Pearl's Eye: War's Haunting
You could see several states from the top of the bluff. Grand Dad Bluff allows one to see the Black River and the mighty Mississippi coming together in the distance. The grid of streets that was La Crosse is nestled between those rivers. You may be able to see the trolley cars if you have sharp eyes.
As you bring your sight closer to the bluff itself, the grid of streets fades into prairie until you see the foot of the old Grand Dad itself. A few houses have dared to sprout up on the prairie, which is a sign of the future of the town.
To the left, there’s even an airfield for the biplanes that have earned their place in the modern world by their contribution to the Great War and their use by the United States Postal Service.
As the sun sets, our view floats down as if we were in one of those wonderful flying machines across the town toward the evening colors to the western end of Jackson Street. The sun disappears as we drift down to Fourth Street and quiet of evening.
Pearl herself is very likely at this moment playing her grandfather’s Victrola or helping her grandmother clean up after supper, but the neighborhood has several family members nearby. Her uncles haven’t moved very far away since coming home from the Great War twelve years ago.
Bill Hatke sat in his yard on Fourth Street after supper that evening, with a couple of bottles of his home-brewed beer. Prohibition, what a nuisance. When a fellow came home from the war everyone was buying plenty of drinks for you. Now you have to make it yourself and in secret to stay out of jail.
He leaned back and closed his eyes in the dimness of the streetlight, letting the crickets sing their song to him. In his mind, he found himself back in France during the war, hearing the same cricket sounds as he stood guard...
Camp was barely within earshot, and a breeze was picking up that Bill could start to feel through his khaki uniform. "I must be soaked through with sweat," he thought, "but the breeze sure feels good."
The young soldier only half consciously noticed the crickets gradually falling silent.
He was staring out into the darkness, when he began to be sure he heard rustling noises somewhere ahead. Bill padded as quietly as his boots would let him toward the rustling with his bayonet fixed onto his rifle.
Someone was out there! He could just make out a figure crawling toward camp. With his bayonet ready, he was determined to impale his intense fear as well as any enemy soldier.
Now, he was close enough. He knew he must put everything he had into killing a man at close quarters. He had to leap into such an act despite all fear or hesitation as if diving from a swimming pool's high dive for the first time.
He lunged...
"Bill!" It was his brother Bob. All in a moment he saw that Bob was weak and wounded, just managing to drag himself back from contact with the actual enemy. His brother's hand was already clutching a wound just inches from the tip of the bayonet that could have finished him. Bill's recognition of his brother had stopped him just in time...
Bill jerked his head up. The crickets still chirped in his yard. A policeman, walking his beat, had just passed the house and was disappearing up Jackson Street. France was just a memory; just a story that his sister Elsie had thrilled to when he lived on Johnson Street with his parents.
As you bring your sight closer to the bluff itself, the grid of streets fades into prairie until you see the foot of the old Grand Dad itself. A few houses have dared to sprout up on the prairie, which is a sign of the future of the town.
To the left, there’s even an airfield for the biplanes that have earned their place in the modern world by their contribution to the Great War and their use by the United States Postal Service.
As the sun sets, our view floats down as if we were in one of those wonderful flying machines across the town toward the evening colors to the western end of Jackson Street. The sun disappears as we drift down to Fourth Street and quiet of evening.
Pearl herself is very likely at this moment playing her grandfather’s Victrola or helping her grandmother clean up after supper, but the neighborhood has several family members nearby. Her uncles haven’t moved very far away since coming home from the Great War twelve years ago.
Bill Hatke sat in his yard on Fourth Street after supper that evening, with a couple of bottles of his home-brewed beer. Prohibition, what a nuisance. When a fellow came home from the war everyone was buying plenty of drinks for you. Now you have to make it yourself and in secret to stay out of jail.
He leaned back and closed his eyes in the dimness of the streetlight, letting the crickets sing their song to him. In his mind, he found himself back in France during the war, hearing the same cricket sounds as he stood guard...
Camp was barely within earshot, and a breeze was picking up that Bill could start to feel through his khaki uniform. "I must be soaked through with sweat," he thought, "but the breeze sure feels good."
The young soldier only half consciously noticed the crickets gradually falling silent.
He was staring out into the darkness, when he began to be sure he heard rustling noises somewhere ahead. Bill padded as quietly as his boots would let him toward the rustling with his bayonet fixed onto his rifle.
Someone was out there! He could just make out a figure crawling toward camp. With his bayonet ready, he was determined to impale his intense fear as well as any enemy soldier.
Now, he was close enough. He knew he must put everything he had into killing a man at close quarters. He had to leap into such an act despite all fear or hesitation as if diving from a swimming pool's high dive for the first time.
He lunged...
"Bill!" It was his brother Bob. All in a moment he saw that Bob was weak and wounded, just managing to drag himself back from contact with the actual enemy. His brother's hand was already clutching a wound just inches from the tip of the bayonet that could have finished him. Bill's recognition of his brother had stopped him just in time...
Bill jerked his head up. The crickets still chirped in his yard. A policeman, walking his beat, had just passed the house and was disappearing up Jackson Street. France was just a memory; just a story that his sister Elsie had thrilled to when he lived on Johnson Street with his parents.
posted by praiseage at 6:14 AM
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