Hope

It had been 50 years since Hope had been home. Her hair was grayer now, and she had a few lines around her eyes, mouth and on her forehead. What had drawn her back home, she was a mystery. All she knew was she needed to come home and to see the old homestead. It wasn't much a homestead really, more like an old broken down shack.

As she walked up the gravel road, Hope wondered if the house would still be standing and if so, would someone still live there. You see, Hope walked everywhere. She didn't much care for modern transportation. Every where Hope went, she carried all her belongings on her back and today was no different.

And there it was, standing tall and lean with broken shudders hanging this way and that way. Some of windows were boarded up, but the front porch was much the same with a rusted rocker and a cushion that was thread barren. It was the chair her grandma would sit in not saying much, but staring out into space. The trees and bushes had grown taller and no one had mowed the lawn for a good long while. The house was in need of paint and the porch needed repairing. The first step had collapsed. The old washer and dryer were still sitting to the right of the house, but it appeared that neither had been in use for a long, long time. Hope wondered if the tire swing was still hanging from the oak tree in back. She approached with caution not knowing if someone was living there, but she couldn't imagine anyone being foolish enough to live in such an old broken down piece of junk. Heck, it was old and in ruins when she was a mere youngin' herself. The memories of her two older brothers and her came flooding back. Oh, the way they would run terror around their ma and pa. It didn't seem to matter to them when they were little that the roof always leaked, or it was freezing cold during the winter. They would sit around the wood stove listening to their pa tell stories about WW I and walking too school in the snow uphill both ways and not having a proper pair of shoes or boots to wear. Of course she learned that most of the stories about school weren't true since her pa had dropped out of school in the third grade. Not having shoes or boots was true though. Why, Hope didn't have a proper pair of shoes or boots most of her life either. In fact, they went barefoot most of their lives especially in the spring and summer. Of course that was the way when one grew up in the Appalachian mountains. Most everyone dressed the same except for one family who were the Riches. Yup, that was their name and they were rich, at least compared to everyone else.

Hope walked to the front porch steps, managed to step over the first step and gently tried the next two steps for fear that they might give way. So far, so good. She opened the screen door which squeaked just as it had always done. Pushed open the front door which also squeaked and sit her backpack down just inside the front door to her right. Hope went a little further into the house and looked in search of signs of anyone who may still live there. It wasn't uncommon for travelers to use abandoned homes or for someone to move right in when a family had moved or died leaving the house to no one.

She decided to called out and see if someone might be upstairs, although it was hard to believe that anyone could be upstairs since the stairs were pretty much in shambles. But she yelled out anyway. "Hello! Anyone home". Her voice echoed off the walls due to no real furniture in the home nor pictures hanging on the walls. No response. There was the kitchen to the right and a parlor to the left. The kitchen still had a table and chairs but much of the surfaces were covered with grime and dust. The wood stove was still sitting in the corner. Those memories of her pa telling the tales of growing up in the same house were her favorite. They would sit there for hours listening, because it was the warmest place in the entire house. No one wanted to go to bed, because going to bed meant cold feet and perhaps being hungry. One day her pa upped and left. They never heard from him again. Her ma had to clean the house of the Riches and took in wash in order to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. After her pa had left, her two older brothers decided to enlist in the army on the account that WW II was raging. And they too never came home and eventually her ma and her had learned that both brothers had died in Iwo Jima. It was just her ma, and her for a long time. Her grandma had died from TB many years earlier.

When her brothers had left, life wasn't the same. No more hunting, and playing pranks on one another. The one thing that kept Hope going was school. She loved school. She was good at math and science, something that most girls weren't very good at and people would discourage girls from going on in school beyond eighth grade and never would they encourage a girl to be good at math and science. But that didn't stop her. Hope was going to be somebody and get out of this old broken down house. She wanted more than anything to help people who were poorer than dirt.

One of Hope's favorite things was going to the library on Saturdays. It was Hope's favorite pass time to sit and read books and newspapers for hours on end. It was at the library where she met the librarian, Mrs. Smith, who would listen to Hope and her tales of being someone. Mrs. Smith was the one who told Hope it was ok for girls to be good at math and science and that she should follow her dreams.

It was in the kitchen that 50 years ago when Hope had found a package with her name on. Inside the package was a little black book. There wasn't a return address, nothing but one statement was written in a child like hand on the inside cover, "Use it well". Besides the writing, there was one curious thing inside the book. Twenty thousand dollars! Hope had nearly fainted. She had never seen so much money at one time. Hope was glad that her ma wasn't home at the time, because her ma would have said to give it to the police, that it wasn't hers and most likely it had been stolen. Nope, her ma would never know about the money. Hope hid the black book and the money under a floor board in her bedroom. The question was, what to do with so much money?

Then it hit her. She wanted to go to college and become a nurse. That was her calling. With good math skills and knowledge of science, she was a shoe in at any college or university that would take her. It turned out that Hope was able to join the Cadet Nurse Corps (CNC). There had been a shortage of nurses during the war. When she had been accepted into the CNC, the war was almost over, It turned out to be the best move she could have made. After getting her initial training it was recommended by one of her teachers that she would be a good candidate for further training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. With working and taking classes, Hope had found her joy in life. Eventually Hope found work as a traveling nurse throughout the Appalachian mountains. It took her everywhere through the hollows where the poorest people were lucky to see anyone with a medical background once a year. She enjoyed this job immensely, but was determined to do more. With help and classes on writing grants, Hope began building clinics closer to where the people lived. She even provided transportation for those who needed it even though she preferred walking, hiking or riding a bike to cars and busses. It was necessary for her to learn to drive in order to get around to the distant homes in the mountains. After nearly 50 years Hope retired. It was time to go in search for an answer that had haunted her all these years. Who had provided her with the initial twenty thousand dollars. With money that she had saved, Hope made the trip back to her hometown in of Winder Hollow, GA.

After reminiscing about her childhood years in the old shack, as her brothers and she had called it, Hope moved from the kitchen into the parlor where a single sunken divan sat against the large picture window that looked out back. There it was more or less, the old tire swing hanging from the oak tree, only it wasn't a tire swing anymore, but a wooden swing. She exited out the back door to the left of the divan and walked toward the swing. So, someone else had lived there after her ma had passed away. Hope studied the swing, pulled on the ropes that held it in place on the lowest branch. They seemed secure enough, and Hope gingerly sat on the swing. She sat there for a few minutes remembering a tale her pa had told them. He had talked about a treasure buried in the yard. He always claimed that he never knew where it was hidden. Her brothers and her always dug up holes in search of the treasure, but after their pa had left they gave up looking. It was no longer of interest to them.

Hope got up and wondered around the tree looking at the large roots that were knotted and raised above ground. Then something suddenly caught her eyes. Something she had never seen before. It looked like a metal box poking out of the ground between two of the thick roots jutting out of the ground. She wondered if a shovel still existed in the root cellar. Hope wandered back to the rear of the house, lifted the cellar door. She stepped in. It was dark, and damp. She needed a flashlight from her backpack. Hope quickly fetched her flashlight, ran back outside and re-entered the root cellar. Sure enough, there was a shovel just inside the entrance. She grabbed the shovel and ran to the tree. Could this be the treasure that her pa had talked about so much?

After digging and yanking, a rusted metal box came loose from the roots. Hope jiggled the box open. Inside was an envelop that had the same simple hand writing as the package that she had opened 50 years ago. She carried the box and its contents back to the house. She sat down on a wooden chair in the kitchen. She removed a letter from the envelop. Hope couldn't believe her eyes. It was a simple will written in that same familiar hand writing with many errors and misspelling, but Hope was able to interpret what the will had said. At the bottom it was signed by her father, William P. Jones. In all these years, Hope's family never knew that he had left a will to her mother. He had some how learned about her brothers' fate, and some how had managed to save twenty thousand dollars for her and her mother. Wow! Where there was will there was a way.