Summary: Adam’s curious … Inger’s busy … so questions are asked, but will the answers satisfy an inquisitive little boy.

Rating:  G (1,070 words)

 

A Brief Family Moment

She sat with her head bent and her eyes upon her work. In her lap was a small night shirt and the needle gleamed as it was thrust into the seam. In and out it gleamed as bright as a star.

 

Adam Cartwright was sprawled on the grass, flat on his stomach resting his chin in the chalice of his hands. He stared intently at the little shirt and screwed up his eyes to watch the needle as it plied its way through the seam.

 

“Is that my night shirt, Ma?”

 

“No, Adam, it is not for you.”

 

Inger glanced up and smiled at the boy and then returned to her sewing with a slight smile on her lips. The sun gleamed down upon her golden head, and shone upon the needle as it whipped in and out of the shirt. Upon her face she smiled her secret serene smile, and the lightest of breezes drifted past her face to lift the soft blond hair about her.

 

“One of the kids here then?”

 

She said nothing but only smiled again, and sighed,

 

“It’s very small.” Adam observed

 

“It’s for a very small person.”

 

“How small?”

 

“Small.”

 

Adam frowned and shook his head before rolling over onto his back and staring up into the sky. He closed his eyes and tried to think of things that he had heard whispered in the wagon between Ben and Inger. Eversince that day when the wagon had sent Inger tumbling down the hillside and they had to stop over for a while, there had been these whispered conversations. People had stopped talking when he had approached and women had smiled at him as though they knew a big secret that one day would be revealed to him as a big surprise. They would ruffle his hair and use sweet endearments or tweak his cheek.

 

Adam sighed to himself. Grown ups were always making promises or saying things that they never meant nor could ever keep. Like this wonderful place Pa kept talking about, this Garden of Eden, he said had been promised to his Ma, to Elizabeth. That was such an old promise and still they kept trudging on trying to find it.

 

He had discussed it seriously with Mr Thompson who was a very intelligent man and knew everything because of all the books and pictures he had in his wagon,

 

“Where is the Garden of Eden?” Adam had asked him one hot day when everyone was practically keeling over for lack of shade and water.

 

“It’s not here,” Mr Thompson had replied, mopping his brow and wishing the boy was somewhere else.

 

“I know that, because there’s trees in the Garden of Eden,” Adam had replied, staring up into the old man’s face.

 

“It’s in Mesopatamia,” Thompson then replied with his brow creased into corrugated furrows.

 

“Is that very far away?”

 

“Miles and miles,” Thompson ran his tongue over his teeth and tried to create saliva in a mouth that was as dry as a desert.

 

“How many miles? How many days before we get there?”

 

“You would have to travel to a port, catch a ship and sail for weeks. It’s on the other side of the world.”

 

Mr Thompson disappeared into his wagon and brought out a globe which he spun in a very grandiose manner. By now he had a group of children watching him avidly. He decided he could not let them down in the entertainment stakes so talked for quite a while about distance, ships, oceans and then pointed to where the Garden of Eden was supposed to be, marked by a small +

 

“It’s not very big.” Adam had declared, staring at the small + until he was very nearly x-eyed.

 

“It’s bigger than you think. You just have to get there to find out for yourself.” Mr Thompson had replied somewhat tetchily.

 

Adam Cartwright had stepped back and returned to the wagon. He had found it hard to sleep that night as he had been worried about how his Pa would take the news that they were still a long, long way off this so called Paradise he was so longing to reach.

 

He now rolled back over onto his stomach and watched as Inger stuck the needle into a velvet pad full of pins and needles before holding the little garment up with a smile of pride.

 

“Adam – this is for your brother or sister.” she declared proudly.

 

“Don’t you know which?” Adam surveyed her thoughtfully.

 

“Not yet.”

 

“When will it arrive?”

 

“When he or she decides it’s time to arrive.”

 

Adam narrowed his eyes and considered a moment before frowning slightly

 

“When is he or she coming then?” he persisted.

 

“Not for a long time yet.” Inger folded the little garment away and put it with a small pile of similar sized clothes.

 

“Where is he or she at the moment then?”

 

Inger look at him and her face lit up with that radiance that only a woman in her condition for the first time could display. She put her hand on her skirt, over her stomach,

 

“In here …” she murmured

 

Adam looked thoughtfully at Inger’s skirts, then at her face and narrowed his eyes. He sighed, got to his feet and shook his head. She would have to do better than that to convince him. He pulled up a switch of grass and began to swish it from side to side, decapitating some wild flower heads along the way.

 

Inger watched him go and smiled, shading her eyes with her hand. She smiled up at her husband when he came to stand by her side and she told him that Adam didn’t seem too convinced about their coming baby. Ben watched his son proudly, and then bowed his head to drop a kiss on his wife’s cheek,

 

“What was that for?” she smiled up at him, touched her cheek with her hand and her blue eyes sparkled with love for him,

 

“Just for you, for being you.” he replied and drew her closer to his side, holding her tight against him with his arm as together they watched the little boy running now to join his friends in play and all thought of a coming brother or sister gone from his mind.

 

The End

 

Tags: Adam Cartwright, Inger Borgstrom Cartwright