Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge
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50<br />
The fire flies were out early this evening. They flickered in<br />
and around the shrubbery and trees that enclosed Cora Bea<br />
Cox's dogtrot house. The house was a family heirloom from<br />
the 1870's and had never been modernized. It sat isolated<br />
on a broad, level field in Lincoln, Arkansas and was<br />
constructed of dark, squared logs that shut in two separate<br />
one-room buildings that sat side by side and were<br />
connected by a wide, covered hall. Occasionally Cora Bea<br />
drove her 66' Ford pick-up to Fayetteville to purchase apple<br />
seeds, prayer beads, alfalfa molasses, a recipe book titled,<br />
The Mystical Universe, but otherwise, she never left her fiftytwo<br />
acre farm. Only she, a hound, and some cattle lived on<br />
the property.<br />
An angel or a demon must have dumped the skinny<br />
hound on the side of the road because several years ago it<br />
just wandered up to Cora Bea's doorway. She tried to scare<br />
it away by shooing it with a broom, but the dog just sat<br />
there begging for something which Cora Bea did not<br />
understand nor cared to understand. So she let the hound<br />
pursue its intended mission never giving it any sort of<br />
acknowledgment. As each monotonous day on the farm<br />
seeped into the next, this ominous beast nagged behind her,<br />
nipping at her heals.<br />
In the orchard, west of the dogtrot house, the setting<br />
sun infiltrated a tree trunk, forcing a viridescent glow to<br />
shoot out the branches and surround an apple. Cora Bea<br />
picked the apple and placed it in her tote bag. She looked<br />
across the field to the pasture where the cattle were grazing.<br />
The old, wooden fence that was built more than half a<br />
century ago for the purpose of enclosing the cattle had<br />
cracked, rotted, and decomposed in several spots, yet the<br />
cattle remained. Earlier today, the white cow had given<br />
birth to a spirited, little heifer which meant fresh milk for<br />
Cora Bea' s breakfast tomorrow.<br />
This past winter had poured out the most rain in forty