October 22, 1954
A L E M I T E
Page Five
**Going Home
»»
(Editor’s note; The following is a
portion of Maggi Blakeney’s prize
winning short story which won the
Katherine B. Rondthaler Award
for creative writing. The story
will be completed in future issues.
This, little ants, is my grand
mother’s back , yard and this is
my grandmother’s fig tree. She
wouldn’t like it if she knew you
were eating her figs, but I won’t
tell her, because you are my
friends. You may eat all those on
the ground, but I am going to eat
these on the tree. She wouldn’t
like it if she knew I was eating
her figs .either, so don’t you tell
on me. That’s silly. I know you
can’t anyway.
.Do you see all those people mill
ing around her house? Makes it
look like your ant hill, doesn’t it?
Only her house is bigger and has
yellow wooden walls, but people
are crawling up the steps and
down the steps with food in their
hands. They have been coming
and going there for two days.
Mama and Daddy arc there talking
to those people who come and go.
I am going home with them, be
cause my grandfather is dead.
People always expect you to be
sad when your grandfather dies,
but I am happy. I am going home.
It seems like a long time ago
that I came to live here. Here
with my grandmother and grand
father, that is. I came last Jan
uary, six months ago, three months
after Mama got- sick last fall.
Mama stayed at home, when she
first got sick, but she didn’t get
any better. At least that’s what
. Daddy said.
Dr. Mack came to see her every
other day. One day I stopped him
and asked when she would be well
“Peggy, your mother is very sick.
She may be sick for a long time,
but if she could rest for a while
she may be well in a few weeks.”
He took one of those things, like
a hose, you. know, and stuck the
two ends in his ears and listened
to my heart. “Inside there are
your two lungs. Everyone has
lungs. You have two very healthy
ones, but your mother’s lungs are
sick. When someone has sick
lungs, we call it T. B.”
He put his hose thing away then
told me my mother wanted to talk
to me. After Dr. Mack had left
Mama asked me if I would like to
live at my grandmother’s in Roper.
She said she had written to my
grandmother. I knew she had got
ten a letter from grandma the day
before, because I always took her
the mail. Usually I didn’t stay in
her room long, but that day she
let me stay and she even read me
the letter. She told me grandma
wanted me to stay with her
trees back of the house on the
farm when I was not in school, but
here I have to practice rny piano.
Daddy built me a play house in
the trees, with three windows and
a front porch. I took all my dolls
to live in the play house and used
mama’s broken dishes there. I
don’t have any dolls here because
I don’t have a play house to keep
them in. I asked for grand
mother’s broken dishes, but she
said, “I don’t want such mess clut
tering up my back yard.”
I rode the bus here all by my
self. People think I should be
afraid to ride the bus for three
hundred miles alone, but I have
made the trip ten times now.
That’s how old I am, ten. I saw
cousin John on the front porch
alone today and tried to tell him
about my birthday, but he didn’t
pay any attention to me. My
birthday was day before yesterday.
I guess he was sad because grand
father had died, but I am not. I
am going home—home.
When I first came to live here,
the i my grandmother let me play with
^Ye wish to thank Dr. Sandresky and Mr. Medlin for
their outstanding performance on the television program
observing the 101st anniversary of
1853—STEINWAY & SONS—1954
BLAND PIANO CO.
220 N. Main 2-4934
m
.0'
rest of the Winter and all the time
until she was well again. Mama
said grandma had so much more
money than we had.
“You will have such a nice school
to go to,” she said. She told me
about the girls I would have to
play with and about how much fun
she had when she lived there. She
said one day she slipped away from
home and went for a ride on the
mill pond in a row-boat. The boat
got stuck in the sand on the side
of the pond and she was almost
bitten by a snake, but she said it
was fun just the same.
I don’t think it has been much
the other girls in town, “kids,” she
calls them. I don’t like to be
called a “kid”, though. I don’t
think it sounds nice, do you ?
When I first came she let me play
and I was so pleased, but now she
won’t even let me play with Agnes.
I guess she won’t let me play
because I got sick one day when
I played with Agnes in the Epis
copal Church yard, just across the
street. It was hot that day and
Agnes and I ran all over the yard
playing tag, then for some reason
I was sick on my stomach that
night. I guess grandma thinks
every time I play I will get sick.
fun, though, little ants. My grand- j but I won t. At home I can play
mother won’t allow me near the : when I want to.
me near
mill pond and the only person I
can play with is Agnes. Agnes is
my best friend here. She lives up
could read stories together the street. It doesn t matter now.
again. “I want to talk to you.
Wait for me in the living room”
he sort of snorts when he talks,
you know.
I waited and waited, then he
came back. “All right, Peggy, let’s
have that talk,” he snorted again
through his big red nose.
We pulled the big green chair
over to the window. At home all
the windows in the living room
because Mama is here, well, and
I am going home—going home.
Grandma made me take piano
lessons too. I had to come home
every day after school and practice
for an hour. I am .glad we don’t
have a piano at home.
I have tried very hard to do the
Do you know it takes all day to j things my grandmother wants me
go from my house on the farm to to do, but I always make mistakes
this house in Roper ? Roper is ! The other day I showed some of
-three hundred miles from the farm, j my grandmother’s visitors my new
grand-i music. Grandmother
Here where we are my
mother calls “Eastern Carolina ,
and the farm she says is in the
“Piedmont Section”.
I like the farm, because I could
come down to the floor. I sat I ^^^crald play in the ^ my showing them my music.
called me
into the dining room that night
before I went to bed. She started
in her usual way—“I don’t mean
to criticize, but—”, and she went
on and said there was no need of
BOTTLED UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY BY
WINSTON COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO.
"Coke" is a registered trade mark.
I 1953, THE COCA-COLA COMPANY
the arm of the chair and he said.
.AND HOW IT STARTED
Douglas Leigh says: “After leaving
the University of Florida (where I’d
sold yearbook ads), I had big, crazy
ideas about making new kinds of
spectacular displays. So I bought a
Brownie and went to New York to
photograph rooftops. My first sign was
a huge, steaming coffee cup on
Broadway. At age 23 I was starting
to learn an exciting business!”
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