ESCAPE FROM THE MOUNTAIN (2)

   The morning was bright and clear from the night before. Edie woke up startled. She didn't want to fall asleep. She tried to stay awake so she and Susan could leave by dawn. She shook Susan to wake her. "Come on, Susan. Wake up. We need to go."Susan hated to get out of a warm bed. The bedroom didn't have any heat.
    Susan walked through the living room and pulled back the blanket that was hanging in the doorway to the kitchen. "This feels good," she said to Katherine who was sitting at the table peeling potatoes. Susan went to the pump house with a kettle to get some water to boil on the wood stove. Someone left the handle up. Oh no, Susan thought. I have to go out and get some water from the rain barrow and prime the pump. Good thing it rained last night. When Susan opened the door to the pump house, a rat ran in front of her. That wasn't new to her. It was the spiders and their webs that she hated.

ESCAPE FROM THE MOUNTAINS

    It was a rainy day and the kids stayed home from school. They had colds and too far to walk to school down that muddy road. The kids were playing in the attic when Edie called out to Susan to come down. Edie had a plan. She had a knitting bag with Susan's and her clothes in it. She told Susan to take the bag outside, go up the road and find a place under some tree limbs or something and hide the bag and do it fast before anyone knows you're gone. "Lock the kids in the attic and when you get back tell them you were playing a game." Susan asked, "Why were we doing this?" We are leaving tonight. Your uncle is acting wild again and I don't want to be here. Susan took the bag and walked up the road until she found a spot to hide the bag. It really started to rain now and she ran as fast as she could. The kids were screaming when she got back. She told them about playing a game. They didn't even notice that she was soaking and wet, they were so mad at her. She returned to her mother to tell her what she did. She was so proud of herself for finding a safe place.
    Edie woke Susan up. It was black as pitch other than the lightning. "We're going to go now so be quiet not to wake any one." Susan started to cry. "Mommy, I don't want to go out in this, I'm afraid." Susan crying must have brought Edie to her senses because she was so afraid and made up her mind to leave that night, a storm would not stop her even if they had to walk five miles on a muddy road. Edie held Susan and rocked her back and forth. What was I thinking? Walking in a stormy night. "We leave in the morning." I hope we can do this without anyone seeing us. Hope the men stay in the fields. 

THE MOVE TO THE MOUNTAINS (6)

    Being around some people, Edie was getting some ideas about what she was going to do about getting away from the farm. Her brother, Bill would never let her go on her own because how would she take care of herself and there was Susan. No, it was best she stay on the farm so she could be watched after, he thought. Bill didn't know his sister. She wasn't the mouse like she was as a child.

THE MOVE TO THE MOUNTAIN (5)

    Months went by and Edie was ready for artificial limbs. She had to go to Philadelphia. Because of the distance she would have to stay there until the limbs were made. This would take some time with fitting and making so she stayed at the rehab. She didn't like being away from Susan for a month but she was learning a little bit about walking. With her stump being so short, she being little and the limbs being heavy, it would take a long time for her to walk upright and not stiff but she has the will to walk. The lamb wool stump socks that she had to wear were very hot. She doused herself with powder to absorb the perspiration and the heavy belt around her waist with the steel hinges on the hips made Edie very uncomfortable. Limbs were made more or less for men. Even the shape of the legs were more manly. As years went by, Edie had three different kinds of limbs. The first were made of steel and painted flesh color. The second ones were made with a steel bar down the middle with foam rubber shaped around the bar or pole to look like and feel like a limb. These were much lighter and did not need such a large belt around the waist. The third artificial limbs came out after the Korean War. So many soldiers came home missing limbs. The limbs were made of pine. Pine is a light wood. The top half of the leg was hollow  with a hole on the side. The amputee would put the stump sock on, slide the stump into the top of the leg, pull the sock out through the hole and put a cap on the hole. This would form a suction around the stump and inside hollow of the artificial leg or arm. With more women being in the services, the legs were made more shapely, too. Edie liked these limbs, but she still had to wear a belt.

THE MOVE TO THE MOUNTAINS (4)

   There was a lot of noise. The mules were running toward the house. Two of them. They were big, wild animals. Edie was sitting on the ground. Where was her brother? Her mother went to get water for the plants. Just Susan was there. These mules were running toward her mom. She screamed. She tried to move out of their way. Her brother came up laughing and whipping the mules to get them back to the barn. Oh, how he laughed. He thought it was so funny to scare his sister. He told her he wouldn't let the mules hurt her, he was just kidding her. He always was a tease. But this was too much. He had gotten crazy. He said that he was going to chain his wife up in the woods one day  and chased her around with a large chain in the yard with her and the kids crying. 
    This was it. Edie thought, my brother has lost it. I can't take the chance of him hurting Susan or doing something like that again. We have to get away from here, but how? I can't even get out of this house because of the steps. Then the dirt road and Bill will never let us leave. I've got to find a way.

THE MOVE TO THE MOUNTAINS (3)

    After Edie got dressed with the help of her mother, she wanted to take a tour around the house. The living room was huge with a stone fireplace, kitchen was a country kitchen with wood stove and long table in the middle of the room with an oil cloth spread on it and an oil lamp in the center. Boxes of stuff all over the place to be unpacked. Edie was no longer interested and wanted to go back to her room where she stayed. She even ate her meals in her room. There was nothing she wanted to see outside her room. Susan finally talked her after a couple of weeks to come outside and grow some flowers under the bedroom window planters. 
   Grandma put soil in the planters and Susan got the small seedlings that she and grandma planted weeks ago. Edie and Susan planted the seedlings and waited for Edie's brother to hang the planters.

THE MOVE TO THE MOUNTAINS (2)

    "And we will have electricity in about three weeks."
    "Three weeks," Edie yelled out. "What are we going to do until then?"
    "Oh, stop your complaining. What do you want for breakfast? I have a nice wood stove and coffee is hot. Want a cup?"
    "Have you heard anything from Jim?"
    "No, just about him. He is running around with some older woman. She has money, I guess. He drives her car. The bastard." Edie was surprised to hear her mother say bastard but she hated Edie's ex-husband. She didn't want her to marry him. Said he was too wild and five years older than her and being in the Army. She was just a kid. They got married when Edie was seventeen. She got pregnant two months later. She went crying to grandmother. "I'm too young to have a baby." The grandmother had a cure for everything. You see, she was the mid-wife and if you had any sickness, you went to Grandma Wood and she would boil you up some herbs and make a tea and you would be just fine. Edie's grandma told her to douche with mustard and water and the "mistake" would flush away. Well, the "mistake" was born in July and was named Susan. One remedy that didn't work.