Photo Prompt, Very Short Story

Guardian Of The Fence

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative
Challenge #065. I chose Pic #3.
Here’s where the image took me.

© Crispina Kemp

Old Tobias Pyle had always sworn the fence post watched over his land, but nobody believed him …. at least not until Christmas Eve.

It all started when young Bitsy trudged through the pasture in the snow searching for her family’s missing calf. The temperature dropped, and panic was starting to set in. Then she noticed it …. the weathered post with its peculiar face, knots forming two wide eyes and a tiny nose.

“Please,” she whispered, “please help me find Clover.”

Just then the wind shifted and Bitsy heard a soft lowing from beyond the hill. Following the sound, she discovered Clover shivering beneath a pine tree, safe but frightened and cold.

Back home, with Clover settled in the barn and Bitsy sitting by the fire, grandpappy Tobias smiled a toothless grin. He rubbed his whiskered face knowingly. “That post done come from the oldest tree in this here parts. Some folks say it protects them what matters most.”

The next morning on Christmas Day, Bitsy ran down the hill to the fence and left two still-warm freshly baked oatmeal cookies for the fence post as a ‘thank you’ to her unlikely guardian. Little did young Bitsy Pyle know that Clover, the once-missing calf, gobbled up those oatmeal cookies but that, my friends, is a story for another time.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

NAR©2025

This is “Let It Be Christmas” by Alan Jackson

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #065

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶 and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

31 thoughts on “Guardian Of The Fence”

    1. Thank you for your very kind comments, Eugi. All this month I’ve been writing Christmas related-stories which I’m putting in a binder for our five year-old granddaughter. This one is in the binder, which I will be giving her tonight. I hope she enjoys it as much as you did. Happy Christmas Eve! 🎅🏼💝

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        1. Our granddaughter loved the book I prepared for her, Eugi. It was a very special moment for me when she opened the binder and saw all the stories. I’m really glad I did it. Thanks for your wonderful comments. Merry Christmas, Eugi! 🌲 💝

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