The big old farmhouse I grew up in had no closets. Can you imagine living in a house with no closets. We have a closet in practically every room in our present home, even the bathrooms. I guess if you are a kid, closets are not that important to you. Most of our clothes could be folded and put in drawers and the few that needed to be hung up were hung on coat hooks behind doors or the odd accordion rack hung on a wall. The walls through the house had ornately framed pictures of long ago relatives, none of which we knew the names of. Im sure Mama knew some of them, maybe all of them but except for hurrying past there bearded stares we really did not pay them much attention. Mama sang. She sang while fixing supper. While washing dishes. While hanging out the clothes. Whatever chore she was doing singing seemed to make it go easier. Mama read to us. She started us out on fairy tales and as we learned to read, probably at a much earlier age because of this, the bedtime stories lessened as we chose our own reading material. Now I say that there were no closets throughout the house but there were built in cubby holes with doors in practically every room. Behind the doors there were shelves loaded with books. Whole series of books like the Dolly Dimple books. The Bobsey Twins, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Wings, Alice in Wonderland. So many that I cannot remember them all but they gave us hours and hours of reading at each of our learning levels. Still no TV so when it rained, or was too cold to go outside we read. We visited the world through Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post and more. We may have been on a small farm in a little village in southern Maine but we knew what was out there and because of the way Mama and Daddy raised us we knew that we could conquer any or all of that world outside our own. At some point we discovered a very old but completely intact Raggedy Ann doll that perhaps belonged to my mothers sister Aunt Pearl when she lived with Grammie Cushman. Along with this doll were one or two books about Raggedy and her adventures. I remember reading that Raggedy Ann had a candy heart and Im not sure if I remember this correctly but the heart said I Love You. Regardless, one day when I was feeling a bit bored and a bit curious, dangerous combination I might add, I decided to do a bit of exploratory surgery. I had already palpitated the chest area and had felt that there was indeed something there. Scissors in hand I made the incision and poked around a bit until I felt the object. Pulling it out I discovered that it was a cardboard heart. No candy. No I love you. Just a cardboard shaped heart. Very mixed emotions flooded through me. Disappointment that there was no candy heart. Fear that if it was discovered that I had desecrated this treasured old doll that I would be deep in the doo doo, so to speak. I went to Mamas sewing basket and found a needle and thread and proceeded to reinsert the cardboard heart and sew Raggedy back up as best I could. Then I dressed her and put her way back behind other toys in hopes that no one would ever discover what I had done. Im not sure if my bungled surgery attempt was ever discovered. If Patty had known about it Im sure she would have told on me but to this day no one ever spoke of it. But now you all know what a rotten kid I could be growing up Montville.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 22:00:34 +0000
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