{"id":2780,"date":"2025-10-22T00:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T05:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/?p=2780"},"modified":"2025-10-18T16:08:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T21:08:03","slug":"the-girl-in-the-tree-in-the-bluebonnet-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/2025\/10\/22\/the-girl-in-the-tree-in-the-bluebonnet-field\/","title":{"rendered":"The Girl in the Tree in the Bluebonnet Field"},"content":{"rendered":"It wasn\u2019t supposed to rain. At least, Julie\u2019s ma hadn\u2019t said anything about it and everyone in town knew Ma could \u201cread the weather\u201d with an accuracy that was almost frightening. They would\u2019ve called her a witch and run her out of town if she wasn\u2019t so useful. But useful she was, and so she stayed, baking her bread while Pa was off at work, at the oil rigs, in the Panhandle. He was away more days than not, and so Julie had grown up wild. Running through blackberry fields barefoot, catching fireflies in mason jars, bandaids over scrapes and bruises. Wild smiles and messy hair, her ma ever-so-carefully brushing iodine over the cuts with a shake of her head and a warning to \u201cplease, please, be more careful next time, sweetheart\u201d. And Julie would smile and nod, knowing that she\u2019d be back outside the very next day. <br \/>\tAs she grew older, Ma had put her to work outside- if she was to run in the blackberry fields, she might as well pick some to make blackberry cobbler, and if she wanted to play outside, she could bring back water from the well by the McGuire\u2019s property. Julie had chafed at these restrictions, these limits on her own time, at first, but as more and more of her classmates disappeared from school to help their own mothers\u2019 with the household work, she realized just what a blessing Ma had given her. Even now, as she neared adulthood, Ma had begun to fret about her appearance, her wildness that couldn\u2019t be tamed. Julie had been successful in brushing off Ma\u2019s concerns with a carefree laugh, but the thought of when that laugh wouldn\u2019t be enough disquieted her. <br \/><br \/>\tToday was another one of those days where she slipped out the door to evade Ma, promising with a charming grin to bring back enough strawberries to make shortcake- Phoebe\u2019s favorite. Phoebe was young, prim, and perfect in all the ways Julie was not. Phoebe was Ma\u2019s favorite, of course, but Julie was Pa\u2019s. It made sense- Julie was everything Pa was, a little wild, a little carefree, a lot irresponsible. <br \/><br \/>\tJust like Pa, Julie liked getting a little lost. She liked wandering through the bramble-filled thickets, liked not knowing where she would end up. A rumble of thunder gave her pause. She glanced up, frowning as she noticed the darkening sky, thick with grey, angry clouds. She\u2019d have to hurry, then. Unfortunate, but if she didn\u2019t make it home, Ma would worry up a storm and she didn\u2019t need that these days. Not with the townsfolk\u2019s whispers and sidelong glances at Julie, with their rumors of her being \u201cunmarriable\u201d. Yes, Ma had enough on her plate and Julie would hate to add to that. So she gathered up her skirts, stepping through the undergrowth with purposeful strides, making her way to the strawberry fields. <br \/><br \/>\tThe skies didn\u2019t clear\u2026but it didn\u2019t look like it would rain either, so, with a basket full of strawberries, Julie returned to exploring. And that was when she saw her, a stark contrast to the rich blues of the bluebonnet field. A girl, with the blondest hair Julie had ever seen, the same blonde Julie\u2019s had been as a kid. She was fast asleep in a cedar tree, the expression on her face\u2026content. Almost\u2026almost happy. Julie hadn\u2019t seen anyone with that expression in a long, long time. Not in this dusty old town, where everybody was too concerned with what the neighbors would think. But this girl\u2026she wasn\u2019t from this town. She didn\u2019t live with the heavy, heavy expectations that had started to follow Julie like a shadow. Her lightness made Julie feel\u2026well, jealous, yes, but also, strangely carefree. If this girl could live like this, whose to say Julie couldn\u2019t either?<br \/>And so, she turned and went back home, the basket of strawberries swinging gently. She would help Ma make the shortcake. She would be the best big sister to Phoebe. And then, when it was time, she\u2019d leave and make her own path in life. And she\u2019d be happy. <br \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t supposed to rain. At least, Julie\u2019s ma hadn\u2019t said anything about it and everyone in town knew Ma could \u201cread the weather\u201d with an accuracy that was almost frightening. They would\u2019ve called her a witch and run her out of town if she wasn\u2019t so useful. But useful she was, and so she &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/2025\/10\/22\/the-girl-in-the-tree-in-the-bluebonnet-field\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Girl in the Tree in the Bluebonnet Field&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,41,172,154,1,29,384,93],"tags":[1489,11,260,235,20,90],"class_list":["post-2780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbies","category-houston","category-imaginative","category-reading","category-uncategorized","category-united-states","category-writing-hobbies","category-writing","tag-bluebonnet","tag-mint-girl","tag-mint-girl-writes","tag-short-story","tag-texas","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2781,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2780\/revisions\/2781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}