“Don’t go up in the attic! Don’t like it up there! Don’t like it down here! Don’t like nothin’! Don’t want you being my momma, Cathy! Where is my real momma? Where’d she go? You tell her to come back and let us go out to the sandbox!” She took off for the door to the hall and turned theknob, then screamed like an animal in terror when the door wouldn’t open. Wildly she beat her small fists against the hard oak and all the while she screamed for Momma to come and take her out of this dark room!
I ran to catch her up in my arms while she kicked and kept right on yelling. It was like holding a wildcat. Chris seized Cory, who ran to protect his twin. All we could do was put them down on one of the big beds, haul out their storybooks, and suggest naps. Teary and resentful, both twins glared up at us.
“Is it night already?” whimpered Carrie, gone hoarse from so many fruitless screams for freedom, and a mother who wouldn’t come. “I want my momma so bad. Why don’t she come?”
“Peter Rabbit,” I said, picking up Cory’s favorite storybook with colorful illustrations on every page, and this alone made Peter Rabbit a very good book. Bad books had no pictures. Carrie had a fondness for The Three Little Pigs, but Chris would have to read like Daddy used to, and huff and puff, and make his voice deep like the wolf’s. And I wasn’t sure he would.
“Please let Chris go up in the attic and find himself a book to read, and while he does that, I’ll read to you from Peter Rabbit. And let’s see if Peter will steal into the farmer’s garden tonight and eat his fill of carrots and cabbages. And if you fall asleep while I’m still reading, the story will end in your dreams.”
Maybe five minutes passed before both the twins were asleep. Cory clutched his storybook against his small chest to make the transportation of Peter Rabbit into his dreams as easy as possible. A soft, warm feeling swept over me, making my heart ache for little ones who really needed a grown-up mother, not one only twelve. I didn’t feel much different than I had at ten. If womanhood was just around the corner, it hadn’t reared its head to make me feel mature and capable. Thank God we weren’t going to be shut up here long, for what would I do if they got sick? What would happen if there was an accident, a fall, a broken bone? If I banged hard on the locked door, would the despicable grandmother come running in response? There was notelephone in this room. If I cried out for help, who would hear me from this remote, forbidden wing?
While I stewed and fretted, Chris was up in the attic schoolroom, collecting an assortment of dusty, buggy books to bring down to the bedroom for us to read. We had brought along a checker board, and that’s what I wanted to do—not stick my nose in an old book.
“Here,” he said, thrusting an old book into my hands. He said he’d shaken it free of all bugs that might send me off into hysteria again. “Let’s save the checkers until later when the twins are awake. You know how you cut up when you lose.”
He settled down in a comfortable chair, flinging his leg across the fat, rounded chair arm, and opened up Tom Sawyer. I flung myself down on the only empty bed and began to read about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And, believe it or not, that day a door opened I hadn’t known existed before: a beautiful world when knighthood was in flower, and there was romantic love, and fair ladies were put on pedestals and worshipped from afar. A love affair with the medieval age began that day for me, one I was never to lose, for, after all, weren’t most ballets based on fairy tales? And weren’t all fairy tales written from folklore of medieval times?
I was the kind of child who’d always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and enchanted spells. I didn’t want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific
I ran to catch her up in my arms while she kicked and kept right on yelling. It was like holding a wildcat. Chris seized Cory, who ran to protect his twin. All we could do was put them down on one of the big beds, haul out their storybooks, and suggest naps. Teary and resentful, both twins glared up at us.
“Is it night already?” whimpered Carrie, gone hoarse from so many fruitless screams for freedom, and a mother who wouldn’t come. “I want my momma so bad. Why don’t she come?”
“Peter Rabbit,” I said, picking up Cory’s favorite storybook with colorful illustrations on every page, and this alone made Peter Rabbit a very good book. Bad books had no pictures. Carrie had a fondness for The Three Little Pigs, but Chris would have to read like Daddy used to, and huff and puff, and make his voice deep like the wolf’s. And I wasn’t sure he would.
“Please let Chris go up in the attic and find himself a book to read, and while he does that, I’ll read to you from Peter Rabbit. And let’s see if Peter will steal into the farmer’s garden tonight and eat his fill of carrots and cabbages. And if you fall asleep while I’m still reading, the story will end in your dreams.”
Maybe five minutes passed before both the twins were asleep. Cory clutched his storybook against his small chest to make the transportation of Peter Rabbit into his dreams as easy as possible. A soft, warm feeling swept over me, making my heart ache for little ones who really needed a grown-up mother, not one only twelve. I didn’t feel much different than I had at ten. If womanhood was just around the corner, it hadn’t reared its head to make me feel mature and capable. Thank God we weren’t going to be shut up here long, for what would I do if they got sick? What would happen if there was an accident, a fall, a broken bone? If I banged hard on the locked door, would the despicable grandmother come running in response? There was notelephone in this room. If I cried out for help, who would hear me from this remote, forbidden wing?
While I stewed and fretted, Chris was up in the attic schoolroom, collecting an assortment of dusty, buggy books to bring down to the bedroom for us to read. We had brought along a checker board, and that’s what I wanted to do—not stick my nose in an old book.
“Here,” he said, thrusting an old book into my hands. He said he’d shaken it free of all bugs that might send me off into hysteria again. “Let’s save the checkers until later when the twins are awake. You know how you cut up when you lose.”
He settled down in a comfortable chair, flinging his leg across the fat, rounded chair arm, and opened up Tom Sawyer. I flung myself down on the only empty bed and began to read about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And, believe it or not, that day a door opened I hadn’t known existed before: a beautiful world when knighthood was in flower, and there was romantic love, and fair ladies were put on pedestals and worshipped from afar. A love affair with the medieval age began that day for me, one I was never to lose, for, after all, weren’t most ballets based on fairy tales? And weren’t all fairy tales written from folklore of medieval times?
I was the kind of child who’d always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and enchanted spells. I didn’t want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific
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