Feeding the pigs

The cold brittle cracking sound below her feet echoed the feeling in her heart. The twice daily treks out to break the ice in the feeding trough is a necessary nuisance on the in cold winter months on a cotton farm in the Panhandle of Texas. There seems to be a lot of those nuisances. Much of a farm wife’s life was filled with them. It’s not the stupid livestock’s fault that the weather is so cold. They don’t seem to mind that much anyway, guess they are used to it. She feels like that often, a nuisance that must be taken care of, basic needs met. She wont stay and pet them, even pigs like to be engaged, but they do need to eat and drink. Starving them would be unconscionable but hurling a few curse words and a whack on the back did help her get out the annoyance their upkeep causes her.
Once outside and accustomed to the cold, she used this alone time as she did much of her time, to slip off into her fantasy world. Her dreams of world travel often involved missionary work with possibly a whisper of lost or neglected love. They would long for and desire her but she would always be drawn away, like a romantic young characters in classic novels. Her devotion to the work of the Lord would always take her away. Morning and night and increasingly more in the day she would slip off into this world. Books were her loyal companions She was the stoic heroine , such as Jane Eyre.. Admired for her intelligent and strong character. Practicing her melancholy sighs and far away stares, wherever she imagined to be, it was far more interesting than being the unloved daughter of a dirt farmer in West Texas.
The cold had long since quit affecting her limbs, for once numb she found it much easier to stay that way, at leaste that is what she has convinced herself. That is the way she has lived her emotional life ever since the night she let herself believe the truth. She is the "not" in her family..."not his favorite daughter, not even close" She is not open, not loving and not affectionate. And definitely not her father’s idea of what a woman should be like. All words she had heard from his own lips. She did not let him know that it hurt her but if her own father felt that way about her, there would be no need to knock on that door for any sort of approval any more.
SLAM!! The door of the barn banged shut, and Sophia spun around to she what had caused it. Just the wind. She went over and bolted it closed. If it was left flapping in the high wind for long, the hinges would break off. Disturbed from her muse she remembers it is time to catch the bus to school. She could resume her fantasies there. But now she must grab her books and run out to the farm to market road that ran in front of their drive way, about 100 yards away.