The Never-ending Repetition of Love

The Never-ending Repetition of Love Chapter Six

After about ten minutes in walked my father, Charles, and older brother, Aaron. They were both sweaty and it wasn’t hard to tell that they had both been working hard.

“What’s for lunch today Margret, I am starving!” said Aaron as he took a seat beside Jacob.

“Nothing for either of you until you go and wash yourselves off. I won’t have anybody with hands like that eating at my table,” she said giving a pointed stare at both Aaron and my dad.

I stifled a laugh as the two of them walked back outside to wash their hands. Twenty minutes later and we were all seated around the table enjoying our lunch. Mary giggled at the funny faces Aaron made while my father gave Jacob a hard time about spending too much time down at the creek and not enough time doing his chores.

“So what did you all do today?” my father asked.

“Emmy, Jacob, and me played hide and seek in the barn!” Mary said happily.

“Did you now?” my dad asked giving me a light smile.

“Yeah, and Mary gave us away every time,” Jacob muttered under his breath.

“I did not!” Mary defended.

“Yes you did!” Jacob said.

“I think your sister is just a very good finder,” dad said.

“Yeah, she used to find me every time when we used to play too,” Aaron said.

“Well maybe one day I’ll be as good as she is!” Mary said.

“Maybe,” I said while giving her a smile.

Everything was great. The moment was so perfect, my family and I all together, laughing and enjoying being with each other. Moments like these were rare these days. So much was going on and not only within the house. Since my mother had died from small pox last year things hadn’t been the same. My father didn’t act the same, and none of us blamed him. We all missed her, but she was the love of my dad’s life, his best friend. We had all done our part to help fill her shoes when she left, and most of the responsibility rested with me. Aaron was the oldest but I was the oldest daughter. I was expected to take on her duties and to help take the load off of my dad. I didn’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning so much, that was Margret’s job. But Mary was only five and Jacob was seven. It was my job to take care of them and to keep them out of my father’s hair while he and Aaron took care of the family farm. It was hard. Mary alone proved to be a constant challenge, I really had no idea how my mother ever dealt with all of us at the same time.

But more than the fact that my home was undergoing an unwanted change, there were much larger problems that affected not only my home and the entire state of South Carolina that I lived in, but the entire country as well. You see, it was not long before my mother fell ill that this country declared itself independent from Great Britain and King George. Things had been hard for everyone. The price of everything had gone up and just having our family farm was barely enough to make ends meet. Not to mention that our state’s militia was on the very brink of losing the entire state to the Red coats. My father was well known for giving away half of everything we harvested to help keep the soldiers in Charleston fed and taken care of. We lived only a couple of miles outside of Charleston, and the past few days we had been hearing gun and cannon fire. We tried our best to ignore it, and being together at the dinner table proved to be a great distraction, but it couldn’t drown out the dreadful noises that had been plaguing us lately.

At that moment we heard the loud booms of cannon fire. All talking and laughter ceased as we stared at each other in silence. I felt Mary tense beside me and I couldn’t help but put an arm around her protectively. After listening for a few moments Aaron finally spoke.