Peas in a pod
This was one garden chore that Lyle didn't mind.
He sat on the wide wooden swing, his feet just touching the porch floor enough to rock it gently, shelling green peas into a bowl on his lap. Beside him sat a basket of freshly-picked full pods; on the floor nearby a box caught empty pods as he tossed them.
While still work, it was easy. And he got to sit on the porch, out of the early-summer sun. Best you can ask for when you're a healthy ten-year-old boy on a farm. Everyone has to be doing something.
Dad was in the garden out back, picking the pods and pulling up the pea plants, roots and all. In the coming weeks, he would re-till and replant. And Lyle would be back out there, too, sweating and weeding, or sweating and throwing out rocks the tiller brought up. Thankfully, planting corn and squash and watermelon together meant those chores would end as the good plants would take over, standing up easily to the few bad ones.
Lyle would still have a full summer, between time on the Little League outfield and days in the pasture and barn, including halter-breaking his calf for the Fair. Still, all that felt far in the future as he stared out over the front yard spreading out to the highway, beyond to the neighbor's woods and the creek, to the low hills in the background. Letting the mind wander over what locals regarded as mountains, he could see the Arkansas River and beyond, the more rugged terrain of the Ozarks.
A sudden jolt on the swing brought his mind back to the porch. Charlie Ann climbed onto the other end of the swing, a small bowl in her hand. With a look of already accomplishing something, she reached into the basket for some pea pods.
“Keep an eye on her, and let her help,” Mom ordered from inside the house. She was the most busy, preparing the kitchen for putting up peas for freezing and taking care of new baby Louise. Lyle was the oldest, 10, with Charlie at 5 and Lou a little over zero. If in five years there wasn't another arrival, the family joke went, their number was set.
With his toe, Lyle pushed the box closer to his sister, just as she let a pod fly from her fingers, spinning like two little green helicopter blades to a perfect landing. Charlie shot him a smile, then her little fingers split open another pod, letting the peas fall into the bowl. Pok, pok, pok, pok.
Lyle quickly picked up his own pace, shelling another - pokpokpok - and another, sensing that Mom would catch him daydreaming again. It didn't cross his wandering mind what a tableau he and Charlie made, that afternoon on the front porch, he in his T-shirt and jeans, she in her cute blue overalls with little flowers on the bib. Big bro and little sis - him showing how to do the work, her an example of doing it without complaining.
In the years to come, Lyle would not remember the things they talked about or the silly songs they sang there on the porch. He just knew that he missed that old swing, and those quiet early-summer days.
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Entry for LJ Idol: Season 10, Second Chance Idol Week 2; Topic: “ Front Porch.” This piece is semi-autobiographical; since it's not a precise memory, with a bit of writer's license taken, the names are altered and we'll just call this a “story” with its own truth.