Darla's Organic Bread and Orphanage

Darla’s Organic Bread Factory and Orphanage

Darla was an orphan with bright red, curly hair, a sharp nose and large brown freckles all over her face and arms. She was one of the unfortunate babies given up soon after their birth and taken in by the Farming Orphanage that never got adopted. However, Darla did not consider herself unfortunate at all.

She lived in the orphanage with two boys named Jeremy and Jack. Jack was the slyest of the two. He was tall and lanky with big brown eyes and a hearty laugh. Jeremy who was shorter and more muscular than Jack was hard to catch when the kids played basketball together. Jeremy had dark green eyes and a triangular face which made him appear cat-like and so Jack often called Jeremy Cat.

Darla, Jack and Cat grew up under the guidance of Miss Emilee Moppet, a gray old woman who was very wise and charmed by the postman, a widower which she chatted with for hours on end each day. When Darla, Jack and Cat reached a reasonable age of independence, Miss Moppet wrote over the deed to Darla, making her promise to take good care of the orphanage and to try to steer Cat and Jack in the right direction. For, the boys were notoriously lazy.

Then, Miss Moppet married the postman and they moved very far away, farther than Darla could walk or even run if she ran very fast for a whole day straight.

Thinking of Miss Moppet, now Mrs. Moppet (she had chosen to keep her maiden name) Darla set out for a walk one early Spring morning just after the sun had risen. There were six orphans in the Farming Orphanage at the time which she left in the care of Jack and Cat. As she strolled down I-19 she noticed a large burlap sack which was resting in the center of the road. She stood over it and read the label: Organic Wheat 50lbs.

Darla was enchanted by the bag. She reached down with both freckled arms and heaved it up, hugging it closer to her as she carried it back ‘home’. Of course, fifty pounds was a hefty amount and Darla had to stop and rest and catch her breath now and again, but as Mrs. Moppet always said: hard work is hard but pays off in the end.

Darla placed the sack on the kitchen counter and went to check on the children. She found them all lined up in front of the old 1980’s television, their hair in mats from sleeping and wearing their jammies, which, because the orphanage had little funding, were worn quite thin.

“Jack! Cat!” Darla called out shrilly in her best Mrs. Moppet‘s, ‘I can’t believe how lazy you both are’ voice . “Why aren’t the children dressed and ready for library story time?”

Cat jumped up abruptly and hissed. Jack simply rolled his head slowly around at Darla and smiled slyly. “Oh, Darla, there was a commercial on the public channel so we just flipped here to the cartoons for a moment. But look, you’re here now, why don’t you go ahead and get them ready.”

Angrily, Darla flicked off the T.V. and hid the remote in the kitchen cabinet behind the bottle of vitamins. She stomped back into the room and gathered up the children. They followed her in line to the large single room they all shared and let her dress them and comb out their knotted hair.

In the playroom, Cat and Jack argued over who should get up and turn the T.V. back on. Darla frowned as she heard Jack say loudly: “Cat, you’re already up and you’re closer to the T.V. than me.” The children laughed at Darla’s face because when she frowned, it made her forehead crinkle up.

Darla and the six children walked to the library. The story time was a good one with a shadow-puppet show and everything. Darla hated to be using her dollar-store flashlight to read the book she had found, but she needed to learn more about growing wheat. That burlap bag and its contents should not go to waste. She read about composting and crop rotation and irrigation.

Back at the orphanage Darla made lunch for the children who played with homemade play-dough and Jack and Cat, both of which remained plastered in front of the T.V. watching Woody Woodpecker. While stirring the pasta, Darla finished the last chapter of her book.

After lunch, she read the kids a story and tucked them into their beds, which were really nothing more than mattresses on the floor covered with old donated blankets, that had been patched so many times, they resembled poorly made quilts. She stood in front of the T.V. to get Jack’s attention. Cat had fallen asleep on the couch and was drooling into the armrest. Both had not bothered to get up and put away their dirty dishes.

“Jack,” she began, “I have to go out. I need to rent a tractor. So I would appreciate it if you could tidy up the kitchen while I’m gone.”

Jack nodded as he waved her away. He was anxious to see how Woody was going to get unstuck from that telephone pole. He really hadn’t heard a word she said, but from experience, he knew when to nod at the appropriate times.

Darla had to walk for an hour to get to Erv’s Rent-A-Center. The patient clerk explained how to operate a tractor. She paid and drove the giant sparkling green beast home. And she was pleased that it only took her twenty minutes to get back to the orphanage. That left her with forty minutes to plough and turret the field behind the building. Immediately Darla set to work.

Tired, hot and sweaty, Darla came inside to take a shower. Jack was asleep next to Cat and the kitchen was still a mess. Darla turned bright red, but held her tongue as she washed all the dishes and wiped the counter. She took a five minute shower and was done just in time to play with the children who woke up and came running out singing: I’ve been working on the Railroad.

“Choo-Choo! Chugga, chugga, CHOO-CHOO!” The children screamed as they shuttled around the couch in a line.

Jack and Cat woke up abruptly and stared glassy-eyed at Darla who had removed the knob from the T.V. and placed it on a chain around her neck. Their faces were smeared with spaghetti sauce because they were too lazy to get napkins from the kitchen.

“I have to return the tractor guys, so I need you to play with the children for an hour until I get back,” Darla shot. Her forehead was crinkling deeply and the children were in a fit of giggling.

She left without an answer from them to drive the tractor back and purchase a center pivot irrigation system from Nebraska Irrigation, which was conveniently located near Erv’s. She handed over her coffee can full of money which she had been saving up since she was five. It had been her dream to buy a bus for the orphanage. She looked at the irrigation system as an investment for the future and tried to smile while the clerk counted out the one dollar bills.

Later that evening, Jack and Cat were playing B-Ball while the little ones cheered from the sidelines. Nebraska Irrigation employees were packing up their truck after volunteering to install the irrigator for free. They even threw in a used timer that they swore was in perfect working condition. Darla read the last few pages of the center pivot irrigator manual and smiled as Cat made another hoop.

“Okay, everyone!” she said cheerfully. “Gather round, gather round.” Darla stood up and pointed to the burlap bag she had been sitting on. The children eyed it curiously and a few of them poked it gently. Jack and Cat continued their game. “This is a bag of wheat seeds,” Darla said excitedly, “and we are going to plant them tonight.”

“Ohhhhh,” the children said in awe.

“Cat! Jack!” Darla called as the line of children each took up a basket of seeds and followed Darla into the newly prepared field. “Come on, we have fifty pounds of seeds to plant before it gets too dark to see.”

“Oh,” said Cat, “yeah Darla, we’ll be there in a minute.”

Jack laughed sarcastically as he tossed the ball to Cat. “She’s so strange Cat, sometimes I wonder what in the world she’s up to.” Cat jumped as high as his stubby legs would shoot him and slam dunked.

An hour later, Darla and the children returned to find two baskets full of wheat seeds sitting by the basketball. The basketball was, of course, not put away. Darla took the children inside, read them a bedtime story, brushed their teeth and tucked them in for the night.

Cat and Jack were asleep in front of the T.V. It was all rice and raisins. Darla unhitched the vice grips from the metal stub where the knob used to be and put them in the toolbox beside the T.V. She gathered up all the other tools and put them away too. She got out her dollar store flashlight and set out to plant the rest of the seeds.

A year passed.

The seeds grew. When harvest time came, Darla rented a thresher and then a harvester and you guessed it, Cat and Jack were too busy watching Cartoon Network to help out. Darla used the last of her funds to have all that wheat ground at the local mill. The miller, out of the goodness of his heart, had the wheat delivered to the orphanage all packed in tidy pillowcase sacks.

With the help of the children, Darla baked and baked until all the flour was used up. She packaged up her breads and took an ad out on E-Bay. Within two weeks, she had sold out of all the loaves.

Jack came in from shooting hoops and glared at Darla. “I’m hungry, where’s all the bread?”

Darla smiled widely. “I sold it Jack! All of it! Look.” She pointed to the balance of her PayPal account.

“Great Scott! Cat! Cat! Get in here, you gotta look at this!”

Cat came in and scratched his chin with the remote control. “Wow Darla, when do we get our share?”

Darla, who had been very patient up until this point, began to get a crinkle on her forehead. She turned from pink to red and glared down at Cat and Jack. “YOUR SHARE? YOUR SHARE? I asked you to clean up, you didn’t. I asked you to help plant the seeds, you didn’t. When I had the center pivot irrigation system installed you just laughed at me and said I was strange. You were too busy watching cartoons to help bake the bread. You’re not getting one penny of this money.

Cat and Jack stared at each other.

“Well?” Darla asked. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”

Jack smiled slyly. Cat pursed his thin lips. “Can we have a job, Darla?” they chimed together.