How Little Girl Found Summer

The gardens were clipped and mowed, with here and there a corner of deeper green left wild, as if for some animal to hide himself in, some hurt animal, some animal with a wounded paw or a tear in his hide. Trees were a fringe for the edge of the gardens; there were poplars to fringe it, growing tall and tangling in themselves. They were like lonely people, standing in a row with their arms crossed on their chests. Poor lonely things, Little Girl thought, because she was lonely herself and small-feeling, standing in the middle of this pool of green.

In one corner of the garden, an old woman was digging in one of the flower beds. The sun shone off her white hair piled in a fat pompadour and on her yellow dying skin. Her skirts were long and full and rattled when she moved. She was Little Girl’s grandmother, and Little Girl knew why she rattled.

Grandmother wore medals and saints-bones on a rope that the bishop had blessed. She tied them around her waist and let the ends dangle. Little Girl had never seen them. She mustn’t watch Grandma undress. Oh, no. But Mother said Grandma wore them and Mother knew, and Little Girl heard them rattle.

Beside Grandmother grew a tree. It was really The Tree, the only tree that mattered. Little Girl knew that. The green was deeper under it except where the sun got through and patterned the grass. This was the tree where the bird lived, the wonderful bird who was very old and always lived there and always would. He hadn’t come one day and built his nest and then gone away, the way birds will. He had always been there and would be there always too, Little Girl knew that, and yet he didn’t look old at all. He looked bright and full and red and saucy as ever. She could hear him croo-da-looing in the tree now, just as always, singing to himself, the selfish thing, because time had forgotten him and he could love himself.

The tree matched him. It was a saucy red tree. The leaves were red as himself. He could hide in the tree and mock everyone who came by, and they might even think it was the tree itself that crowed, croo-da-loo-da-loo. From the tree’s branches dangled fluffy yellow caterpillars for the bird to eat; dangling and twisting against the red leaves, they made a paisley pattern, yellow and reds, changing in the breeze.

A long time ago, her mother called her, “Little Girl—Little Girl,” and the garden faded and the bird did not sing. And Little Girl saw in the real, if not true, world around her that it was winter. She must go in. Mother need not call again. Her voice had gone deep inside Little Girl. One can’t stand forever in the middle of summer like a savage lost in a dream, staring into space, thinking not at all, but, if thinking, believing time forgot you, as it had the bird. No, Little Girl must drag her feet up the splintering wood steps and across the porch. She might see her blurred green image in the green door glass, but she must go in. Don’t stand there forever, one foot in summer and the other in—well, in.

She closed the door behind her. It was all quiet in the hall except for the big clock ticking. It was a grandfather clock, but it was Grandmother’s clock, too, and she mustn’t touch it. Grandmother was somewhere in the big quiet house, and she would know if Little Girl touched it. Her hands left marks. Whatever they touched, it didn’t shine any more, and the big thing in a house was to keep it all shining, like nobody lived in it. “Houses are jewel cases, and we’re the jewels in this one,” Grandmother said. In the hall it was winter. It was cold in the hall. The light was blue winter...