Let Them Help

“The boy planted the tomato sideways, and the old man didn’t correct him.” It would’ve been easier to do it himself. Quicker, too. But Henry Collins, seventy-three, knew better. His knees crackled like popcorn every time he knelt, and his back let him know by sundown whether the day had been gentle or not. But

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The Stage Light

“I buried my voice the day they shut down Room 204 — and I never thought I’d need it again.” Doris Hale hadn’t spoken in front of a crowd in nearly eighteen years. Not since the last bell rang at Jefferson High and the district merged the old school with the newer one across town.

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The Farm Bell

“The day Daddy died, the bell didn’t ring.” That was the first thing I remembered when I stepped back onto the porch of the old farmhouse after thirty-four years. The bell still hung crooked beside the doorframe — rusted, silent, but there.Mama used to say that bell had more discipline than the schoolhouse down the

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