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After the Storm / By Anna Egli Maynard God said: "When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living beings on earth." Genesis 9:16 (TEV) It was a hot August day and farmers were in the midst of harvest. Ma, my younger brother and sister and I had spent the day with the neighbor - the farmer's wife who had been recruited to finish the term in our one-room school after our teacher was drafted for military service. The farm where she lived was less than a mile from the south forty acres where our family threshing crew was working. Seldom did Ma leave work at home to visit during the week - so this day away from home had been exciting for us. Now we waited. To the southeast, moving over the crest of the hill, we could see the approaching horses and wagon - our ride home. The driver was hardly discernable in the distance but we knew it was John, my older brother, coming across the stubble field with a load of newly threshed wheat. The threshing operation - the threshing machine, the John Deere tractor, the "hay" racks, the teams of working horses, the crew of men and the stack of new straw were out of view over the hill. The late afternoon sun was beginning its westward descent toward the horizon where there was a hint of gathering gray clouds. For us the day had started early. Now as we stood watching our transportation coming, we were ready to go home. The wind was blowing. It always blew. We were used to pushing from our eyes the strings of hair that whipped across our faces. As the horse-drawn wagon arrived we could smell the newly harvested grain. John signaled for us to get on and we wasted no time to climb up the wood spokes of the iron-rimmed wheels and clamber unto the grain. Ma came up last after exchanging parting words with our hostess. Our feet sank into the wheat as we moved to seat ourselves with legs dangling over the side of the wagon box. John looked over his shoulder to check on passengers and called, "Everybody on?" We heard the slap of leather on leather as he gave a sharp fleck of the reins. "Giddap!"--and we were moving. The horses were eager. They always are when homeward bound. We scarcely had time to wave "Good-by" before the jolts of the moving wagon forced us to hang on to secure our perch. We knew we had a long ride ahead of us. It would take an hour or more before we reached the homestead - an hour of jarring, jiggling and bouncing. Frequently, we repositioned ourselves as the jolting settled our seats deeper into shifting wheat. The shortest route took us across the flat, tilled fields of neighboring farms where farm machinery had smoothed a trail. It took us over ungraded county |