Fiddler crabs and tomato gravy

Good afternoon, friends.  I would like your help with something.  The following is an excerpt from what I hope might possibly become my first novel.  Can you take a peek and share your thoughts, please?  If you read below, would you want to read more?

Susie’s bare feet sunk into the soft, cool mud, as she chased the fiddler crab back into the hole she had watched it emerge from.   Her footprints made her think of the plaque on Granny’s wall.  Granny said the plaque reminded her that when things got tough, Jesus carried her.  Susie smiled as she thought of Jesus carrying Granny.

Granny was standing in the mud a few feet away from her, the hem of her pleated skirt damp from their adventure.  Her silver hair was still tucked neatly in a bun and she was patiently watching Susie chase the crabs, as she dabbed at her face with her hanky.  That’s what granny called her embroidered handkerchiefs and she always had one in her pocket or her bible.

Granny never rushed Susie the way some grown ups did.  Most of the time, when Granny wasn’t “carrying a burden”, she acted just like one of the kids.  She was always willing to play games, dance, draw, sing or go on treasure hunts and she always made it fun and encouraged imagination.  Granny could turn her rocking chair into a pirate ship and Susie and her brother and sister would walk the plank on books with throw pillows masquerading as sharks waiting in the deep, murky water.

When it was nearly 5:00pm, it was time to get dinner ready.  Papa like to eat early, go to bed early and rise early.  Tonight, Granny was cooking pork chops and tomato gravy.  She had made a fruit salad earlier and left it in the fridge to chill.  Susie liked the sound of pork chops and fruit salad, but she would have to make sure she didn’t get a very big serving of the rice and tomato gravy.  She liked the taste, but the big chunks of the tomato were just too much.  She wished granny had made brown gravy instead.

Granny and Papa didn’t mind what you ate, but they sure didn’t like wasting.  Susie thought that in their book, a wasteful person must be as bad as a thief.  Mom said it was because they had lived during the Great Depression.  That was when banks closed and no one had much money, so they were very careful.  Mom and Dad didn’t like waste either, but it didn’t seem to bother them as much as it did Gran and Papa.

Susie didn’t care though; she just tried very hard not to waste.  She loved to be at Granny’s more than anywhere else in the world, although she felt a little guilty about that sometimes and would never have told her mom and dad.  There was a peacefulness at Granny’s that she just didn’t always feel anywhere else.