To Mr. Harper

(Above) Sycamore Leaf, 2004, Scott Robinson (Cropped; creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en/)

CTOBER 31, 1941

Dear Diary Dear Mr. Harper,

 Yes, I never get to write to anybody, only my diary. So I decided I would write a letter to you here. But since I don’t know where you are, I don’t know where to send it. So when the war ends and you come back, if I’m still here I’ll tear it out and give it to you. Then we can pretend you got it in the mail.

And I have a lot to write you about. I hope that when you finally get settled wherever you are going, you’ll be able to write me back. Remember you promised me that. 

I have the feeling you’ll have many exciting things to tell me about. I think things like going across the Atlantic on a big ship will be much more exciting than anything I can tell you about that is going on in Lindera. I only hope you don’t get seasick. I have had much practice at throwing up, but I hate it and never get used to it.

Thank you again for the geography book. Now that it’s mine, I don’t feel so bad about drawing in it. 

The weather is really wonderful in the valley and the trees have started to turn. Now that it’s cooled off some, it’s not as hard to climb to the top of the hills up in the woods north of school. Also there are not as many skeeters which is good because when they start chasing me and I usually slip and slide downhill on my bottom. Although that can be fun sometimes, too.

I can stay up there for hours some days. I especially like to find a place where there are lots of leaves on the ground that I can settle down in so I can get comfortable and just watch the way things begin to stir once it’s quiet and nothing knows I’m there. I also start to see little things that I never saw before, like the itsy bitsy tiny finger that a vine sends out, sticking it out there and trying to find something it can curl around and keep climbing to escape the shadows under the trees and up toward the light. Sometimes I feel like I’m a vine, too.

Now that the leaves are changing everything isn’t all the same color, not all green like it has been since spring, and not all brown like it will be in a few months. It’s not that I don’t like the green, but it’s all the same, just one big solid green that runs together and feels like a wall all around me, shutting me in, and even though green is a nice color it’s just one color, like the mill is one color. Now there are all different colors, and it seems like mother nature finally gets to show the mill up for what it really is. 

I see the colors of the leaves all the time everywhere, but when I’m sitting there I see the colors up close. The other day a beautiful leaf was stuck under my shoe, and I pulled it out and looked at it up close. I felt kind of bad because I was stepping on it with my foot but mostly because I almost missed how beautiful it was, like someone had dipped it in paint. 

I know you have probably seen this, too, since you are from West Virginia where there are lots of hills and trees just like here. Mr. Hunstable, my science teacher from last year, said the stuff in the leaves that makes them green goes away when the weather turns cold and somehow sugar gets trapped in there. That’s why they turn all these colors. I tasted a maple leaf once to see if it would taste like maple syrup from the sugar but it wasn’t really sweet at all.

My favorite thing to do up there in the woods used to be finding sick animals and bringing them home. Box turtles were the easiest to catch because you just have to stand there and listen and pretty soon you’ll hear leaves moving. At first they don’t even try to get away but just close up shop and sit there. But once you pick them up and start carrying them their head comes out and then their legs come out and they start walking even though you’re holding them in mid-air. That’s not so bad and even kind of funny except their little toenails are sharp and they start scratching your hands.