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Creative Writing: Baudora Welty

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He planted the torch in the ground and laid his scabbard in the brown dry grass. He leaned against the brick wall of the ruined house, tampered the tobacco in his pipe and looked at her — he smiled to himself. She stood by the old well, gazing into the night. Her long blonde ponytail was not tied with cloth like his wife did, she wrapped the hair around itself instead, and she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen, he thought. Her brown pants clung to her, and he could see the black string she tied the piece of cloth covering her breasts with through the white blouse.
“Vu! Bread or carrot?”
“Carrot!”
She came over, laid down her bow and sat on the ground. He handed her a carrot out of his pack and lit his pipe.
“Won’t you eat?” She said …show more content…

“You alright?” he grinned.
She looked up at him with a goofy smile and watery eyes. He smoked and she ate her carrot — in awfully small bites he thought.
He was happy. She was pleasant company, and the night was comfortable. His wife’s old father gave him this pouch of tobacco for the journey and it was rich in the mouth.
“You did well bartering with them merchants you did, Vu. My wife and I, we’re real glad to have you with us. You sew as well as her now, she says, and you speak them funny languages they speak out east.”
She smiled, and he continued: “Now I know you’re aching to head further west, but let me at least show you how to handle your bow better. Them sandy lands past the mountains are dangerous y’know, and…” He paused for a moment. “Well you’re clumsy with it, that’s all.”
She nodded and he grinned. He could see she was excited. She was a great girl, and he knew she took no offence and wanted to learn.
He picked up his scabbard and tied it to his belt and she got to her feet with the bow and picked up the torch for him.
“Yeah, it’s time we went on,” he said, and they continued along the ancient stone-paved road past the dry golden

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