isn’t it?” asked Mr. Emerson. I jumped a little when he said this. I had not noticed he was just beside me.

            “Why yes, it is,” I agreed. I looked down at his hands as he stood beside me and I saw he had a red and blue quilt in one hand and a closed basket in the other. “A picnic?” I asked curiously. “It looks as if it is to rain. Are you sure this is a good idea, Mr. Emerson?”

            “Of course, I am sure. Why would you doubt me? Come on now,” he said and strode out into the field of wild grass, with a slight bounce in his walk. I smiled and followed him.

            We walked for quite a long while through the endless fields that surrounded his house. Mr. Emerson hummed a familiar tune the whole way, the notes simply falling out of his closed mouth and into the silence that surrounded us. His hair became ruffled in the breeze and in that moment as he was humming a cheerful song and I looked in his shining eyes I could tell he was truly happy. There was a large change in his mood from earlier that morning until the afternoon.

            Finally, Mr. Emerson gently laid the quilt onto a clearing on the ground, sat down and opened the basket that he had been carrying. He took out two crystal wine glasses and even though there was no sun to reflect off of them, they still sparkled as crystals so often do. Next he popped the cork off of a bottle of red wine, and poured it carefully into the glasses filling it a little too much. He handed me the glass, I took it, and immediately took a sip. The wine had a smooth velvety taste with a hint of a fruity flavor. It was the best wine I had ever tasted in my entire life.

            “My father’s wine,” Mr. Emerson said as if he had known what I was thinking. He then gave me some bread with butter and a handful of strawberries on a plate. The strawberries bore a darker red color and the bread looked freshly made. “I’m sorry, it is nothing extravagant. Honestly it is all I can make,” Mr. Emerson said, clearly embarrassed.