The Worst Day of My Life!

Parsnips

Poison Hemlock

"Pepper and I followed a tiny stream out of camp to a marshy area. Growing nearby was a small crop of wild carrots and parsnips." We gathered them up along with some green apples and headed to the kettle where dinner was cooking. We chopped the carrots and parsnips up to put in the stew. Cassia one of the small children was sitting along side as we were cutting and I gave her a little treat of raw parsnips with out thinking much about it. A couple of the boys around camp also grabbed a couple. Pepper and I placed the rest in the stew. All of the sudden we heard people screaming. Pepper's brother Wade was convulsing and foaming at the mouth by a turned over bowl of raw vegetables. "Pa noticed the basket of vegetables had knocked over. He yelled No one eat anything!" Pa yelled asking who made the soup. "I was so frightened my insides were shivering, but I stepped forward. Pepper did, too." We explained that we made the soup. He ordered up to show what we put in the soup. That is when Pa told us that we mistakened Poison Hemlock for parsnips. Then the worst day of my life happened when I realized that I had given poor little Cassia those poison vegetables. So many people were upset thinking that the mistaking ate the hemlock the panicked and became paranoid. In all three people died and Wade hasn't woke up yet. I am so upset that I wish I was the one who ate the hemlock. I don't think I will ever get over this. I sobbed, "Only two bites" Cassia only ate two bites.

Later Pa explained that water hemlock is so poisonous that even the tops are deadly. "He showed us that when you cut a hemlock it drips with an oily yellow goo." Pa made sure that everyone in the wagon train knew the difference between parsnips and water hemlock that night.

The funeral was unbearable. "A lone fiddler played Amazing Grace as the men shoveled dirt onto the three children." The next week or so I walked along side the wagons like a zombie. "everyone says I'm not to blame, but still I feel dead inside."


Terribly upset the end!
Hattie

Picture Sources: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Pastinake-2.jpg/405px-Pastinake-2.jpg

http://students.ou.edu/T/Mitchel.L.Tucker-1/hemlock.jpg