Tangled Yarns: Flashback

the road. The cart rumbled and bounced as it followed him, its wheels leaving the ground. Now they were in rough grass, where a grader had left heaps of shingle, and rocks. The cart wheel struck a boulder and leaped, tossing Christine into the back of the tray and sending groceries over the side.

The wild horses were biting at Christine now, more in fun than anything, but a small girl cannot know. She screamed and covered her face. She didn't understand that it was just a game. Jed began to gallop faster, almost completely out of control. He pulled the cart over stones and through bushes, oblivious to the hauling of reins.

"Whoa Jed! Whoa!" shouted Christine's mother.

The horses thundered close behind and in front and beside, driving the cart further and further off the road, until its wheel caught on the fence and it jerked sideways. The impact snapped the reins, and broke the harness. Christine and her mother were thrown over the fence and into the paddock beyond, while Jed galloped, terrified by the noise, down the hill and into some trees.

When Christine woke up, she was a cripple. Both her legs had lost their feeling. She grew up in a wheelchair, but she was a strong-minded girl, and she eventually married, and had one son.

Lawrence listened with wonder as his mother finished the story.

"So that means," said Lawrence, "If you had died in the crash, I wouldn't have been born?"

"That's right," said his mother, "Life hangs by the thinnest of threads, sometimes."

"And what about your mother? Did she ever come close to dying?"

"Many times.'"

"Can you tell me?"

"I don't know much about my mother," said the woman, "Because she died not long after I was born, but my grandmother told me about her. My mother was born in England. She came over here in one of the first ships, which was no simple event. Many died on those voyages. Disease, and storms, and a hard life all took their toll. It was a wonder that so many actually survived!"

Lawrence lay back and listened as his mother talked of settlers, and wagons, and roads through the bush. And as he listened, he watched a spider in the rafters, making