After the service, Sam and Maggie walked to the cottage and stood under the polished beams of the yurt modeled home. Gran had lived in yurts as a girl, so it seemed only fitting that she designed her cottage to resemble one. Gran mandated that she be buried with her trees behind the property, and the week before the funeral, Sam had clear cut timber, pulled stumps, and fashioned an old wrought iron fence around the new ten-by-ten foot clearing. It was simple, but Maggie thought Gran would have liked that. They stood there in silence, having locked the door behind them. The only light streamed in from the bay window as it caught what remained of the setting sun. The furniture was dated, moth bitten, webbed, and smelled slightly of stale Gatorade. …show more content…
The face of Sam’s small furniture business lived within the apartment of his best and only friend. Jack, a short, bald and square man, lived in the loft above Nails n’ Screws, where he worked as a clerk. Jack swindled jobs from customers, convincing them to hire Sam to complete their weekend building projects. From this, Jack got a small cut of the profit, and Sam was able to keep food on the table. Jack had only ever been to the cottage for dinner once, and at the end of the night, after two too many beers, he tried to kiss Maggie. Leaning over the kitchen table, he grabbed Maggie by the shoulders and tried to pull her close. Instead, Maggie lowered her center of gravity, dropped to the floor and ducked under the table, pulling Jack back over the top. Hearing the old floor boards groan with the suddenness of Jack’s overweight frame, Sam returned from where he was splitting wood to find him passed out in a crumpled heap, and Maggie up against the wall, her cheeks flush. “What a lightweight,” Sam laughed, grabbing Jack by both …show more content…
With a slow and prolonged recovery time, he lost his job. Maggie was a kindergarten teacher and she had managed to save enough money for the two of them to survive for a few years. She left the school to take care of Sam, sold the house to pay off the medical debt, and they moved into Gran’s cottage. The goal was to move back once he recovered completely, but after spending their first winter in the woods, they never left. Maggie grew to love the early mountain air and thought her new connection to nature, and in turn, Gran, made it impossible to leave. Sam thought it was because mortgages were the “utter shits.” The plan they then adopted was to move when the need for a child outweighed the serenity of the wilderness. Sam opened the mouth of the cook-stove and stoked the fire. Moving the coals around, he added another log. Taking Maggie’s que he worked silently, considering how her silence could be born from discontent. Moving towards the table, he grew frustrated as he replaced the condiments in the fridge, trying to think of what he could have done to piss her off. When they moved into the cottage, Sam fell his first ponderosa. Maggie woke up early the next morning and took her time building the fire. She found two logs from the newly formed vertical stack and set to work getting them lit. Closing the swinging door of the potbellied cook-stove,
George and Maggie have a dream they want to achieve. On their way to the ranch with Lennie. “O.K. Someday - we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’a cow and some pigs and -.” (Steinbeck, 14). Maggie comes from Southern Missouri and came to Los Angeles to become a professional boxer. George dreams of buying a ranch and Maggie comes from across the
Tom Walker sat at his bedside feeling rather melancholy for he had not much to do but be chided at by his notorious witch of a wife. They both lived in their humble abode of an apartment in the middle of a city but they had a sublime view that overlooked the scenery of the domicile's dumpsters. They lived poorly, just barely getting by to afford a couple gallons of gas. Tom grew a hatred for almost everyone around and had only a handful of “friends”, he believed that money was the most valuable and important thing in his life.
3. At the cabin, Jerry found a cubbyhole beside the fireplace and put kindling and “medium” wood for sudden weather, and steadied a stone that was loose in the the sidewalk to the cabin for the narrator.
The McPheron brothers, Raymond and Harold, are the go-to guys of the small town of Holt. It is a safe haven to the pregnant teenager they take in. It is a place of comfort for two young brothers much like themselves, named Ike and Bobby. Raymond and Harold are two brothers who live together on their ranch and take care of their farm animals. The McPheron’s wore jeans and boots, canvas chore jackets, and hats with flannel earflaps. They have a barn full of cattle that they spend most of their time with. They have never been married and their parents were killed when they were longer which left them to raise themselves. They have never had a female live with them nor have they been around any children. They have been independent and lonesome for years. They sit around their table and read the newspaper while drinking coffee. Then they spend most of their days outside in the barn. Even in the cold frigid winter months, they still spend their time outside maintaining the farm.
“In the kitchen, he stirred the coals in the old Home Comfort wood range. The coffee in the black percolator on the side of the range was still hot. He had made it by lamplight before going out. He poured a mug of the strong brew and sipped it as he took a heavy cast iron skillet from a hook on the wall and placed it on the range top. He set the coffee down and dropped a tablespoon full of soft butter into the warming skillet and broke two eggs into it, lightly salted them and sipped his coffee until they began to whiten around the edge.”
At this point in the story, the focus shifts back to the beginning of Sam’s experience. It is May when he leaves New York with “a penknife, a ball of chord, an ax, and $40” as well as a flint and steel for making fires. He has told his father that he plans to find his great-grandfather’s farm in the Catskill Mountains and live there. His father says that every boy should try some such adventure at least once in his life. He wishes Sam good luck but clearly expects him to be home
She thought that her new look and attitude made everyone like her better. Suddenly Will strutted up to her and pushed her down. “Do you feel guilty for locking me in the closet and stopping me from seeing the sun?” Margot questioned him; almost like a therapist. “Huh?” Will replied with a twisted face. “Usually when people hurt others, they do it out of either resent or guilt, and I don’t see why you would resent me since you were the one locking ME in the closet.” Margot snapped back. All of this anger filled Margot up like a steaming tea-pot about to boil. She took a deep breath and gave Will a moment to reply. She didn’t want to do something she’d regret later. Will started to tremble. He looked as if he had seen a ghost. “Uh uh uh uh… I’m sorry Margot, I’m sorry that I locked you in the closet and then forgot. I feel so bad that I was the one keeping you from seeing the sun, and I'm sorry that I took my guilt and lashed out at you by throwing a book instead of telling you how I really feel. Please, accept my
He gave up the money that could have gone toward paying off his mortgage and his family’s car to finish the orphanage, despite the problems that it caused his family. With this, Sam’s faith crisis, along with that of his family, continued. Against all odds, though, they made it through. Sam and Lynn are still together in the same house and remain dedicated to these children in need. It goes to show that, despite the bumps in the road, the faith Sam possessed throughout his spiritual journey, which continues to this day, paid
The cold harsh winds of the winter whistled through the ranch. Nothing moved, the grounds lay bare the only sign of life was an illuminated window on the far side of the silent ranch. The light came from a small wooden shack; the shack appeared newer than the rest of the weather worn buildings, it also looked better cared for than the other buildings. Next to the shack was a small garden and in it were gravestones. Two were lined side by side, but another sat lonely in the corner of the garden. The lonely gravestone was simple it was made from wood unlike the other two that had been carefully crafted out of stone. Then a creak echoed around the garden and the shack, it was no louder than a whisper but in a place where nothing made a single
So they got on a dirt road that she thought would lead to her old house. This road was in very bad condition. You could tell nobody used it because of the holes and bumps and washouts. The grandmother had remembered that they were in
Perhaps she had already passed out by the time he stood up, or perhaps she came in after he left, through a second doorway, from the living room. He said that he went down the corridor and tried to reach the children’s bedroom. In the hallway, he said, “you couldn’t see nothing but black.” The air smelled the way it had when their microwave had blown up, three weeks earlier—like “wire and stuff like that.” He could hear sockets and light switches popping, and he crouched down, almost crawling. When he made it to the children’s bedroom, he said, he stood and his hair caught on fire. “Oh God, I never felt anything that hot before,” he said of the heat radiating out of the room.
We walked nine ankle breaking moves to our “owner’s” plantation, Jack and Daisy Roger’s homestead is a 15 acre piece of land. When Jamie and I arrived all we wanted to do is get a good night's rest. But according to Jack I am to learn what my job is around the farm. Picking cotton, retrieving water for cows, and getting the chicken’s eggs every morning at daybreak. When my sister came back to the small hut we talked about what our job is now. We were both on empty in our energy but in the first five minutes we were both in a deep sleep.
As Jacky lay down on her bed you can hear a bunch of springs beneath her squeaking she move her body left then right and repeats until she is comfortable still angry at Maggie for not giving the response she was hoping for.
Imagine being years from becoming an adult, and practically living on your own without any support or recognition. This is the life of sixteen-year-old Maggie Lynch. Maggie’s immature mother is making the daring transition to move from Chicago to Ireland to help her new husband continue the family construction business. While this change was happening, Maggie had to be more of a mother to Ronnie than a sister. Maggie’s stepfather, Colm Byrne, is uneducated in childcare, which just adds to her already snowballing life. While in Ireland, Maggie befriends an elderly man that goes by the name of Dan-Sean O Callaghan. Since Maggie has no new friends her age, this 99-year-old man acts more as a grandfather than a friend. Although Dan-Sean was there
I brought my plate outside, the patterned china seemingly wet in the sun. I took a bite of my sandwich. The cool veggies managed to dull the heat. The cucumbers crunched in the bread as i took another bite, my mind wondering as I set. I could recall all of the gathering held in this yard, both joyful and somber. Gatherings of celebration and mourning. Each year we would sit In the yard, mixed chatter filling the small clearing. Everyone flocked to the small, one story home. Grandmothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, all alike. Each gathering, the numbers seemed to grow. We would all sit, listening, gathering, and sharing stories of one another. Though it is always nice be reunited family and friends, the empty yard is an entirely separate place. As I finished my sandwich, I looked around, almost an hour had passed. I begun to clean up the spot I was occupying, stacking my dishes and