Page 25 - Contrast1964Spring
P. 25
I
she Thle'd"rough ba rk .scratched at her hands as APPLES
apples 1t down. the gnarled trunk of the old
second re. e. "Sall y.'" Th eo call rang for the catching frogs and the rest of It in the apple
as her btime on the 'sn'11'au. The girl sighed
be Grand are feet. hiIt the ground. That would tree watching a bird. The screen door screech-
apples drunrai calltn g hIe'r to unch. After eatin g ed and closed with a bang behind her, stirring
tl.cularly uhnunng the morm.ng, she wasn't par- up a cloud of late-season flies.
old h . ungry, and she did hate that stuffy "That child is a strange one," the old
brownOhUs.e. She brus. hed a long strand of dark woman thought as she picked up the basket,
d.Ire on haei r ohutof he r eyes, gettin. g some black "never interested in doing what a girl should
do." She entered the house, closing the door
r c eek. with a qui et click. The flies settled down.
again to inspect thesqu ares made by the
tI.me"Saally!" G. randma ,.s VOIce was closer this screen.
waste,d suSraelSl gn th at no more n.rn e was to be
ground'd ly grabbed two apples from the Grandma found Sally in the ki.tx:hen eating
a cookie. "Sally, put that down. You can't
k et, and r:oPfPed them into the half-filled bas- eat cookies before lunch. Now, wash up."
n or the house .. Sally went to the sink and began to dampen
the dirt on her hands before wiping it off on a
Grandma Was " towel. ",And take that junk out of your pockets
the piCture of a _wattlng for her on the porch, before you'tear your jeans," her grandomther's
voice continued.
hair was f tIdy country woman. Her gray
haesatdenedand . i n a knot at the back of her The objects that made a noticeable bulge
in her back pocket were not junk to Sally. She
soiled by a whl.te apron, still neat although took them out carefully, one by one, and set
COtton houa mdomlng's labor, covered her faded them 'on the shelf above the sink. There was a
water-worn pebble, some dried snail shells,
se ress, and what appeared to be a dried worm. It was
only a small stick, but it looked like a worm,
"Where have you been, Child?" and Sally liked it. The objects were ~ut. of
"P' lcking appl es." place beside the china pitcher and drinking
glasses Grandma kept on the shelf. Sally
been"OAUret atlhlose al.l you could find? Why, you've slipped an old broken pocketknife ,,:,ith a
rusty blade back into her pocket, afraid her
mOrnIng. " grandmother would take it away from her.
" flOS-aUllrnY" mumd bled· somet h'Ing that sounded like "Come and eat your lunch, Child."
l eaVa.lnng started for. the door ' .leaving
dOOr, rh the
couldn't tell he; apples on the porch. She
spent mo f grandmother that she had
St 0 the morm.ng down. by the creek
