By the Light of the Moon- Chapter 1

Chapter One

“It’s dawn, Alexa. Get up!” hollered out Rob.
“I’m getting up,” I mumbled. We were already a few days into summer break.
“Hurry and get dressed, Ma’s cooking oatmeal this morning!” shouted Bill as he hopped around the room with one leg in his pants and the other one lifted off the floor.
With that sentence I jumped out of bed, grabbed my worn out overalls and slipped them on over a white shirt. While I hurried downstairs into the kitchen, I almost tripped over Andy, who was lying lazily on the floor.
I sat down at the kitchen table and ate my oatmeal. Ma was smiling while tidying up the kitchen some. She had something about her that made everyone happy, even if it was his or her worst day. She could always put a smile on your face and make you feel good. You could tell she was hot; it was burning up in the kitchen with the stove on.
“Alexa, I could swear that you have the appetite of any of these farm boys out here,” joked Bill.
I didn’t say anything, just took the last bite and took my bowl to the sink. I knew he was right, but I also worked as hard as any of the boys out here.
Andy and I walked to the cornfield and I noticed that he wasn’t beside me anymore. He had occupied himself by digging up a mole and chasing it around the yard. As I was walking the rows, I thought of what Grandfather used to say, but he always said it with a twinkle in his eyes.
“So, you’ve got all the boys working in the fields I see, Ralph.”
I missed him so much. I couldn’t and wouldn’t think of anything else but him for a month. My mind was at home while I was at school and it seemed to crawl into a deep, dark hole at when I was in the fields. When Grandmother died, it wasn’t as bad. She never seemed to want anything to do with me. She was very disapproving of the way I dressed, which I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was always clean, at least cleaner than any of the boys. I miss her just the same though. Sometimes I imagine that I can bring them back, but I’m soon to be dragged out of my dreams by reality.
The corn was only about knee-high at this time of the year. The leaves were a beautiful shade of green, making the fields look softer than silk when the wind came through. I walked along with the hoe in hand, whacking the ground here and there, my mind off in my earlier days.
Rob called out, “We’ve got visitors!”
That brought me back to the present. I involuntarily looked toward the driveway, almost an instinct. Sure enough, two horses were trotting up the driveway. At first I put it off of my mind and went back to hoeing, thinking that they were hired hands at the Simin's place up the road. But there was something different that made me look back again. Surely they weren’t from around here, I’d never seen them before. In a small town such as this, just about everyone knew everybody. Walked over to see for myself.