A Dove in the Distant Oaks

Dianna was the shy type who sat up front in the safety of the bus driver’s shadow. The neighbor boys’ cutting the rubber band in her ponytail contributed to her disposition. Having three sisters emboldened her, yet the usual antics couldn’t completely take away her fears.

On this June day, as Dianna sat in her purple-and-white gingham short set, her golden-brown ponytail in place and her sack lunch held tightly in her fist, even the front seat wasn’t safe. What should have been a day of running and laughing in the park instead abruptly ended when the bus’s nasty radiator hose broke on the final ride of the school term. The smelly green liquid sprayed onto her leg. The burning pain went deep inside her left ankle, not just on the skin.

A high school student, who had just completed a first-aid unit, jumped to action, retrieving the appropriate equipment from the kit and wrapping the ankle to ready Dianna for transport. She carefully placed gauze strips and gel along the injury.

The bus driver turned down the volume of the classic radio station and drove back to Dianna’s farm and up to the house. Tears streamed down Dianna’s face. Her mother came out of the house and was told about the burn, while Dianna was placed into the backseat of her parents’ car. Later that week, the superintendent visited the farm with a doll dressed in a colored, polka-dot print. Dianna had never seen one like it. A stuffed animal would have been more squeezable, but this was something new, and even though she was hurt, she felt a little guilty that none of her sisters had gotten one. But if they were upset about it, they didn’t show it.

Once again, the surge of pain in her leg reminded Dianna that there was a reason she’d received the doll. Perhaps that made the gift fair somehow. The doll didn’t really make her happy or feel better, but it was something to hold when the pain shot through her lower-left leg.