Silent Youth

The smell of apple blossoms fills the air as the brisk morning was still crisp and slightly damp from the freshly fallen dew. A tiny child named Jill barely four years old lay innocently and peacefully sleeping in the hay loft of the old dilapidated barn, where she was forced to live and sleep. She was covered by a worn red horse blanket and clutched onto her only toy, a doll named Molly. Jill’s mother had made Molly out of an old sock, with one blue and one red button for the eyes, a stitched red mouth and black yarn for hair. Molly was stuffed to the waist, then tightly tied with a piece of blue yarn leaving the bottom left open so it looked like a dress. Next to Jill, a part wolf, part dog named Sheba, lay watching guard over her as if she was ordered from the heavens above to secretly protect her. Sheba lay trying to be patient while waiting for Jill to wake up and share her day with her. Off in the far distance a dog’s bark carries on the breeze. Sheba raises her head and perks her ears, while attentively listening.

Sheba can no longer wait here watching this sleeping child, so she starts licking Jill’s face softly while anxiously wagging her tail. Jill rustles a bit, giggles and then gently smiles back at her. Jill’s amber brown eyes sparkle and glisten in morning light almost like root-beer candies. Her loose ringlets of medium brown hair falling softly around her young face barely touching the gape of her neck. Jill’s once new white sun dress hangs on her like an old rag. It was two sizes too big, torn, and jaded, now a dingy gray brown color from ground in dirt. Her chubby little feet and toes stained the color of the dirt from not wearing any shoes. Jill reaches over and strokes Sheba’s thick yet soft gray and white fur coat, while nuzzling her head against Sheba’s shoulder blade smiling at her in admiration. At this moment she was on top of the world, very content and happy because this was a good morning.

Small beams of light shine through the warped slats of wood on the east side of the barn. Jill smiles as she watches the dust dance in the warm morning sunlight almost as if dancing to music that only it can hear. Jill stands up and raises her arms like she is trying to touch the sun it’s self. She slowly moves into a few beams of sunlight touching the ground close by. She quickly glances back at Sheba giving her a crooked playful grin, Molly dangling from Jill’s right hand Jill starts swaying and spinning, her dress pirouetting around her as the beams of light on her dress dances. The tiny particles in the air around her sparkling in the sun around her almost like it was made of magical fairy dust. This morning was quaint compared to so many others here on the cattle ranch in Northern California. Yet this young child danced in the light, smiled, and played like a normal happy child would. Almost as if she had forgotten the horrors that grace her presence and the terror she dealt with on a daily basis.

The farm was miles away from the closest neighbor. Once a month her mother and step father would lock her in the barn because this was the day that they drove almost two hours to get to the closest town. They would get supplies, food, visit friends, buy or sell live stock, and stop at the ice cream shop before the two hour drive home again. Jill would often reminisce on these days about the one time she went to town with them, just after they had moved here. She could still remember not being able to eat her ice cream fast enough, because the sun seemed to melt the cotton candy pink ice cream down her hands, and down the front of her dress faster then she could lick it. Forget trying to keep up, because that just gave her a brain freeze. Jill was a simple child, she never complained no matter how bad things were. She never asked for anything and appreciated even the simplest things in life, like the smell of sweet peas that would drift down the hillside into the barn if the wind blew right.

Out here, her only chance of survival was her beloved guardian Sheba and her skittishly fearful mother Grace. Jill had no recollection of her father because he left when Jill was still a baby. Her new step-father was her sole provider now and she was never to forget that. She can remember how nice he was when she first met him, and how he brought Sheba, a puppy then, to her as a gift. She was so happy to have a new daddy and move out of the stuffy small apartment in town to the wide open country with the animals. Shortly after they moved there, that all changed the day her mother married him. Not long after Jill was moved out to the barn to sleep and was no longer allowed in the farm house. Anytime company would come which was very rare he would shoo her off into the barn with her dog and then lock them in the barn. Threatening her he would hurt her and her mother if she made a noise. Jill never looked at this as a punishment because Jill loved animals and in the barn all the animals were so loving, plus the barn was always full of babies. The horses and their fouls, the cow’s and their calf’s, cat’s and their kitten’s, and even the occasional rat and it’s babies. She liked being in the barn because she found serenity and comfort there.


Sheba started towards the barn door looked back at Jill and gave a half bark to get Jill’s attention. Jill stopped dancing and walked over to tuck Molly back into the hay and covered her up with the horse blanket so her step father would not see her because Jill was forbidden to have any toys. Sheba could hear Jill rustling around in the hay so she let off another half bark hoping to hurry the child up. Jill peeked around the corner from the stall of hay where she slept and smiled. Sheba then pushed the barn door open with her nose. Sheba stood there and waited for Jill as the door cheaked and moaned from the old rusty hinges as it swung the door open. An old white one inch thick piece of rope hung down about twelve inches from the handle on the inside of the barn. The rope swayed back and forth. Sheba used this rope to shut the door each night so that wild creatures outside could not get into the barn.

~To Be Cont.~