Ever since our youngest reached the age of five last March, the word "baby" has been taboo. The two young men of the household expect to be considered "men folks" and we have become accustomed to have them act independent and self reliant, to spend more hours out of doors with Daddy than in the house with Mother.
But the last few days there have been a reversion to baby days for all of us, for we have a blonde and chubby three-year-old girl cousin visiting us. In spite of their men's style overalls and blue chambray shirts and other accoutrements of manhood, the boys have been delighted in playing with Paula Jean, no matter how childish the game she wants to play. Mud pies, building blocks, hide and seek – anything is all right when they have the joy of an extra playmate. Margie Ruth associates with them with the amused attitude of an elderly relative, but she has not lost her sense of superiority. Mainly, she spends the hours with Peejee's mother and me. She did condescend to play in the water with them, when on a hot sunny day they dressed in bathing suits and overalls, and splashed water on each other as long as they all liked. (Even quite large girls go to the beach, you know.)
Brings Forth a Thrill
But the most interesting episode of the visit has to do with the losing of a white shoe. That brought us one of the mild but satisfying thrills that are so characteristic of our quiet country life. The boys had taken Paula up to the barn to see the Guernsey, but they went first to the house to see Grandma (probably because light refreshments may usually be expected to be served). When they started to the barn, Grandma told them that if one of them would come back to the house before they went home she would have a little surprise package for them. Brother and Paula sent Sonny back for the package and they rolled under a fence and scampered across the small corn patch to take a shortcut home and surprise him. But misfortune dogged their footsteps in that cornfield; Paula lost one little white shoe, and search as they might they could not find it. They reached home hot, sweaty and discouraged – the little one sobbing because the ground hurt her foot, and brother leading her tenderly by the hand. "We couldn't find the shoe but we took off the stocking so it wouldn't get dirty," he announced. Just about the time they finished telling the story of their mishap, sunny boy arrived serene and beaming. He had taken time to visit with grandma and get scrubbed clean and shining had walked happily home by way of the road, so overflowing with pleasure in the surprise he carried that he had not thought of the two had run ahead to tease him.
The appearance of the surprise put an end to the sobs. By the time Paula and Brother were washed up, Sonny had opened up the brown paper sack and had laid out in a row four identical round packages, wrapped in wax paper with a perky little twist for fastening: one for Ruth, one for Wilbert, one for Sonny, and one for Paula. In each round package was found a chocolate iced chocolate cupcake, and a handful of little square pink and white mints.
Everybody in Good Humor
There was so much pleasure and counting the candies in admiring the cakes and eating them, that everybody was in the happiest of humor, and someone suggested that there would still be time before the men came to supper for all of us to go hunting for the little white shoe.
So away we went. Just a few rods up the road was the corner of the corn patch with a very convenient break between hedge and fence for us to climb through. We couldn't roll under and meet thunder for the fence went smack to the ground. We couldn't climb over and meet clover for there was barbed wire on top. But there was just a nice place to crawl through and meet dew, so that's the way we went. And every single person could get through all alone without a bit of help. The minute we left the fence and struck out diagonally through the field, our little adventure began. There was not that anything in particular happened, but that we stepped out of the common place into a fairy world.
Visited Fairyland
How cool and green it was in there among the tall stocks, and how remote we seemed from the land of every day. The friendly golden tassels nodded to us when we looked up at the sunny blue sky, and the lone green leaves rustled in a gentle welcome. You could not see the road nor the house nor the barn, yet how safe and contented we felt. The cool earth underfoot was so comforting in the stalks of corn were not crowded and close as they always look from the house, but spread apart in cool and generous spaces like a forest. And every few hills we would come across an enormous pumpkin vine, rich, dark green, with leaves, like elephant ears and golden blooms eight inches across. It gave us the thrill that Alice in Wonderland must've had when she drank of the bottle that made her tiny. We wondered among the crisp stalks along time with the children turning up to us, beaming faces, and squeezing our hands with their little moist ones, and drawing sharp, ecstatic breaths, like they do when they swing so high that they touch the branches, or when they side down an extra long bump-the-bumps.
And when it was time to come home and get supper we wondered leisurely back again, crawled through and met dew, petted the dogs who were barking madly with joy at our return, and stretched out on rugs and couches in the cold, dark living room as tired as if we had really been somewhere. Little simple pleasures makes such big memories! Our little adventure brought back to me so sharply similar days, we children spent with our Mother on long hikes through the Hickory grows and oak woods long ago. But we never did find the little white shoe! – Hope.