To Rise or Be Struck Down - Chapter One

by Grace Morgan      

        It has been many years since I last told the story I’m about to tell.  I live in a convent now, and most of the women aren’t interested in exiting tales of bravery, sacrifice, heartache, and adventure. A few of them, when I first came here, told me that my stories gave them headaches. After a year or two, I gave up. Forty years later, old woman that I am, I still yearn for the days when I’d run through the woods, singing like a little bird. However, let me stop this boring rambling, and begin with the story.

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           When I was fifteen years old, I lived in the town of Dell. My father was dead, I had an older (by three years) brother, and a younger (by ten years) sister, as well as a mother, and we lived together on the brink of the town. My brother worked for a man named Mr. Goodman (he really was a good man. We always joked with each other about how well his name fit him). My brother would do odd jobs here and there.  From being a farmhand, to shingling the Goodman’s house, my brother would do it. Mr. Goodman would have just given us money to provide for us, but my brother wouldn’t allow it. He would work and provide for us. I had a feeling that it had something to do with him feeling like he needed to step up as the man of the family after Father had died.
          I was proud of Jasper, but I also pitied him. He and our father had been so close, and worse, Jasper was fourteen when Father had died. That left Jasper as the one of us three children who remembered Father most, and thus missed him most. I had been but eleven years old, and Greta merely one. Greta had few recollections of Father, which I think was good, as Greta was a sensitive little child. If I accidentally stepped on an ant, she’d cry all day and call me a murderer, telling me that the “por widdle ant never did nofing to you” and “how wud you feel if a big diant thtomped on you fer no rethon?”.
     

          As for myself, well, although I didn’t suffer as much as Mama and Jasper, I still suffered greatly. Every morning when my father would awake before dawn, I’d woken up with him ever since I was five. As he readied for the day, I’d make him some food and put it in his lunch bucket. My lunch for him got better over the years, but even when I was five and made him a sloppy sandwich with too little meat and too much sauce and mushy bread, he’d eat every last bite of it without a word of complaint. When he came home he would pick me up, swing me around, and show me the empty bucket, saying, “When a man works out in the fields all day, it’s so pleasant to come to a lunch bucket full of the most scrum-diddly-umptios food a man could taste. Thank you, Little One Dear.”
          The year I turned eleven, I could sense something strange. The old king had died two years back, and his son, Dale, had become king in his father’s stead. Although my parents never spoke of taxes or money problems in front of us children, I was able to gather bits of information from town. Our king was cruel, evil, selfish and greedy. All that King Dale wanted was money. When he realized that our poor town didn’t have any, he made those of us who couldn’t pay in coins pay in animals, crops, and sometimes even people. Yes, there had been a few families who couldn’t afford to pay anything, so Dale came and took their children to be servants, or more correctly, slaves. It may not seem true, but it very much so was. It was terrible, and even though our parents tried to keep it from us, Jasper and I knew, and were afraid. 
          It was during the second year of Dale’s reign that I was surprised to find my father acting strange. He would leave earlier in the mornings and not come back until dark. He said it was to do extra work, but the way he shifted from one foot to another when he said it didn’t have me convinced.
          A few months later I found out why he’d been so fishy. As my mother and I were out working in the garden, with Jasper and Greta in the house, a man came running up to us. It was a neighbor of ours, a man named Carl Lars.
         Mama stood up when she saw him, and exclaimed, “Why Mr. Lars! Whatever are you running all the way over here for? You could have just sent Lil-”
         Mr. Lars cut her off. “I’m sorry Ma’am, I - I had to give this to you in, err, in person ma’am.” As he said this, he handed my mother a piece of paper. It smelled of hay, tobacco, horses, and dirt. In that moment I realized what I was smelling was my father’s smell.
         “Mama!” I whispered. I couldn’t bring my voice any higher. “Mama, what’s it say?”
         Mama carefully unfolded the paper with trembling fingers. Aloud, she read:
      


Lisbeth, Jasper, Scarlett, and Greta;

I’m sorry I never told you. Please forgive me. I know it’s too late now, but I love every one of you more than my own life. That’s why I did it - to give us a chance at a better life. Lisbeth, there is a “Steven and Sons Tobacco” can on the top shelf above the table. In it is five dollars. I am ashamed that is all I have to leave you.
Forgive me, Dear Ones.
I love you forever, but the fact is that in this world you must rise up, or be struck down.

          Mama paused after she’d read it. Then, in a moment she began to weep. She would have fallen to the ground had Mr. Lars not caught her.
         “Miss Lisbeth, I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. All the other men involved also wrote notes to their loved ones, and I had to deliver all of them.”
          Mama looked up at him with a perplexed look on her face. “I - I don’t understand,” she said, “what exactly did happen?  Who are the other men?  Involved in what?”
        Mr. Lars had told her to come into the house first. She was clearly weak from the shock, so he set her on Greta’s and my cot in the corner of the room. He told me to boil some water and make Mama a steaming cup of tea. As I boiled the water, I listened to Mr. Lars’ story.
         “About a year after Dale became king,” he began, “most of us men became restless from the taxes. We held a secret meeting over in the Crawley’s barn. Your husband came as well.” Here Mama made a noise that sounded like a gasp and sob combined. Jasper put his arm around her. His face was darker than a stormy night sky, and although he was frowning, I could see sadness, distraught, and a boy who needed comfort himself. I’m fairly sure I was the only one who noticed.
          Mr. Lars continued, “We decided that a revolt, or rather a rebellion was in order. From that day on, we met nearly every day. The only reason we never told our wives and children was because we wanted to protect you. If, for some reason, we were found out and our families were questioned, we didn’t want you to know any information. Not only would this stupidity on the matter protect you, it would also protect the rebellion from further exploitation.
          “So we spied and we schemed. Our plan was to get into the king’s palace in April, the month we all go to the capital to trade. Then we were going to assassinate the king. Yes, even your husband was going to come, ma’am.”
          Mama looked tired. She sighed, and said, “So what of the note? You are leaving something very important out Mr. Lars. I can tell. Now, if you really respect my husband the way you say you do, tell me.”
          Mr. Lars sighed. He looked tired as well, and as he rubbed his forehead, he told us. “Someone betrayed us. We don’t know who, but somehow Dale found out. He sent soldiers to arrest us and throw us in prison. That’s why the majority of us men were gone for a few days. We were not in Derfeshire trading goods, as most of the womenfolk suspected. No, we had gone there to rally some more men to join us. That is where we were captured.  All of us were thrown into the same cell; a bad call on Dale’s part because then we were able to talk together.
          “There was a single window in our prison. It was very small. As we were putting our heads together, thinking of someway to get out, or at least get word to our families of where we were, your husband broke away from the group. He sat on a cot, banging his head against the wall. We needed a plan, and it was your husband who came up with one.
          “He knew that all of us were going to be killed soon. Whether it was that day, or a few weeks, he didn’t know. The only way he knew that was because he sat next to our window every minute that he could. Some passerby had taken pity on him, and told him all that they knew; we’d be killed soon. Nothing good came out of that find. It only dampened our spirits; however, one good thing did come from your husband’s attachment to that window - he found a way to open it.”
        All of our faces brightened. Hurrah for Father! Of course there was a way to open it! Only Father could’ve found it, I knew that.
          Mr. Lars continued. “That night, when only a few guards were on duty, he told us in whispers what he’d found. We were ecstatic. First Darrel Bunting tried to get out; he was too fat. The window was tiny, we realized, and not many would be able to fit through. That’s where we were wrong. Only one was scrawny enough to get through that blasted window - me. They told me to get out while I could, but was I such a coward to go and leave my friends behind me to die? Absolutely never. The men pleaded with me, telling me that at least my family aught to still have a father. I told them no.
          “Once again, it was your father and husband who convinced me. He told me that each of us men had left, without telling our families anything. How distraught would they be, if we never came back from our “trading trip”? They would be terrified. He told me that because I was the only who could fit through that window, being ever so scrawny, that I was to bring a note from each of the men to their families. He didn’t ask me; he told me. If I didn’t listen, I feared he would pummel me or something. I told them that I’d feel like a traitor, leaving them to die while I get off scotch free. Your husband told me that all I had to do was deliver the messages, not attempt any rescue missions, and then I could rejoin them. That is, only if I did as he’d said. All the men seemed so eager. They were so pleased that there was one last way for them to communicate with their families. I had to do it.
          “So, I have delivered each of the notes the men wrote for their families, and delivered them one by one. This was the last one. I’m so sorry Ma’am. I know that it will be hard from here on out, but because Gregory Hund was the wealthiest man, he told his wife in his note to be sure to help the other fatherless families whenever they need it. Please speak to Mrs. Hund if you need anything. She’ll help you, and meanwhile, I’m going to turn myself in to King Dale. I couldn’t live while knowing that my friends - my brothers - were killed two days ago, without me.”

          Mr. Lars had finished his narrative, but all of us were speechless. Father was dead. He would never come home again. Believe me when I say that it would take us years to recover from my father’s death, and years before I would finally realize, Father is never coming home again.
          Although we didn’t have his body, we held a funeral for him, and made a grave on top of the hill that our home stood beneath. I brought flowers there every day, for four years strait.  Mr. Lars attended the “funeral” that we held for Father, but he turned himself into the government three days later. They hung him that day.