Chapter 6-Going Home

The Northern California countryside passed quickly from the passenger train window. By late fall the dry ground was scattered with nuts from Walnut and Oak trees. Anne’s eyes tracked the tidy rows of passing farms. Sitting next to James in a passenger car her head nodded sleepily from one side to another. James shifted towards her as if offering his shoulder for her to rest. ----- Occasionally they passed a field of farmworkers turning soil. Their sun scorched skin made Anne wonder why they chose to live that way. There were plenty of other jobs a person of minimal education could hold. Why farm work? It paid nothing, it was never done, and it never changed! It seemed an enslavement. How awful to get to the end of one’s life only to reflect upon a life filled with planting and tending and harvesting! It was a sad thing to see but also a reminder never be complacent in the making of her own destiny. ------ She was raised to follow in her fathers’ footsteps at the Conservatory, marry and have children. But upon finishing her education she stayed in San Francisco to join the Suffragist movement, much to her mother’s shame and her father’s disapproval. Her decision had its consequences; a sizeable decrease to her monthly living stipend. But she was determined. Life was supposed to be an enriching journey and she was willing to live modestly for the sake of it. ----- It would be a long way to Washington, to her father, back home. She sighed at the thought of seeing him. It had been five years. He was sick, which was not unusual. He was asthmatic and had a myriad of allergies. He had been confined to his bed in the past. But James had come all the way from Washington! Perhaps this was different. She had to come. She would give him a chance to apologize, a chance for him to make things right. ------ Her eyes drifted as the train headed out of the valley and into the mountains. Out of the dry windy landscape of the farmworkers and the everyday people and into the woods and their uncultivated landscape. She rested her head on the metal wall to her left, away from James’ shoulder and finally found rest.