For me it was the look of a nine-year-old
boy I barely knew in the 4-H barn at the county fair.
He’d just finished
telling me about his mischievous show calf and how the steer would bolt into
the field when the trailer came out, putting the boy’s father in a patch full
of pricker bushes. Shortly after telling me that story, the boy was told to lead his calf—the first one he’d
ever shown--into the ring to sell at the auction. I followed behind and overheard
an older competitor give the boy some advice: “Leave a bucket of water and the
halter on the hay bale after its sold and you’re done!”
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| The inspiration for ELI in my novel, LITTLE JOE |
When the boy and his calf entered
the show ring, the boy looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Around and around he
went with his show animal, until the bidding stopped.
I’ll never forget the look of that young boy once he’d
sold his calf. He’d fled into the midway after letting go of the reins, but not
before revealing his pain. And I knew I had to write about what he’d been
feeling. That I had the end of my story,
and now I had to go back to the beginning.
That was
four years ago today. It was also a picture book
manuscript-turned-into-a-middle-grade novel, later. The Wayne County Fair in
Honesdale, Pennsylvania begins this weekend, and it’s where I found my story.
The tiny, rural community near Scranton also shaped the first ten years of my married life and enabled me to become a writer, in an
office surrounded by cow pastures and wildlife I could see up close for the
first time.
I think
about the hundreds of kids I watched compete at that Fair back then--sometimes for 10 days at a time--of how much I learned, and how they inspired so many characters in my novel, Little Joe.
