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Writing.Com Item ID: #639630
Title: The Soddy and the Storm
Item Type: Static Item
Brief: This was written to a dirt prompt.
Last Modified: 09-29-2003 @ 12:07pm
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The wind blew the old leaves and grass in eddies that crossed in front of Sara as she watched absently. She looked up. Silence filled the morning. That was odd in the springtime. Usually bird sounds filled the air. Sara closed her eyes, reveling in the sun on her face, and took a deep breath of the clean spring air. It would rain. But for the silence, everything was normal.
Sara looked around and sighed. Not a building in sight. Not even any real trees. Nothing but the long, lonely prairie. Acre after acre of old grass and wildflowers mixed with this year’s shoots just starting. Prairie and two good sized fields to the south, that Jake had just finished plowing and would be planting in a couple of days, when he returned from Wichita. Her neighbors were too far away to see or hear. Still, the silence bothered her, but she didn’t know why. She sighed again and chalked it up to an overwrought imagination while Jake was away. As she turned to go back into her little prairie house, the wind caught her skirt and whipped it about her ankles.
Inside it was dark. Only the open door and one small window made of oil soaked paper let in any light. The dull sod walls were devoid of any cheerful decoration. Sara couldn’t imagine what would cheer them. It was too chilly to sit with the door open, so she pulled her rocker over to the little window sat there with her sewing. She sang to herself as she pulled the needle through the fabric, trying to keep the stitches even, as her mother had taught her. Singing helped her not to think too much about her mother and the rest of her family she had left back east last fall when she had married Jake. It was awfully hard to be so far away from them, especially when Jake was away.
Sara realized she had brought her work up close to her face and was still having trouble seeing. It had become quite dark inside, although it could not be much past noon. She went to the door to look out. Rain must be near. The scent of it was strong. The sky was a low, heavy gray. Sara wondered if it was already raining in Wichita. From the look of the sky, she was certain it was a big storm.
She closed the door and turned back to the inside. Jake had checked everything before he had left. She had been nervous about living in it through the winter, but, although it was far from ideal, it had held up better than she could have imagined. She hoped he’d made sure the soddy could take a hard rain. She’s best prepare, just in case it leaked.
Sara folded the quilts on the bed and put them into the chest. Then she rolled up the featherbed and stuffed it into the small trunk, leaving the bed’s frame and ropes bare. She looked around and spied her Bible on the table. She picked it up with her sewing and put them into the trunk with her quilts. Everything else would weather a leaky roof well enough. It would have to. There was no other place to put anything.
It was almost as dark as night. The wind had picked up considerably. She listened to it whistle around the door and whip at the paper window. The early spring warmth the sun had brought was now gone. She pulled her woolen shawl around her and sat in the rocker again, listening to the increasing pace of the tapping of the rain on the door and window. She rocked and sang to herself as the wind grew louder and louder.
She rushed to the door to look out. The wind grabbed the door from her and flung it wide open. Rain pelted her in large, cold drops. The rain was coming down too hard and too fast. The wind was too loud.
"Remember, if you see a twister, get into the cellar," Jake had warned her several times before he left.
Sara couldn’t see a twister. She couldn’t see much of anything. As wide and open as the prairie had been in the sunlight, the rain had closed it around her. And the wind was pulling the door out of the soddy!
She ran the fifteen steps across the mud, to the cellar Jake had dug when he’d first got here. With great effort, she pulled up the door just enough to scoot inside. The wind slammed it down against her back before she could step all the way down. She turned and pulled the crossbar in place to lock it.
Darkness enveloped the cellar more than it ever had in the soddy. Sara was cold and wet. She wished she’d thought to bring one of her quilts with her. She sat down on a box and waited. Above her the wind roared. She sang to chase away her fear, but her voice was drowned out by the roaring and the rain pelting the cellar door. Sara had no idea how long she waited. Though she continued to sing all the hymns she knew, she shivered from the cold and couldn’t keep back the tears.
Sometime later Sara realized she had been dozing. She had no idea how long it had been, but the roaring was gone. She listened for the rain against the door and could hear nothing. Carefully, she stood and reached up for the door. She felt for the bar and moved it to the side. She pushed tentatively and when the wind did not try to pull the door away, she pushed it fully open.
The rain had not completely stopped, but now it was a light, gentle spring rain that fell. Sara looked around as her eyes adjusted from complete darkness to that of a cloudy dusk. She looked around in all directions. Beside her, at her feet, was the cellar door. She used it to orient her to her surroundings.
Had she become confused in the darkness of the cellar and the semidarkness and rain around her now? Making sure she was headed in the right direction, she took the fifteen steps needed to reach the soddy door. But there was no door. The storm had ripped it off. She remembered that. She could stretch a quilt across the doorway to make do until she found the door. But there was no doorway.
There was no soddy!
Where once had stood the tiny cabin made of sod and dirt, now was nothing more than a good deal of mud. Everything - the table, the rocker, the settle, the dishes, the lamp - everything was gone, except, to Sara’s amazement, though covered in mud, the bedstead, the small trunk and the chest were exactly as she had left them.