Skills & Experience:
Teacher; book editor; writer. (** I also do French to English translations.)
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The Voyage of the Lizzie
Chapter 1.
One wet, windy afternoon in 1682, a black crow flew from east to west across the dark sky of Delaware. Its path took it across a small stone bridge and at that same moment a tiny cry was heard. A young woman, with fair hair and eyes streaming with tears, lay exhausted, holding the tiny baby that she had just brought into the world. She held him tightly to her breast and murmered ‘crow,’ as the bird swooped on by. She looked tenderly at the infant: Thou shalt be called Crow,” she said and burst into tears. Then, picking up her meager belongings, and fighting the pain, discomfort and rain that battered her, she clambered up onto the lane that led into the village.
The young serving maid’s name was Jenny. When she reached the outskirts of the village, she darted inside the first barn she came to. Shivering and shaking now, she took out a small piece of lead and a piece of parchment paper that she had carefully brought from the inn and bundling the newborn in her wrap, she laid him in the hay on the floor. Then, with difficulty, shw wrote on the parchment: “This Is My Boy Crow Plez Luk Afta Him And Brig Him Up Good I Cont.” Then she paused and carefully printed the first letter of her name “J” at the end of her sentence.
Then, turning to the baby with flushed face and more tears, she picked him up and left him on the corner of the steps that led to the farmhouse kitchen.
The baby was warm and dry now and sleeping soundly.
Jenny kissed her child and ran sobbing out of the barn and into the wet lane that lead back to her master’s house.