Elin Gregory

I’ve been very bad about updating this blog and this serial so I’m going to do a whole batch in one go so there will be at least something on a Sunday for a few weeks to come.

This serial takes the form of the diary entries of a young man called Joe Skidmore who lives in the eastern part of Texas in 1869. Joe has some problems and feels that life is passing him by. Later lefe will come and grab him by the scruff of the neck and he’ll go on an adventure but it’s early days now. Last time he was talking about chickens and his late sister.

Feb 2nd
I asked Ma about my sister again last night but she just went quiet and told me that she’d been very sweet and had loved me. But after we went to bed Isaac told me a bit more.
Jess was three years older than him and he’s five years older than me which means she’d have been nine. Jacob, who was thirteen then, was out with Pa, and Jess and Isaac were helping Ma pick berries. They’d left me on a blanket and the snake must’ve crawled on there to warm itself. Jess grabbed it to get it away from me. Just grabbed it with her bare hands and it turned and bit her good, then she dropped it and it bit me. Isaac says he don’t remember much about it, just that Ma cried.
Jess is buried up the hill a way, by Granpa and that’s where we will all lie one day.

February 4th
I made biscuits again today and they were fine. Pa asked for seconds. Ma says leave it a week ’til we tell them. Then if they complain we can point out that nobody’s died.