Thursday, June 09, 2016

Testing: Day 4

Word Count: 24,012

Summary of Events:
Ivy sat in a grief-stricken haze while visitors came and offered their sympathies and then started to get mad at God for killing Thomas. Gabriel received another letter from his former teacher and had to write a lengthy response because she still wasn't getting things right. After church Ivy sat in her room and continued to think about how God was terribly mean, having taken Thomas from her. Gabriel went out to feed his horses and discovered that a grave was being dug at the cemetery next door, by one man, so he decided to go help. Ivy wrote a letter to her parents about what'd happened to keep from thinking about Thomas' upcoming funeral.

Excerpt of the Day:
"He and Mr. Jaffray worked in silence for awhile. Gabriel felt with the two of them working at it things were already going faster, although even still he wasn't sure that they would be able to finish digging the grave by nightfall.
"Do you mind my asking who died?" Gabriel asked. "I haven't heard anything."
"Good young kid," Mr. Jaffray replied. "I think he was going to be twenty five this year if I'm not mistaken. My youngest boy and him were good friends."
Gabriel nodded. It sounded terribly unfortunate.
"Thomas Bramwell was the name," Mr. Jaffray said. "Was helpin' his folks rebuild their barn, it'd collapsed because of the snow we got this year — that was some snow it was; were you 'round these parts this winter?"
"I was," Gabriel replied.
"That was some snow," Mr. Jaffray said. "Anyways, from the sounds of things he fell off the barn and landed on his head. Sure way to kill anybody."
Gabriel nodded.
"Worst part is, though, he wasn't livin' 'round here," Mr. Jaffray said. "He was livin' down in Ketchum workin' . . . as a shepherd? I think it was a shepherd."
Gabriel nodded again. He noticed Mr. Jaffray had slacked off of his digging, but Gabriel didn't blame him for that, he'd been working at it longer, and he was rather old.
"Terrible tragedy," Mr. Jaffray said. "Saw the family on Sunday. Frank and Frances were all shook up, but they weren't nothin' compared to Dave. Lord, Dave looked half like he was dead. I think he must've seen Tom fall, either that or he saw Tom first. He looked terrible. Course now Dave's short a brother, and even though he an' Tom had a good five years between 'em, they were close as ever. When I read that verse about the friend who sticks closer than a brother, I think of 'em, helps put a picture in your head. God's closer even than that. Now that's somethin'."
Gabriel nodded. He and Erik were five years apart, and he was twelve years older than Paul, then on the other end he was fourteen years younger than Bjorn. Even though he and Erik had the same age difference as the Bramwell boys, Gabriel was more than certain they hadn't had the same sort of relationship.
"Ethel looked purt hit real hard too," Mr. Jaffray went on. "Course she was always more inclined to play with the boys. I think she halfways felt like Tom was her own boy. She got tore up quite when he went of to Ketchum, always fussin' about him. Even more'n his own mother did! All them Bramwells was close, though, so't's not really surprisin'."

There will be no post on June 10, the next post will be June 11.

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