Lulu's Christmas Story by Ludmilla Bollow

Author:Ludmilla Bollow
Language: deu
Format: epub
Publisher: Titletown Publishing, LLC

Bad things happen on the farm, too. One afternoon, Uncle Steven doesn’t eat lunch with us because he is still in the fields trying to finish his work before the rains. Farmers always worry about rain. Sometimes they need it, sometimes they don’t want it. Today, even though Uncle Steven doesn’t want it, it is going to happen anyway.

We can see through the kitchen windows that the sky’s turning coal black. Thunder begins rumbling and lightning streaks across the suddenly swaying tree tops. One by one, we go outside to watch, not saying much. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, or what I should do when it does.

The wind howls fiercely, and the windmill spins wildly. We stand on this small rickety porch, rain drenching us.

“He’s coming,” someone shouts.

We see Uncle Steven running from the barn. Pelting rain plasters his striped overalls to his skin. His straw hat’s gone. His dripping hair’s spread every which way.

He huffs and puffs as he joins us on the porch, leans against the post, and covers his face with his hands. Nobody says anything.

My heart beats fast inside. I want to go into the house, but instead just move closer to the door. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do on a farm during a storm, this is my first one. I forgot to even look to see if there was a lightning rod on the house.

“I got the horses in the barn—” Uncle Steven says, then stands and watches the storm with a grim face.

All of a sudden, hail begins to beat down angrily. Big white hail stones bounce across the grass. Thundering bullets of hail hammer on their tin roof.

“Oh, dear Lord, that’s the biggest hail I’ve ever seen!” Gladys sounds frightened and backs closer to the house. The others do too.

Uncle Steven looks out. There’s no smile on his face as he watches the continuous hail. Finally, he breaks the silence.

“The hail—Ellen, I only got half the grain cut—” His voice is trembly, sad. He stands there, holding Auntie Ellen’s hand tightly.

“That hail—it’s flattening every piece of grain. Pounding it to hell. It’ll never come back.” He shakes his head slowly. “It’s lost, Ellen. All that work—gone, just like that.”

“We’ll make it through,” Auntie Ellen says in her quiet voice. “Somehow.”

The raindrops rolling down Uncle Steven’s creased face make him look like he’s crying. But grown-ups don’t cry.

Uncle Steven doesn’t make any jokes the rest of the day, just sits in his rocker, staring ahead. The rest of us are quiet too, as if the storm was still around, hovering, shrouding the whole house in a new kind of gloom.

That was one of the saddest days of all of my summer vacations.

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