Tonight I will wish on the last moon of the summer. Already, I have seen dry leaves scattered about the rabbit patch.  The corn is turning  light brown in the fields and the nests built in the spring are no longer tended, but instead are silent trinkets of the spring.

Today was one of the last days of the summer holiday. I spent the afternoon at my parents.  My sister, Delores was down from Raleigh.  We did not sit in the shade together on this day.  It was just too hot.  Maybe the only thing  that I will not miss about summer is the hateful heat that is conjured up.  We managed to have a good visit right there in the den, anyway.

I left just in time to fix supper .  Already the ageratum is starting to bloom, I noticed. The rabbit patch is full of the sky blue, little flowers. Like violets in the spring, you are liable to find ageratum anywhere on the rabbit patch. When paired with the bright yellow rudbekia, you have a striking picture of late summer. I am fond of flowers that aren’t so organized in appearance-blossoms that happen along the picket fence or at the edge of the woods, lend such grace to  territory.

 Cash and Christopher Robin know something is up.  They have watched me going through the farmhouse, cleaning and yet, no company in sight!  They have watched me gather things in  piles and load the car up.  Cash wants to get in the car everytime.  He does go to school with me a lot throughout the year.  Our school is very pet friendly.  Christopher Robin is nervous about the whole affair. He was content with the way things were and that makes good sense as he spent most of the summer sleeping in front of the window fan in a house without clocks.

I remember starting school when I was young.  The first year was very hard on me.  Right off the bat, I was put in a “low” class.  I hadn’t any “formal” training -no preschool, no kindergarten so I was bound to be “slow”.  How could they know about the World Books in Pop and Grandmas’ book case?  They were unaware that I could count eggs and money.  They didn’t know that on Fridays I was very instrumental in every farm hand getting their fair share of wages as I helped out and learned how to write in the accounts book, even-all before school.  I knew every nursery rhyme by heart and I knew what a cup of sugar was.

 The teacher was sweet in the “low” class even when I took to “yelling out” answers.  I remember that well.  I knew about “raising your hand” and I was quick when she asked what letters were or she needed the answer to the simplest math equations.  It seemed a big waste of time to me listening to the kids stumbling and guessing-so sometimes when it was unbearable-I yelled out the answer. I had to sit in the “lonesome chair” on several occasions .  I felt like school was so different from  real life and I missed the farm.  I would look out the window while the class was trying to figure out what a “B was and how it related to ball” and would wonder if Pop was plowing. You couldn’t smell dirt in town. I wondered what grandma was cooking for dinner and how she was doing it without me.  The food at school smelled peculiar and I hated when they had spanish rice.  Once a girl threw up after eating it and I felt that proved my theory that we were eating “scraps”. . but they kept right on serving it.  I did love the library.  The librarian was a friend of grandmas’ and she was grouchy.  She didn’t want to hear about the books you read.  She acted like every book was hers’ and you were LUCKY she let you borrow one.  If a book came back damaged, I felt sure she would call the police.  I told grandma that her friend was hateful and she laughed.  In a few short weeks, I got moved to the “high” class.  The teacher asked me if I wanted to go to the library on an extra trip and I was thrilled.  When it was over, I was told I wouldn’t be going back to “my class” but would stay with this new class.  It was the first time in all of my life that I felt betrayed.  I did love the children and the library-and the “government” said I had to be there, so I made the best of it.

Delores waited for the schoolbus faithfully in the afternoons.  Sometimes, she had a pony saddled with her, ready for me.  I can see her clearly -my beautiful little sister smiling at my return with her “present” for me.  She is still like that today,  She always has a present of some sort when I see her.

When I stand in the shine of the last moon of summer, I remember such things.  The summer has been full of good things for me-it always has been.