INTO THE WOODS

Walking down the hill behind the barn and entering the shadowy cedar scented forest didn't seem a scary thing to me...but I was an adult, with a stout stick in my fairly strong arms. I was not a 5 year old girl with a 3 year old sister in tow, both carrying lunch to the men working in the fields below. The way was long and somewhat strenuous for me. I cannot imagine what it was for a tiny child with the sure knowlege that her older brothers had killed a wolf on the hill above the farm just months before. Even in 1919 a 5 year old knew that wolves do not travel alone. Why was Blanche with a tiny Girly doing this errand? Mom didn't recall, although she gave the adults some credit that they must have been the only ones available and able. If Girly was 3 Grandma may have been heavily pregnant with Art. Grandma Nettle had arthritis. Aunt Maude was probably pregnant...who knows? Not me and not mom...all she remembered was shivering in fear, walking arm to shoulder with a toddler, but doing her duty, as was her wont.