Prairie Lotus

by Linda Sue Park

“Finish,” Mama had said. “Good work is no good if you don’t finish.”

Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm! Then she thought of the Indians she had met, and wondered, as she often had before, why Uncle Sam was allowed to give away land that wasn’t his in the first place.

“For the person who is sour, do something sweet.”

They were in favor of fairness and justice as long as it wasn’t too inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Maybe that was part of what it meant to be independent: learning when to be strong on your own, and when to be strong with the help of others.