Chipola Roads

Picking dried field peas in midsummer was not Rachel’s first choice for something fun to do, but it never occurred to her that she might have an option.  She was an obedient child of Ransome and Olivia Hurshey Wilkes, but it appeared to her that her two younger brothers were not living up to her standards!  She’d picked dry peas ever since dinner in the hot, and all they’d been told to do was meet her at the fence when she was done picking before sundown. They had not appeared, and Rachel left her croker sack of peas for her Uncle Bud to take to the house when he went in to do chores.  She headed toward home, out of sorts with her brothers.  It was already getting to be dusty dark when she left the field.

Wire grass was over-lapping the trail in places.  Praying not to step into a gopher hole and sprain her ankle or get bitten by a rattlesnake boarder of the gopher hole, Rachel held her aching chest while she ran.

She had instant recall of last year’s terrible instance of a rattlesnake bite on a bare foot when the boys were going with her to Granny Em’s and running ahead as usual.  Billie saw the ground rattler on the path and sailed over it, but Frankie stepped right on the snake and was bitten on the ankle.

Rachel picked Frankie up and ran as hard as she could run to Granny Em’s, with Billie running behind yelling at the top of his voice, “Frankie, I’m coming!  Don’t die before I get there, Frankie!  I’m coming!”