The Small Town (The Lost Son)

     "Papa how come all of my friends have little brothers and sisters and I don't."

     "Well Richard that's a long story and I don't think you'd really care to hear it," Richards father Jeffery told him.

     "Oh, come on Papa tell me please" little Richard asked his father.

     "Fine son come sit down and I'll tell you," his father patted a chair, "Now where to begin. Oh, yes so many many years ago. No one knows how long ago it was but our family was going through some rough times. We use to know a lot of land and we had a family working for us. One summer one of the people from the families working for us had ruined half a field of crops. This almost ruined our family. One of our family members punished the whole family for the mistake. Still this didn't help our family. See we use to own the crop market so a lot of people came to us. We knew that if anyone had found out what had happened to the crops we would truly be ruined. Then one day an old women just walked out of the woods. She told them that she could fix all of their problems. They soon discussed a deal with the old women," Richards father stopped.

     "What deal did they make Papa. Please, tell me," little Richard pleaded.

     "The deal was that their land will never go bad as long as they did one thing," Richards father paused again.

     "Papa," little Richard whined.

     "Fine, the deal was that as long as they put two of everything they grew in a basket and put it at the edge of the woods their land would never go bad. Our family made the deal with the old women and she left back into the woods. The next summer they grew more crops than ever. They sent out one of their servants to drop off the basket they had promised the old lady, and for years they did this. Then one summer one of the hand maids had accidentally burned the head of the houses clothes. She was punished harshly. When it came time to take the basket to the edge of the woods they had sent one of their servants out to do it as normal. But the servant never dropped off the basket. See the servant was the older brother of the hand maid they had punished. He had known about the deal with the old lady and made it look like our family never sent the basket out. This angered the old lady from the woods. During the winter season she emerged from the woods to get what was promised to her. While she was walking up to the main house she had ran into one of the servants, and it wasn't just any servant. it was the brother of the hand maid. They sat and talked for a while. He told the old lady how our family had been harshly punishing his for years. After hearing this the old lady decided to make a deal with him. The deal was that if his family would treat our family better she would make them the owners of the land," Richards father stopped.

     "Why did our family treat them so badly and what's so bad about us losing our land that seemed a little fair," little Richard said.

     "In the deal that we made with the old lady one of our family members was suppose to drop off the basket but they had sent one of their servants. The old women knew that they weren't dropping off the baskets but she had over looked that. Once she found out how we were treating the other family she knew what she most do. The old lady set a curse upon our family. She switched our families statuses and she also made sure that our family could only have one child so that we could never hurt anyone again," Richards father finished the story.

     "But why would she do that," little Richard asked?

     "Because son," Richards father leaned close to his son, "There's power in numbers. Sometimes good power but in our families case it was bad power."

     "Don't worry father," little Richard put his hand on his fathers, "One day I'll break the curse."

     Little Richards father looked up at his son with tears in his eyes. He saw determination and greatness in his sons eyes. His father knew that his son meant what he said.