The crowing of the farm rooster woke Madison up early the next morning. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and sat up in her bed. She suddenly remembered that she was living in a farm. Did that mean she had to go and milk the cows?
Slowly she sat up in bed. As it was a habit since her early days she quietly knelt down beside her bed and prayed to God. She thanked him for everything. “After all,” she thought, “Some children in the world don’t even have a bed and food to eat.”
Madison sighed quietly when she got up from beside her bed. Life was tough and sometimes she just felt like crying. There wasn’t any friends whom she could talk to, and no one to hang about with. She was alone only just settling into a new environment, family, school. New everything.
~
The day went by slowly. Literally, she didn’t do anything. Her new mistress spoiled her dreadfully. She was allowed to do ‘anything as long as long as she would be continuously clean’. All the farm hands and maids scuttled around her working hard. She wished to be one of them. Martha was constantly around her. If Madison wanted a drink or handkerchief, Martha would get it for ‘the young mistress’ as Madison was called. How Madison wished to escape or at least have something to do. She told Martha this.
“Martha dear, I’m frightfully bored with nothing at all to do. Isn’t there any mending or farm work which I could help out in?” she asked.
Poor Martha was shocked out of her skin. “Why my little mistress! It is unheard of you helping out in the farm work. No no. The mistress herself has strictly told all the farm hand to not ‘let miss Martha touch any animal except when she is riding’. And as for sewing, dear, we send it all the tailor.”
So all Madison did that day was fretfully twist her dress staring out of the window, playing with Blessing, and just feeling completely useless. Maybe she should talk to her ‘mom’, she thought.
The day, however, she did not manage to talk. She worked all day long, wishing to do something more exciting. She also wished for a friend to talk to. Little did she know that she was about to get herself into a breath-taking adventure...
