7. Shes a Fighter (1/2)

on an april day in west elizabeth, the sat a small ranch by the name of beecher's hope. there housed a family of four, a mother, a father, a sister, and a

other. for only a year they seemed to live in what was the closest to peace and harmony they could reach. the sun was blazing and bugs were chirping. it was a lively fall day.

maybe a mile off there sounded the pats of small feet against the warm dirt road. they were the feet of a newly ten year old girl, caroline. she wore a navy almost jean like dress that came down to her soiled knees with black laced up boots. her thick dark hair had been fashioned that morning into a due created by her mother. it was now shorter above her shoulders with bangs. in it she wore a new red ribbon, a gift from her father for her tenth birthday.

she had left beecher's hope that morning in search of water for the family's meal. it was unclear to even herself why she now refused to use the water pump conveniently located at the ranch, but to her it seemed more of an adventure to seek it elsewhere. she had found a small stream down the way where she had retrieved her water for the past few days. she swung a wooden pale in her tiny arm, just carefully enough in such a science not to pour any onto the prairie soil.

minutes later she arrived back at the ranch. the innocent child was headed towards the door with such an oblivious outlook onto what was about to happen. suddenly, she dropped the pale. her eye's grew wide as she fell to her knees. without warning she clenched at her stomach, vomiting an immense amount onto the ground in front of her. it was violent, and did not continue long without becoming noticed by someone,

"cara!" the girl felt a hand on her shoulder, it was that of her older

other, jack, "cara, good lord, what's wrong?" a look of terror, then soon panic swept across his face, "momma! momma you better get out here!" the boy towards the ranch house.

the door soon slammed open as the children's mother stepped out. at first, annoyed and questionable as to what the problem was, her expression soon matched that of her son as they observed the sick child,

"child, what devil's spell has gotten into you?" the girl gradually came to a stop, but soon tears followed as she began to sob. all the mother and son could do was stand in shock, she leaned in, pointing to the bucket, "caroline where did you get this?"

"it's", sobs separated the girl's words, "it's water."

"where did you get the water?" she didn't respond, for lack of strength and fear of being scolded.

"momma what do you thinks wrong with her?" the boy asked with a concerned voice for his sister. the mother answered frantically with a strained and annoyed tone,

"i don't know, jack! do i look like i have an answer?" she scolded him, but soon she regained her calm composure. she responded with a sigh, "it's probably bad water… jack, go get pa. we'll get him to take her into town."

"can i go?"

"i don't care!" she snapped back, turning around to go find john.

5 hours later

"a case of cholera, mr. marston." the doctor shuffled through his papers on his desk, placing them in random folders frantically trying to find something, " a disease that causes frequent vomiting, dyharria, dehydration…" he rambled on and on…

in the corner of the room was a single metal framed bed with a simple mattress. on it laid the sickly girl. in mere hours she seemed to vomit up twice her body's weight. herself turned from a red lively child into a walking corpse. her eye's grew sunken, her hands white and clammy. cholera was known as a disease to take it's victims in a matter of hours.