A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

It was burning my eye, the sun was burning me and it just woke me up. It has been sunny these last days, we haven't gotten nothing, but sun. It has been a century since I haven't seen a drop of rain falling from the sky in this town. I just remembered that I had to spend the night outside. My owner died 1 year ago, fighting in the Civil War, and since then his wife couldn't take it no more and is always grumpy. Yesterday I accidentally broke a plate for playing around with Jack, we were playing catch inside the kitchen and as soon as the plate felled, Sarah, Jack's mother was kicking me out the house. She became strict, mean, and selfish that day when she figured out her husband had just died. She became worried and started to see the economy problems without her husband, and unffornutaly his precense is still alive because I feel him and see him.

I saw Bruno up too, "Ready to travel to the West!" he said. Bruno was the family horse, he came from Mexico and had worked with Vaqueros (Cowboys), but after a terrible storm when the barbed wire broke, he ran off, and somehow ended up here. "What you mean traveling to the West?" I asked him. "Well I overheard Sarah saying moving to the West for more apportunities."Bruno told me. I don't know why humans can't hear us, but us animals can communicate with each other without people knowing. I went through the back door and walked into the Kitchen, now I knew what Bruno meant. There were boxes packed everywhere, and I saw Esme getting her kids ready, she was dressing up Alicia, while telling Josh to get the horse ready. "Mommy were are we going?" Jack asked her. Jack was my favorite one, he was the youngest of all, Alicia was the second youngest, and Josh was the oldest. Jack is the one who pays more attention to me than anyone, and thats' why I like him more. "Were getting out of this horrible South and moving to your gradma's in the West" She told Jack. Even thought Jack didn't understand why, he just followed.


"Chan! Your up, guess what? Mom said we had to move to the West! Do you know where that is?" Jack ran up to me yelling and hugging me. I didn't know how to answer him. Mom said getting to the West will take us less time if we go on railroad. I got exited and started to think how the train will look. We got to the train station and the train arrived as soon as we came, we got in and sat down. Bruno had to go on a seperate car on the back of the train. We were all so tire because we had to walk an hour to get to the train station, and know we were here resting for three hours with hunger. I saw that Alicia, Josh, Jack, and Esme had fallen asleep on the train and when I saw them it made me fall asleep too, but I just couldn't it was too hot in here. Finally I felled asleep.

I woke up, not beleiving what I saw with my own eyes. The train had arrived to the West and I was surprised for what was happening here. Was it the same in the South. Everybody was getting off the train and as soon as Jack woke up he started screaming all exited "Look Chan! Look mom! Its RAINING!" We all got off and I started runnig and barking of happiness. At last I felt free. We stayed outside for a while playing in the rain enjoying the West. We finally arrived at the grandma's house and as soon as we walked in She had a pie ready for us.

We just remember it was Josh's and my owner's Birthday, they were both born on the same day and month but different year. All I wished right now is for him to come back and spend this day with us too. As soon as I turn around I saw him once again. I know he was taking care of us and will always do. We were all eating pie, pumpkin pie Josh's favorite, and Esme was giving pie to the horse while I layed my head on her legs. I felt safe here because his precense was here with us. Josh was so hungry that he was the first one getting the first piece, while Jack just stared, and Alicia trying to give food to the horse.Esme was happy here because here women had more rights.