Sweet Readers and Writers,
Joining in for the fun of Dee’s eighth short story prompt link party on her blog, Grammy’s Grid. The idea for this story came from a photograph I took of an old barn in North Dakota while visiting a former long-distance boyfriend in another lifetime. The barn in the photo was a fairly dilapidated wood frame structure that had seen at least a century’s worth of summers and winters.
But as I started writing this small piece…not sure it even qualifies as a story…I remembered reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s sod house in Little House on the Prairie. With a little bit of research, I decided to add a soddy to my story. Growing up I always envisioned my dream home to be a log cabin, or old Victorian, or a cottage tucked away in some remote part of the southwest. But my dream home was never a sod house.
This is the fourth time I have participated in the short story prompt link party. You can read my other stories here, here and here, if you like. Today’s is by far the briefest. And by definition, it probably doesn’t even qualify as a story.
Before we get started:
CONGRATS
To the Featured Blogger from Party 7
KALLIE COME HOME
BY SYLVIA – GRACE FOR A GYPSY
EIGHTH SHORT STORY PROMPT
A little about this exercise in creating writing from Dee.
This is a creative writing exercise for fun and without a lot of editing. Just start typing and see what you come up with!
Remember, no story is too short!
Depending on the authority, I’ve seen word counts classified as:
• micro (up to 100)
• flash (50 – 1,000)
• short-short and short (500 – 7,500, 3,500 – 7,500, and 500 – 17,000)
And to party with us, all you have to do is:
• Start with the partial sentence below
• Create a story or as many as you like using the prompt
• Add your story post to the linkup below
• Let others know in your post where they can linkup
• Check out stories from others, see how they compare to yours
Ready? Here’s the prompt:
The summer breeze blew through my hair as I…
and here’s my story.
Dream Home
The summer breeze blew through my hair as I… stood at the basin washing the dinner dishes. One eye on the griddle I was scrubbing and the other eye on the expanse of prairie that spread beyond the window as far as one could see. The tops of the wheat crop danced in the setting sunlight that bathed the fields to the left of the barn. The corn in its husks bounced in the breeze to the right of the barn. The entire scene was glowing in the light of this dusky golden hour. Even the barn had a golden tone.
Tomorrow our lives would change with the rising sun. Walter would leave the farm, the fields and our family for work with the Union Pacific. He would head south to meet up with the other Irishmen working on the last legs of the Transcontinental Railroad. Winter months were slow on the farm although the upcoming harvest this fall would keep the boys and me busy without help and direction from their father.
Less Than Dream-Like
By working on the railroad through the fall, winter and early spring, though, Walter hoped to earn enough money to build us a proper house out here in Dakota. Our sod house had sufficed the first years on the prairie when the boys were younger. But they were strapping young men now. They needed room to stretch out and continue to grow. And I wanted our daughter Emma to know a home like the one I had grown up in back east. A home with rooms and walls and glass window panes. Not the greased paper windows we had now that failed to keep out the howling winter wind. Or the sod brick walls that turned to a grass-laced mud after a torrential summer downpour.
We had used the little bit of timber we could get to build the barn which began as the home we shared with our horses, cows and pigs until we could get the sod house built for ourselves. The earth was actually cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than the clapboard barn. Even so, once his work on the railroad was finished, Walter would use his earnings to buy more timber. A real house.
Someday
I looked forward to the day I would see my Walter walking through the prairie and back into view from the same window where I stood this evening. Or maybe even driving a team of horses pulling a wagon full of lumber for that real house I dreamed of. Someday, in the not so distant future, I would have plank floors below my feet and a shingled roof over my head and real pane windows through which to watch the world go by. My dream home, finally a reality.
Your Turn
When you were young, did you read any of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder? Do you remember learning about sod houses in school? I have always been a bit of a history buff and have enjoyed reading historical and realistic fiction since I was young.
At the time of the Dust Bowl in 1930, my father was a toddler living in the thick of it on the Oklahoma-Kansas border. His family packed up and headed for Kentucky for a short while before returning home. While writing this today, I imagined the dry dusty winds my family endured back then. Do you think people were grittier and tougher and more resilient years ago? Or is it my imagination?
Off to bed. Just getting this written under the wire in order to link up with Dee. Hope you will stop by to read her story and the stories of others who followed this prompt into a creative writing adventure. I am in Ft. Worth and have all of my girls, Brennyn, Cady, Lauren, Lucia and the yet-to-be-born Cammie, under one roof. My mama heart is full.
Hugs and kisses,
Enjoyed the story! I could see the setting so clearly thru your description of the area and the life they were living! Thanks so much Leslie for linking up at the #ShortStoryPromptLinkParty 8! Shared ♥ Enjoy your time with all your girls, what bliss for you! Never read the books but have seen every episode of the TV show. It had to have been very hard back then and yes, I think people were grittier, tougher, and more resilient than they are today.
Grittier. I like that adjective. I imagine you as being gritty with the trials and tribulations that come from having health issues. I so enjoy your creative writing prompts and posts. Need to stop by and check out the latest one so I can put on my thinking cap!!
I don’t know if I am or not Leslie, you just do what you have to do or either stay in the bed and die. As for the linkup, you better hurry, the current one ends on August 11. If you don’t make it, a new one starts on August 15. By looking at the comments, looks like your readers are enjoying your short stories ♥
Dad gum it!! I thought I missed it and your comment confirms that I have. Will tune in tomorrow for the new prompt. I am tickled to death with the kind comments left about my little stories. So glad to be writing with you.
Prompt 10 (August 15-27) The fish in the aquarium looked as if they…
Thank you! I had an idea but just haven’t had a minute to write. We have been out of town again. Ugh. Hope we are home to stay for a bit now.
When I get an email from you announcing you’ve posted a new short story, it’s DEAR time!
No surprise that I was not disappointed. Love how your story wasn’t about excess, but a woman’s quest for a simple wooden structure, and the sacrifice it would take for that to happen.
I enjoyed the direction of the story (and your attention to historical detail). However, it’s your poetic imagery that captures me in all your reads:
“The tops of the wheat crop danced in the setting sunlight that bathed the fields to the left of the barn.”
I can see it all from the pictures you paint.
Can’t wait until the next one!
Wow, you are so special!! Thank you for this dear comment. And I appreciate your reference to DEAR time. I loved when we did that at schools where I worked.
I think those of you who happened upon my story found so much more in it than I realized was there!! Maybe you gals give me too much credit? But thank you!
What a fun, creative exercise! And you write so beautifully! I was right there washing dishing and looking out the window. I read many books when I was younger. My mom was a single mom and my siblings and I were often left to our own devices when I was a young teen. That being said, I’d fill the hours with books…historical fiction, mysteries, dramas and the list goes on. Do I remember them well, sadly no. I still like a good read but I devour them, which is probably why I don’t remember them well! Have a great weekend!
What a sweet way to fill your time when you were younger. As a young teen, you could have gotten into so many less than savory things but you spent your time reading!! I have always struggled to remember the details of books I read but I remember how the book left me feeling. Kind of that way with people, too. I remember how people made me feel.
Hi Leslie,
Our dream house is not a mansion…it is small and is ENOUGH.
Enough to hold dreams and memories. Enough to be immersed in nature and neighbors. Enough to share morning dips in the pond and evening walks along the dirt road.
Oh, I love the description you shared of your dream home. I remember as a child my mom would tell us that ‘someday’ we would have a house of our own – we lived in a duplex owned and shared by my school principal! Our someday house finally came to be when I was in the fifth grade. How I loved having a pretty room and nice things and a big back yard. But you are right a dream house is the house that holds your dreams and memories!!
I LOVE your short story link up, Leslie. They are always a surprise, and always well-written.
Like EM, I was drawn to this story’s poetic flow….and your eye for detail!
Oh, Donna, thank you. I would never imagine that my writing would seem poetic. But I sure love that compliment.
What a beautiful piece of writing, I was right there looking across the fields and seeing her dream of the future.
How times have changed now, back then you just wanted a weather-proof home with room for a growing family – quite different to aspirational homes of the rich and famous now! People were so much more content with so much less, something we need to keep in mind in these competitive times!
You are right. Homes were functional and not much more 150 years ago. Now they are showplaces, mini-palaces. Trophies. Thank you for your very thoughtful comment on my little story.
You are a natural for this writing thing… I used to really enjoy writing when I was in high school, I did a lot of short stories and even poems. Maybe I’ll get into that again someday when life calms down a bit. I haven’t read any of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, but I know I’d enjoy them… and I know there was a ‘Carrie’/Caroline in the books, which I think when they had the movies I remembered that as a child. Oh, enjoy all of this glorious family time with all of your girls! I’m sure you are on cloud nine!
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com
I am surprised you haven’t read Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think Autumn probably would like them. She might be too old now for them, though. Did you watch the TV series? Loved it and The Waltons, which I am sure, was before your time. Sure did love being with all of my babies but as always we planned to do too much and didn’t just sit and love on each other enough.
I’m so impressed with your writing! You immediately took me back in time! I wish I was a better writer. I always struggled with it. I remember reading Laura Ingles Wilder books and definitely think people were tougher and more resilient back then.
Jill – Doused in Pink
Weren’t folks tougher once upon a time? I guess they had to be but seems like we are all a little wussified, present company excluded, now days! Thank you for the sweet comment on my story. Need to sit down and finish the children’s book I am writing once and for all.