FanStory.com - Working Bootsby zanya

There was a knock on the door. Being just nine years old and having a high fever, I couldn't get out of bed. The knocking was on the heavy wooden, back door with the big iron latch.

It was 1950. Anyone could lift the latch and walk in. That's how it was, back then, in my little rural village of Antworth. Everybody knew everybody else's business. In fact, everybody probably knew Tom Robinson was not at school that day, March 21st 1950. How do I remember the date so accurately? Because Mummy had died one week earlier from some rare disease. Now it was just Dad, and me.

Dad missed Mummy, Myrtle, so much. He cried a lot at night in his little room, on the other side of the fireplace. Dad still had to get up early every morning to open his garage, one mile down the lane. The farmers, in their horses and carts, set off, at first light to deliver fresh milk to the creamery. There were a few tractors too. Dad could repair any mechanised vehicle. He was a whizz at mechanics.

I was too sad to go back to school, now that Mummy was gone. I just couldn't imagine walking to the little stone schoolhouse without her. In Spring we rambled for hours, along the budding hedgerows, looking for violets.

At night she used to help me with my arithmetic.

When all the people had left after the funeral, I lay down on the bed. I had a severe headache, with a very high fever. I listened to the sounds outside of our whitewashed cottage. Cartwheels creaked. Mens' voices were raised as they worked in the fields. Sometimes a colorful butterfly landed on the stone sash of my window.

That morning when I heard the knocking, I sat up with a start. I was still feverish. Next moment, I could make out the familiar sound of my mother's footsteps, her working leather boots, with the steel tips.

I lay back happily on my pillow. Next day the fever left me and joy returned.