Short Story Time With Beth #1: The Parade

The Montana Memory Project hosted a little writing contest featuring historic Montana photos earlier this year.  The MMP has a robust database of pictures featuring all different aspects of our state's history.  That was really where the fun started.  I spent a couple hours exploring the collections looking for just the right photo to inspire me.  

In the end I submitted two very different stories to the contest.  My friend Chantz described this one as a sort of Mark Twain style story.  The other as having a dystopian feel.  I'll post that one in the next few days.  I didn't win or anything, but I sure enjoyed the writing prompts and soaking in all those cool old photos.

Overhead view of a parade on Main Street (500 block), Lewistown, Montana from the MMP Central Montana Historical Photos repository.

The Parade

My ears were pounding hot and angry.  My mind was a buzzing hornet’s nest of thoughts.  “It’s not fair!!  Everybody gets what they want, but me!”  I felt so mad I could spit.

Today is Independence Day and the whole town is gussied up to celebrate.  I was gonna go to the parade.  I was gonna salute the soldiers marching on Main Street—left, right, left, right—like they shared just one pair of legs.  I was gonna have some of Aunt Mattie’s famous gooseberry pie and hear the band play.  There was gonna be a potato sack race and I had bet Marvin Stevenson that I would beat him this year.  I was gonna feel all that fun inside me like I had a watermelon seed swelling in my belly.

But, Daddy said no.  He said he was plumb tired of my foolishness, that he was doing this for my own good.  He said I was in big, big trouble for what I did to my sister yesterday.  

Jemma had wailed on and on like a stuck pig and, oh, you shoulda heard Mama holler as I tried to sneak away, “Get back here this minute, Daniel Stone or so help me…”  I came back.  I knew how to read Mama’s threats by now.  

It hadn’t seemed like that big of a deal.  I was just tired of Jemma always being so full of herself, is all.  I wanted to show her up a little, but I didn’t know such a tiny gob of gum could make such a rat’s nest out of Jemma’s prized blonde hair.  How was I to know that it would take hours of mama’s trying and Jemma’s crying to undo?  I apologized on the outside, but on the inside, I say she deserved it. 

Mama stayed in to watch the store and the baby.  Daddy said I had to stay, too, like I was a gall dang baby myself!  He said some crates had been delivered in the alley and needed toted up to the storeroom.  Daddy said to make myself useful for a change.  Then he took Jemma and Samuel out onto the sidewalk where all the action would soon enough roll right past.  After the parade they’d follow along to the park for the speeches and all the rest.  My ears burned again thinking about how Jemma would gloat later, when Mama and Daddy weren’t around.  

Hoping for even a tiny glimpse of the festivities, I lingered near the front window until Mama reminded me there was work to do.  As I peeled myself off the glass a brilliant idea came to me!  I’d still miss out on the pie and the games, but I could watch the parade from the storeroom window!  I’d have a birds-eye view!  I would be like a king on a balcony!

I scurried quick as a mouse out to the alley and was sure disappointed by the mountain of crates there.  I knew I’d catch trouble if Mama checked the alley and caught me loafing so I shot up and down the stairs—skipping every third one I was flying so fast--carrying crates stacked so high I couldn’t see.  When I’d made a good-sized dent in the job I eagerly pressed my face to the storeroom window.

I just about shouted for joy when I looked down on the soldiers and the townspeople, the horses and buggies flying the stars and stripes, even a couple of the new automobiles covered with flowers!  I could see even better than through all the legs and arms down on the sidewalk.  As the parade disappeared towards the little park I resumed lugging the crates while humming Yankee Doodle.

If only I could lord it over Jemma how clever I’d been, I could die happy, but I know she’d tell Mama and then I’d be right back where I started again.