Pre 1950

Time to write!

Day 3: Write a story that takes place Pre-1950
Well that leaves us all sorts of options. Prehistoric, Victorian era, pre-Revolutionary or Civil War. All sorts of antiquity we could delve into. Let's do Revolutionary War. Just for the heck of it. Allons-y!

Margaret, Maggie to her father and little brothers and Miss Margaret to her mother and peers, straightened her apron and gazed out the tiny window, which she'd cleaned just earlier that morning. It was hard to keep busy in those days. With Father, young George, and Henry most of all off serving in the Continental Army there was little to occupy her attention. She and her mother received letters at least now and then from her Father and George, but it had been unbearably long since Margaret had heard any word from her childhood sweetheart, Henry. They'd grown up together and at the young ages of seven and eight had decided that they would one day marry one another. Now Margaret very much doubted that Henry was even alive.

These types of thoughts possessed her mind more often than she would like to admit, and they made her frantic. She began pacing, a habit her mother hated and insisted was for Generals, not for young women. A hacking cough interrupted Margaret's dark thoughts.
Moving to the pallet in the corner Margaret stooped down and placed her white but work roughened hand on her youngest brother Joseph's head. He was very warm. The poor boy had been taken by a fever ever since the cold had really set in back in October. Now it was December, almost Christmas in fact, and things looked bleak on all fronts.

"Is there any news of Papa?" Joseph asked feebly, eyes still shut.
"Not yet," Margaret replied, trying not to sound nervous about that. "But he wrote us not even two weeks ago. We must be patient."
Joseph nodded. "What about Henry?" he asked.
Joseph loved Henry as an older brother, almost a second father, and missed him more than anyone else save Margaret and Henry's own widowed mother.
Margaret shook her head, afraid that if she spoke her voice would catch. Joseph of course could not see this gesture through his closed, tired eyes and he waited patiently for a response.
"Not yet, Joesph," Margaret said quietly.
"He's alive," Joseph said, opening his eyes and sitting up somewhat so he could look into Margaret's face. His eyes shone with earnest fervor as he whispered, "I know it, Maggie!"
Margaret smiled thinly, wanting to believe him, and kissed his forehead. "I hope so," she answered. "Now lay down Joseph. You need to get better."
As she stood and walked back to the door she silently added "Because I can't afford to lose you, too."