in the loft

Feeling woozy sleepy warmth of barn of hayloft of hiding of smelling the sweet damp wool of the sheep and listening to the gurgling lowing noises of the cows. Summer outside and lots of chores to fill the days, days that begin before dawn and dawn comes awfully early and night falls so late it seems it'll never come. So I got tired of all that. I wanted to not hear Pa talking about corn prices and I wanted Ma to stop talking about the neighbors and I wanted to do something on a lazy summer afternoon that involved maybe some fishing and some napping and not so much of being a hired hand without ever being hired, because its not like they ever offered me a paying job or even an allowance, no sir not in this house. That was why I decided to run away, but I decided to run away maybe without thinking it through all that clearly. On account of not getting an allowance and not being hired help, I didn't have two nickels to rub together. But my plan was to get a job, a real paying job, one with Sundays off and regular hours. I forgot that I'd need money to get a bus out of town and maybe some extra to buy food or get a room in a boarding house. Nothing fancy, just some place without bedbugs. Maybe even bedbugs would be okay if the price was good: that was all before I got to the Greyhound stop and saw how expensive a bus out of town would really cost. More money that I've ever had at once, that's for sure. But I had already run away, I had taken some bread out of the pantry and left Ma a note telling her that I'd write, and here I was not even able to get out of town. I would have hopped a freight train like I've read stories about, but we don't even have a railway within an hour's drive. Maybe I'll just start walking, but for now I'm hiding in the hayloft, back in the barn. I think Ma suspects that I'm here, but she hasn't told Pa about it yet, or he'd be likely to set the barn on fire just to get me out of it. I need to get some money, just a little bit, to start off down the road. That'd make a world of difference. But there aren't any jobs in town, not for me, not when they've all known Pa for years and wouldn't think of crossing him by denying him his due. His due! His rights! What about mine? I'm ready and able and I'd as easily join with Buffalo Bill as with the Rangers or the Navy. It doesn't matter, we don't have any gangs and we don't have any recruiters and I'm just sick of it. Sick of the nothingness of it. It's time to get out. Time to get on with it.