As Papa walked home with a heavy heart, his mind was filled with worry about the fate of their beloved house. He knew how much his family cherished their home, and the thought of losing it was unbearable to him. With each step, his shoulders drooped a little more, the weight of their possible eviction pressing down on him.
As he approached the house, he could see his family sitting on the porch, their expressions a mix of anxiety and resignation. He tried to put on a brave face as he greeted them with a simple "Hello," but inside, his heart was beating wildly.
Mama stood up and followed him inside, leaving the girls outside. Papa could feel his pulse quicken as he waited for her to return. The moments dragged on, each one feeling like an eternity.
Finally, Mama emerged from the house, her eyes alight with joy. "It's all right," she exclaimed, her voice filled with relief. "He got it. It's all over. Everything is all right."
The words washed over Papa like a wave of relief, and he felt tears spring to his eyes. He wrapped Mama in a tight embrace, grateful beyond words for the news she brought.
As they stepped back onto the porch, Maud Martha and Helen looked up at them, their faces filled with hope and gratitude. "We get to stay," Maud Martha whispered, her voice filled with wonder.
Papa smiled through his tears, his heart overflowing with gratitude. "We get to stay," he repeated, his voice thick with emotion. "And we get to stay together, where we belong."
Mama reached out and took his hand, their fingers intertwining in a silent vow. The sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow over their little family, their home safe and secure once more. And in that moment, they knew that no matter what trials they faced, as long as they were together, they could weather any storm.
Read the following story, and then answer the question that follows.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. In this short story, a family contemplates losing their house.
Home
by Gwendolyn Brooks
[1] What had been wanted was this always, this always to last, the talking softly on this porch, with the snake plant in the jardinière(1) in the southwest corner, and the obstinate(2) slip from Aunt Eppie’s magnificent Michigan fern at the left side of the friendly door. Mama, Maud Martha, and Helen rocked slowly in their rocking chairs, and looked at the late afternoon light on the lawn and at the emphatic(3) iron of the fence and at the poplar tree(4). These things might soon be theirs no longer. Those shafts and pools of light, the tree, the graceful iron, might soon be viewed passively by different eyes.
Papa was to have gone that noon, during his lunch hour, to the office of the Home Owners’ Loan. If he had not succeeded in getting another extension, they would be leaving this house in which they had lived for more than fourteen years. There was little hope. The Home Owners’ Loan was hard. They sat, making their plans.
“We’ll be moving into a nice flat somewhere,” said Mama. “Somewhere on South Park, or Michigan, or in Washington Park Court.” Those flats, as the girls and Mama knew well, were burdens on wages twice the size of Papa’s. This was not mentioned now.
“They’re much prettier than this old house,” said Helen. “I have friends I’d just as soon not bring here. And I have other friends that wouldn’t come down this far for anything, unless they were in a taxi.”
[5] Yesterday, Maud Martha would have attacked her. Tomorrow she might. Today she said nothing. She merely gazed at a little hopping robin in the tree, her tree, and tried to keep the fronts of her eyes dry.
“Well, I do know,” said Mama, turning her hands over and over, “that I’ve been getting tireder and tireder of doing that firing. From October to April, there’s firing to be done.”
“But lately we’ve been helping, Harry and I,” said Maud Martha. “And sometimes in March and April and in October, and even in November, we could build a little fire in the fireplace. Sometimes the weather was just right for that.”
She knew, from the way they looked at her, that this had been a mistake. They did not want to cry.
But she felt that the little line of white, sometimes ridged with smoked purple, and all that cream-shot saffron(5) would never drift across any western sky except that in back of this house. The rain would drum with as sweet a dullness nowhere but here. The birds on South Park were mechanical birds, no better than the poor caught canaries in those “rich” women’s sun parlors.
[10] “It’s just going to kill Papa!” burst out Maud Martha. “He loves this house! He lives for this house!”
He lives for us,” said Helen. “It’s us he loves. He wouldn’t want the house, except for us.”
“And he’ll have us,” added Mama, “wherever.”
“You know,” Helen sighed, “if you want to know the truth, this is a relief. If this hadn’t come up, we would have gone on, just dragged on, hanging out here forever.”
“It might,” allowed Mama, “be an act of God. God may just have reached down and picked up the reins.”
[15] “Yes,” Maud Martha cracked in, “that’s what you always say — that God knows best.”
Her mother looked at her quickly, decided the statement was not suspect, looked away.
Helen saw Papa coming. “There’s Papa,” said Helen.
They could not tell a thing from the way Papa was walking. It was that same dear little staccato(6) walk, one shoulder down, then the other, then repeat, and repeat. They watched his progress. He passed the Kennedys’, he passed the vacant(7) lot, he passed Mrs. Blakemore’s. They wanted to hurl themselves over the fence, into the street, and shake the truth out of his collar. He opened his gate — the gate — and still his stride and face told them nothing.
“Hello,” he said.
[20] Mama got up and followed him through the front door. The girls knew better than to go in too.
Presently Mama’s head emerged. Her eyes were lamps turned on.
“It’s all right,” she exclaimed. “He got it. It’s all over. Everything is all right.”
The door slammed shut. Mama’s footsteps hurried away.
“I think,” said Helen, rocking rapidly, “I think I’ll give a party. I haven’t given a party since I was 11. I’d like some of my friends to just casually see that we’re homeowners.”
Footnotes:
1. French for “planter”
2. Obstinate (adjective) stubbornly refusing to change
3. Emphatic (adjective) attracting special attention
4. A type of quick-growing tree
5. An orange to orange-yellow
6. Short, quick, and separate
7. Vacant (adjective) not filled, used, or lived in
Question:
Imagine how the story would be different if it were told from the point of view of the character, Papa. Using the information from the passage, rewrite the ending of the story starting from when Papa walks home (Paragraph 17). Make sure that you provide dialogue from the characters (Papa, Mama, Maud Martha, or Helen), and use sensory details and language to capture the action of the story. Stay true to the author’s voice and style. You should have a minimum of 300 words. Be mindful of conventions, so that they do not interfere with meaning.
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(16 points)
0 / 10000 Word Limit
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