Another Chapter in Dee's Life

Tomorrow was Saturday and Dee was looking forward to helping her dad out in the garden. Every spring he'd plant rows and rows of fresh vegetables and it was time to weed and pick the lettuce. Soon the carrots would be up and after that the cucumbers, then tomatoes and corn...and much later those beloved onions and potatoes! Just the thought of eating fresh, crunchy vegetables made her mouth water.

In North Dakota, the growing season was short so her mom and sisters would end up canning lots of the fresh produce. Dee chose to help plant, water, weed, and harvest in order to get out of having to "put up vegetables" in the hot kitchen every year. Seemed like once the vegetables were really going crazy, canning went on most every weekend. That's what they ate all winter...and what meat was hunted and prepared.

This morning Dee's mom had one of her premanitions, which she admitted to having about 3 or 4 times a year. Lydia said she had a vision that Glen (Dee's dad) fell out of a tree and died. This pretty much worried Dee, as once her ma had a vision that her brother Clarence had died in the war, and sure enough...five days later a telegram came telling of his death in Germany.

Later that summer, Dee was out back harvesting tomatoes when she heard her neighbor screaming "get him outta my yard", over and over. Dee figured it was Jim again, the white dog from down the road. While she went running toward the neighbors fence, her mom and Patty came running out the back door. It was Glen Tolliver, Sr., laying still in the neighbors back yard...with a tree limb through his chest. The next thing Dee recalled was riding in the back of the ambulance, next to her father. She thinks she must have screamed, or cried, or something. All she was aware of now, this very minute, was the sound of her own breathing.