Black and White Stories

This page is for stories set in the older days. Days gone by. Days less remembered, not when life was better, but maybe when it was simpler.

Story # 1

Johnson's Kid: Running Around Barefoot

         "Who's that kid runnin' around over yonder? Hadn't seen 'im before," Harry mused as he leaned against the old store porch post.
        "He's Johnson's kid," Ben replied, hardly looking up from his whittling.
        "Johnson?" Harry didn't know a Johnson in town.
        "Yeah, the new banker on Main," Ben stated.
        "Oh, the snobby city boy?"
        "He ain't so bad," Layton remarked in his slow southern draw.
        Harry slowly chewed at some unsavory tobacco. "Hmmm...kid don't look like his pop," he thoughtfully observed. "He's runnin' around barefoot. Didn't think them city kids did that."
        Ben chuckled. "Maybe Layton's right. His pop ain't the typical city slicker."
        "What's 'e doin' down here?" Harry asked, spitting out a trail of green.
        "Don't rightly know myself," Ben mused as if it hadn't occurred odd to him until now. "It's funny, him pickin' a low town like this when we ain't got nothin' to give 'im."
        "Prob'bly a spy. I hear about them unsavory fellows," Harry remarked.
        "Can't be iny more unsavory thein that tobaccor yer chewin'," Layton said with a smirk.
        Harry rolled his eyes and spat some more just to spite the older man.
        Ben just shook his head and went back to his work.

        The afternoon sun was at its high heat, and the small town lay quietly as the folks rested and waited for an evening breeze to chill things down a bit. Young Henry Johnson also slowed down after his morning play with the neighbor boys. He raked his dirty, sun-tanned hand through his tousled blond hair and plopped his rump down on the family's simple porch. Moving to this small town from teh big city was actually fun for the ten year-old. Like his father, he was feeling stuffy in the big city. 

        Jim Johnson had grown up on the cotten fields of North Carolina, but as a young man, he had left for the big city up north. After several years of getting a degree, a wife, and a haggle of kids, he had decided he had had enough of the hustle and bustle of big city life and was ready to move his family back to a slower lifestyle. His wife, Magdeline, was a little less excited about the movig, having grown up in the city. However, being a good-natured woman, she was ready to follow her husband wherever he took them. Henry was the oldest of five children. Next came Lucinda and Layla, the 8 year-old twins, followed by Isaac and Joanna.