The Patriarch — Xavier Chapa

The war has ended and my little town, Runge, Texas, welcomes back its sons and daughters from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific.  And now, in late September, my family prepares to leave for the cotton fields of Texas. We begin to trek from town to town, cotton field to cotton field, to earn money to survive another winter as we have done for every year of my young life.
Our first stop has always been in Corsicana, Texas.  Mr. Harold and Ms. Maggie Reynolds have been good to us.  Even after Harold Junior was killed in France, last year, they have treated us kindly.
This time, I saw a young boy, the spitting image of Harold Junior, standing next to Mr. Harold.  My heart stopped beating, for an eternity, it seemed, and my soul burst into a blossom, like a beautiful flower opening up to the light of life.  And I knew, that this boy was my soul mate, and prayed that God would join us together, forever.