Make Up a Story
Stories from Around the World
Chaps for winter
It is 1876 and we are looking at an early settler in Alberta, a shepherd. Wyatt says she’s got a towel on her shoulder, Michele thinks it’s a scarf to protect from the dust, Karl thinks it’s to flag someone down. “I left my heart in San Francisco” sings Sylvia. We decide to call her… Elizabeth, because that’s a nice old-fashioned name. But she’s ‘click-click’ for short, says Sylvia. She’s looking over the herd, guarding them from foxes, coyotes and the wolves. That outfit will sure scare them away, says Michele.
The herd of sheep is a hundred strong. Click-click is a good-looking woman, says Sylvia. We don’t know if she has a family. Maybe she’s married, says Karl, and has two boys. The boys, teenagers, are herding the sheep atop horses. The boys are making more chaps for their mom, or to sell at the market, thinks Wyatt. Michele doesn’t think they make much of a fashion statement, though, and she tells us of another Michele she knew who bought the oddest things at the market. Click-click’s probably quite pretty for her time, we decide.
Elizabeth must be getting pretty hot chasing the sheep around. She needs the rope to catch the sheep, or maybe ride them! They’re going to the slaughterhouse anyway, says Wyatt, to be made into lamb chops! Michele thinks it’s so sad to give them cute names like Angel and Tommy before sending them that way. She prefers not to think about that at all, she likes her lamb chops to start right at the store in Seran wrap. Wyatt says the sheep will be used as lawn-mowers, if not as lamb chops.
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