Eng 101 - the Farm

Kristie Pinto

Prof. William A. Vaughn

English 101 Mon/Wed

August 30, 2011

The Farm

My six-year-old son pushes his chair away from our dining room table, tears streaming down his face making a watery path from his beautiful blue eyes to his chin. "I don't care if Paws has all the rabbits he can chase," he cries desperately "he is allergic to grass! I HATE the farm, the farm sucks!" He turns from me and runs to his room slamming his door. I am left sitting alone now, at our dinner table wondering if I did the right thing. Was it him I was trying to spare, when I handed down the lie about "the farm", or myself?

My parents told me about the farm when I was about the same age as my son, and although I missed Henry and Audrey, it did sound like a cool place. Wide-open fields, filled with wild rabbits to chase, a cool, clear stream to drink from, plenty of new exciting places to explore. I used to wish I could go there myself, until the night I overheard the truth about "the farm"...

It was a warm, humid summer night, although I do not remember if it was late, or very late, I do remember it was very dark. Faint light came from the lights on the dashboard, enough to see your silhouette but not enough to see clearly. The eight-track radio was playing John Denver's Greatest Hits, as my dad drove down a lonely, deserted two-lane highway between Los Angeles, CA and Chicago, IL. I was curled up between my parents in the cab of our pick-up truck and camper. My head was on my mother's lap, using it as a pillow. I had my eyes tightly shut as I pretended to be sleeping. I did not want to be caught with them open, and be punished for still being awake. There was a low whistle from the wing window, and a warm breeze washed through the cab between the two windows that were rolled half way down, in an attempt to cool down the vehicles passengers. I was still too excited, which is why I could not sleep, because I was allowed to sleep upfront between my parents, while my younger sister had to sleep above us in the camper. Even though she was smaller, and could have fit more comfortably between my mom and dad, she still wet the bed at night, and my mother would put up with no "accidents" on the trucks seat.

"The girls were asking about the farm again," my mother says to my dad, using the voice she used when my dad was napping, before he went to work at night, "they want to know if they can visit the farm before Christmas". She sighs, "Lee, Janene is not buying the whole farm thing. She thinks you killed Henry and Audrey because they chewed up your shoes." She leans closer to him and says, "She told me that she remembers that Butterscotch went to the farm after she peed in your leather chair, and kept you up all night by howling like someone