Apprentice

The laughter echoed off the low hills as Jenna and I ran along side the stream. We fell in a heap of tangled adolescent legs and arms laughing until we coughed. With impish grin Jenna leaned over and viciously attacked my very ticklish ribs.

"Evil girl," I gasped, "you are stealing all my breath."

"It doesn’t sound like a got all of your breath little brother." She mocked as she relented.

Sitting up I shook my head and stared at my sister. Four years older than me she was my best friend, and very intent on making sure I grew up in what her image was of a man. So far I knew that included being polite, courteous, even tempered, broad shouldered, and fun. I knew I wasn’t broad shouldered yet, as a matter of course I was just starting to get, "manly hairs", as Jenna called them, on my face. The broad shoulders would come I knew, because I was learning to be a blacksmith from our uncle, Kalten.

Our parents had died of a coughing sickness eight years before, and we now lived with our mothers sister and her husband. Alma and Kalten were a good match together. Alma a quiet unassuming woman, who took the joy of a simple life of cooking, cleaning, and growing vegetables in her small garden. Kalten was a big man. A blacksmith like all the men in his family he was powerfully muscled. The secret we knew was that huge frame concealed a gentleness he reserved only for Alma, and children. They had never had children of their own, but had always treated us like theirs. There was no hesitation or doubt when our parents passed away that we would come to live with them.

Jenna had been of a marrying age for sometime, but she has said repeatedly that she was waiting for just the right man, much to the chagrin of the local boys. With auburn colored hair, emerald eyes, and an athletic body she turned all the boys and quite a few of the men’s heads in town. Jenna was beautiful, even I could see that, but she was neither vain, nor aloof. She took each person at their worth, and treated all fairly.

We stretched out in the warm spring sun and enjoyed the beauty of the late afternoon together. We listened to the babbling brook, calls of the birds, and the wind whispering through the trees.

Rolling onto my side I asked, "Jenna, what will you do when I leave for the blacksmith guild hall next week? You know I will be gone for at least a year refining the skills I have learned, and testing for my apprenticeship."

Jenna sighed and sat up. Pursing her lips and thinking for a moment she said," I will be working with Auntie, and helping out with the chores mostly. Maybe I can get Alma to really start teaching me how to read."

I grinned. "Reading? Why aren’t all women suppose to be silent and do exactly what their man tells them too?" I scrambled to my feet and took off at a dead run knowing she was going to try and tickle me into submission. I stopped running when I didn’t hear her chasing me. Looking back over my shoulder I saw her crouched half way up to a standing position gazing over toward the farm. I followed her line of sight and saw what had her transfixed.

Smoke rose in billowing black clouds from the farm. Without hesitation I started running in that direction.