With one hand on his hip and the other shielding his eyes from the sun, he jutted his chin toward the telegram. Henry stopped bouncing the line and squinted up at me. I’d show Mama that I could cook and clean, and even make life easier for her. “But one day you’ll be big enough.”Īnd now, that one day had come. “It wouldn’t be fair to you, Ella,” she’d said before. I was gonna need to prove to her that I had grown up enough to help take care of myself. Mama always said that with all the work she had to do it’d be hard for her to look after me. “Henry!” I called, waving the telegram high over my head.Ĭome stay with me in Boston is what it said. Heck! How would he know? He never did catch nothing. He insisted it made the big fish take the worm for a sick fish that was easy prey. I spotted Henry below, ankle deep in the water with his trousers rolled up, bouncing his fishing line up and down.

Still, some folks took issue with me, a girl, sporting such a hat. I’d taken it home and cleaned it up good as new. The gold braid ’round the brim wasn’t frayed at all. The black felt didn’t have a single nick or worn patch. I had found it in the woods, caked in a layer of dry brown earth. No one in Clarendon County had a hat like mine: a Stetson Cavalry. Dirt and broken leaves clung to the dark felt, making it dusty and gray, and I beat at them till they finally came loose. I’d almost lost my hat twice on the way to the creek. I pushed a low poplar branch out of my way and arrived at Creek’s Clearing, just before the water’s edge. I was finally going to live in Boston with Mama.

One cut was so deep, I’d leave a trail of blood across the porch and clear on into the kitchen.īut I couldn’t feel none of that now-there was just my good news.

Later, at home, I’d discover deep scratches and cuts covering my ankles and the soles of my feet. I tore through the woods, my legs trying to keep pace with my pounding heart. “Ella! Your shoes! Your shoes!” she hollered after me. I’d heard Granny calling after me, but the words didn’t make sense until I’d already turned off into the woods toward the creek, where the fallen blackberry brambles and knobby tree limbs stabbed and scraped. Running down our driveway and onto the packed and dry dirt road, I hardly noticed my bare feet. What was I thinking, leaving home with no shoes?

How High the Moon by Karyn Parsons