Traveling

                The nice pleasant days of Spring had come.  The weather was grand for play outside.  My sisters and I were taking advantage of our opportunities.  One day we were out with our umbrellas, very large “witchy” black umbrellas, playing rainy day.

                We had toured all the cities we had ever heard of and many make believe ones, too, and had shopped for all the things out childish minds could think of.  On our last round things begin to look so strange that I begin to wonder what was wrong.  The sky looked so dark and strange.  Then, a keen crack of thunder sounded.  A puff of swirling dust came between us and the house.  This frightened us because we were only playing rainy day and did not care about it being a reality.  We started for the house just as fast as our legs could carry us.  Just as I started to open the gate things came to their worst.  We were caught in a whirlwind.  My umbrella!  Oh, something had happened to it.  It was no longer spread big and round, and it seemingly had turned to a handle and I was being bounced up and down on the ground.

                Mother had read the Bible story of Elijah being carried to heaven in a whirlwind and I thought, “Is this it.”  I had always thought of going to heaven, but I was not ready to join, Elijah just, yet.  I begin to scream with all my might still bouncing up and down on the ground with my umbrella clutched tightly in my hand.  Mother came to my rescue and found that things were not quite so bad as they seemed.  She turned the umbrella down as it should be and closed it and I was content for the rest of the rainy days to come while I was inside.

By Lula Gregory Flynn