Digging In the Dirt

Memoir 1943

  My little sister and I are each sitting on our twin bed with the white chenille bedspreads in our small room. And there is a toy puppy with a floppy tail on the bureau and a pile of blocks on my bed. I wasn’t yet big enough to go to school.  I am listening to daddy and mommy fighting in the room right next store, it must have been the living room.  Mother’s voice was wailing and strong and it went on and on. Then I remember daddy’s voice that I’ll always remember. It was a hoarse and crumbly voice that sounded like crying: “You’re turning my girls against me. Please don’t turn my girls against me.” I felt amazed to hear that voice and those words and I felt like a balloon getting swollen, bigger and bigger, inflating with feelings of anger.  I told my sister what was going on. She didn’t seem to understand. I felt heartbroken and strong at the same time. I won’t let her hurt my daddy. I am strong. I won’t let her.”

1944

   We were digging in the dirt, and it was gray, not dark and rich but thin and gray, dry and tightly packed, with a dull silver spoon from mommy’s kitchen draw. Three of us, Dorothea Abrew, who said she lived next door from me, and my little sister Carol, and I was the one digging with the spoon. I didn’t want them to have a turn. I didn’t want to turn it over to one of them, and the earth was unyielding but I didn’t care, I liked digging, mostly I liked the fact that this girl was my new friend, I had never had a friend before. She said she actually lived next door! I must’ve been about four. We three didn’t look at each other as we talked but simply at that homely spoon, and homely earth, and the intensity of my concentration to conquer that unyielding earthwith my small spoon. What we did was listen to what Dorothea said, and I believed her when she said again that she lived next door.

The world opens with a metal spoon scraping and hacking in the dry earth, and six eyes upon it, while precious information from Dorothea poured out. Four years old! She was four years old and not only lived right next door but was the same age as me. Four! Actually, believably, and lived right next door. We were digging in a neighbor’s yard across from my house, off a small bit of dead end street called Newell Terrace. There were only a couple of cars parked on it, so our parents didn’t worry. They were letting us stay out for a magically long time. Dorothea did a lot of talking and I wasn’t shy either. I don’t remember if my little sister said very much, I didn’t pay her much attention. It was a simple and marvelous situation, just keep talking and listening, while not having to look each other in the eye. That was the big deal! Just keep the eye on the spoon.

Dorothea didn’t have a little sister, she said she was “an only child”, that was a novel notion to me. I told her we just moved here from my grandmother’s house far away. We got here to our new house by carrying suitcases on a subway train and on a bus. Dad called our names for supper and Carol ran but I didn’t. I just stayed with Dorothea. She said she was\ Portugese and what was I? I said I didn’t know what she meant and she laughed a mocking laugh at me. I felt small and wished my little sister hadn’t gone inside. Dorothea said “let’s play a game” and took me into her back yard right next to mine and took me behind her garage. Her brown eyes flashed like Nana’s chocolate meatball patties in the pan and her white teeth flashed a smile with two teeth missing and she lifted her red dress and pulled down her pants and crouched and said  “watch me!”. She peed, yellow water splattering on hers and my shoes and the curled up autumn leaves and on all the weeds. I squatted down and did the same. Some of my own pee missed the ground and got on my jumper and on the ground and on me and she giggled and said “don’t tell my mother” and then I got what this was about and giggled too. Then daddy called again and I said goodby and bolted to my house next store and flung open the door.

1945

   My first day of first grade is rows of tiny chairs and tiny desks just my right size, each with an empty hole called an ink- well which we never use. I figure that must have been used in the old days. The desks are in neat rows like pork sausages at Allie’s Supermarket. I choose a desk and chair near the front since I want to sit near the “Sister “, Sister what’s-her-name-since in first and second grade I don’t remember their names, I want her to get to know me, so she’ll get to be my friend. She wears a long black gown, and black cloak over her head cascading down her shoulders, with starched white cloth framing her face and a starched white bib over her chest like a baby would use when eating messy food. A large silver cross I’d learn to call a crucifix hangs way down and onto her black gown.

I sit behind a boy but can’t see his face yet. I wear a red-plaid dress with ruffles at the hem this first day of school. I wear that dress almost every day because mommy doesn’t get to go to Filene’s basement very often. Mother thinks it is a beautiful dress and I think it must be because she has good taste in fashion. At times it smells funky because mommy doesn’t get to do the laundry often. I hear two children crying in the back of the room and clinging to their mothers. My mommy has left and I feel the wonder of being brave because I figure they have been to kindergarten the year before and by now should be used to school without their mothers. Mommy and I visited the kindergarten the year before, saw a smiling lady who was the teacher watching over children with small blunt scissors cutting out shapes like squares and circles, and their colorful drawings, reds and purples, were strewn over the walls of the room. They too were smiling, and murmuring to each other. But mommy got scared that I might bring home germs to her and my little Sister, and they allowed me to skip a year and just go to first grade instead. So I am younger than the rest of the children in the class. And here I am.

Then something happens. A boy in the front seat turns around and speaks to me. His blue eyes are so alive I have to look away, then rush back to glimpse them again. He says his name “John Doherty” and he doesn’t remember knowing me from kindergarten. I tell him I didn’t go to kindergarten, this is my first time in school. His white teeth smile. I am spellbound, that he is a he, like a little daddy, a little rough, different than me.  But he has blue eyes and my daddy’s are brown. Did I see that color before?  Yes he has blue eyes like my Aunt Pet and Uncle Jim Coyne. His hair is thick, dark, and curly, not like mine, straight and thin. I notice how white his skin is, unlike mine that is Italian. He wears a white shirt and long pants like my daddy wears to church. It is that he is a boy, I havn’t known any boy before, he like a small daddy. I say something back, like my name is Donna, and did his mother take him to school, and “what is the Sister’s name?” and something about the children who are crying in the back of the room.  Suddenly I hear the sister yell “You!” “Stand! How dare you? Stand!” “YOU!”  What does she mean? Who does she mean? Does she mean ME? I don’t dare turn around to see if it was someone else. I don’t dare turn my head and face the class to see if it is me or someone else she is yelling at! “If you are so bold as to sit and speak then stand and speak! YOU!”  I rise. I feel others’ eyes upon me. I feel my face burn like the burning coals in daddy’s furnace window. “What is your name?” I go blank. Then I say “Donna”. “Donna! Donna? Your whole name! My mind goes blank like it does when I am afraid.  “Donna, “Donna Marie”  (my middle name). “YOUR LAST NAME!” In the excitement I forgot. I only know that boy is looking at me, and the other children are looking at my ugliness because what could being scared look like but ugliness. Or stupidness maybe?

If only mommy would have come with little Carol in the stroller to take me home the first weeks of school! I feel blind as I can’t find the way to go and there is no one to show me. In Cambridge Massachusetts there is Huron Avene and Concord Avenue and Sherman Street and Upland Road and finally Newell Terrace to walk in order to get home. I finally learn that after going down down those high steps to the schoolyard if I followed a string of kids I would cross at a busy corner with canary yellow buses and black trucks with black smoke rushing by. On the other side there would be a drugstore on the corner with a huge picture of a giant scoop of white vanilla ice cream melting down onto a gold-colored ice cream cone painted on the window. That was a first step. There were a bunch of signs and arrows at that point. I couldn’t read signs yet and even if I could they wouldn’t make sense since all my life I don’t have a sense of direction. By then the other children were gone. Back then when I couldn’t find my way I simply decided I was dumb. If I managed to stumble my way through a maize of streets to a wide wide street called Sherman St that had four streets running into it I knew I was halfway home. There was a trusty fire station a little ways down on the other side, with siren red engines squat and short and ladders hanging out the back and sometimes they would rush past with fire bells loudly clanging. Sherman street was so wide and so busy that you had to run out and race back and dodge and dart your way across.  Sherman St was like a wide wide stormy lake with huge waves you have to cross without knowing how to swim. After that I am closer to home. Then it is straight down Upland Rd. past the green and white garages until I turn at a corner where there is a huge yellow house and you turn onto Newell Terrace and home to mommy and Carol. They are usually asleep in the afternoon but the door is open.

    It’s towards the end of the year of first grade. I’m sitting in the dumb row, the last row next to the huge high windows where I peek up at the beckoning clouds day dreaming about snowstorms so huge you don’t have to go to school. But I don’t dare look often or Sister will catch me doing that and yell.  She often adjusts the shades, raising or lowering them with a tall pole, and when her robes brush against my hair or arm or shoulder I feel strange. I hear my Mommy’s voice as she enters the room and Sister hurries to meet her. They murmur a while and Sister must have told her I’m in the lowest reading group, because of a sudden Mommy’s voice begins to wail!  Her wail carries to me across the classroom for all the class to hear. And somehow I know that they all know that she is my mother. Where to flee, how to disappear? I steal a look at the children sitting in the other rows that compose the higher reading groups. I can’t see the look on their faces, it is all a blur. I want to hide in the closet in the back of the room where we hang our coats and hats on the hooks, where the doors can fold and close and it would be dark and safe in there. You can smell the mop the janitor dipped in the bucket of soapy water and you can smell the floor polish that creates a rush to the nose of a five year old.

    At last it is summer and school is out.  On the 4th of July Daddy takes me to the celebration in the park. We watch the doll parade.  I didn’t like dolls but I am jealous of the girls whose mothers decorated their doll carriages with blue and red ribbons and white streamers like the streamers that were tied on that shiny blue car when my  cousin and her husband Bobby got married.  And the girls use real baby clothes to dress up their baby dolls. These girls are a whole other world than me. They wear dresses with ruffles and frills and hold their mothers’ hands. Dad bought me an orange popsicle, sweet and sticky. Some big boys bang drums and blow trumpets. There are huge balloons and some running races.

The races start off with little kids my age, four and five. Daddy says why not try? I figure I don’t have to follow complicated directions. I only have to do one thing, run fast when the gun makes a bang sound. Like daddy said: why not try? All I know is that it feels good to run, to run fast, past the other girls, as  fast as I can, and then it is over and Daddy is grinning and tells me I have won. I am so happy I don’t notice the prizes they are handing out. I only feel good watching daddy’s wide smiles, “Good for you, Charlie! You were the fastest! “

Daddy calls me by that nickname, he calls me that when he is happy. I feel filled with pride, I am high, I am the best, wait until we tell Mommy!. We walk together swelled with pride. We are walking home and daddy shows me the prize I have won. It is a nightgown too big for me, but Daddy says it could be for Mommy. I know that she won’t like it. But so what, we will tell her our news, that I had won! When we open the door to the kitchen you can tell mother was boiling hot. Daddy had forgotten to do something, or something had broken, I don’t know what. She starts yelling, daddy yells louder “Your oldest daughter, guess what your oldest daughter has done. She won a race. She won the race!” There is still proudness in his face but it is going away, and he begins to speak softer. “You should have seen her run.” I feel confused and say “We brought my prize home to you.” I try to tell her but she raises her voice louder, says the night gown is junk, she  throws it on the floor and continus to yell even louder. I feel like I was one of those fourth of July balloons that had been pricked by those sharp knives in the kitchen draw daddy told us not to use. I feel confused, about how excited daddy and I had been, and like my mother was a wicked witch and I wished she were the one down deep in the dirt in the dark cemetery where dead people were.

     Here by the end of first grade I’m beginning to learn about God and Jesus and May! God lives up above the clouds in heaven and is the head of everything. Jesus is his son and is also the head of everything. Mary is his mother. I’m not clear if she was married to God. But God, Jesus and Mary love me very much. They know everything I’m thinking and doing. They look out for me. And love me very much!  And that is the beginning of something big.

1946     

    First day of second grade turns out to be as scary as first grade was on the very first day. It is like one of my bad dreams at night when I wake and want to run to Mommy’s bed but I can’t because she’s not friendly and tells me to go back to my bed, and I do but I’m still scared and stay awake all the dark night until light in the morning. We are all lined up two by two walking down the hall to the new room and then we sit down at the desks and a new Sister calls each of our names and tells each of us to raise our hand when she does that. When she says Donna O’Connell I raise my hand and she yells “YOU. Go over there!”  and she points to the next room where the door is closed. She looks angry to me. I am frozen. “YOU! Go over there!!” How come I have to go to that new room, that new class? Nobody else is going. Because I am ugly, because I am frightened? That door is shut. Can I open it? Everyone can see. John Doherty can see me. Who will the other sister in the other room be?  In my bones I know I am frightened, I am ugly. How do I get to the lavatory? I don’t know how to get there. Big kids always have to show me, I can’t even find my own way. What is wrong with me? I open the door to the new classroom. I don’t look around at the other kids. I sit in a chair at the back of the room. The new sister has a fat face with fat cheeks like the squirrel mother feeds bread to in the yard. I don’t know if the new sister knows I am here. Where is the lavatory? The new sister hands out some books. Has she looked at me? I have to pee badly. I don’t say a word, I don’t know if she knows I’m in the room. I want to run home. I have to pee badly. Water the color of sun in early morning creeps from under my desk and spreads over the floor to under the seat one of the kids is sitting in.

    Sometimes in the early mornings when light doesn’t make the kitchen bright yet but I can see the red curtains with white tassels hanging down from the window I am happy. My little sister is still asleep and doesn’t pester my mommy and me. I sit on mommy’s knee and she reads to me one of her long long poems that rhyme. Her nose and my nose can smell the steam from her cup of Lipton tea and I can still smell the cream she messes over her face before she goes to bed at night. It smells a little like oatmeal and a little like flowers, it smells pretty. When my nightie is all wrinkled up our knees touch each other under her velvety bathrobe that is blue like the blue of the robin’ eggs in my picture book. But once I looked real close at mommy’s knees and they seemed to have tiny pimples on them but my knees didn’t. She said that was because she was older than me. I liked my smooth knee better. She also reads me what the editors of the children’s magazines say when they scribble on a poem that they send back to her. When her poems are published there are wonderful pictures in the magazines to go with her poems. Sometimes I draw my own pictures if I like the poem a lot.  “The Wedding of Salt and Pepper” is one of them: “The salt and pepper one midsummer day, had fallen in love and were spooning away”. “You’re the salt of the earth” Pepper cooed in her ear, and salt, blushing, replied “You’re so strong Pepper dear” and on and on. I draw a salt shaker and a pepper shaker with faces on them and mother sent them in to the editors. Mother shows me words one editor scribbles to another editor that she didn’t think a child of five could draw like that. She seemed to like what the editor said so I felt proud that I must be a good drawer. I felt happy that mommy would be in such a happy mood about me. Mommy’s voice is calm, calm as the blue sky. So am I.

     One Friday the Sister tells us that in the afternoon we are going to have an art lesson. I am so excited I can hardly wait. The time drags by until 2 o’clock near the end of the day. She tells us to take out our crayons and she tapes a picture of a brick building on the blackboard and tells us to draw it. My picture is a gingerbread house like in Hansel and Gretel, but I like mine even better than in the book daddy read me. I take my time to put everything in it: the roof packed with yellow gumdrops, the house with white icicles on it, and the door with red and purple and blue and yellow lollipops crowded together. I’m the last one to finish, they wait for me and I hold it up for her to see. Suddenly she flies off the handle, her face becomes crooked like the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel, and she rushes at me, her veil puffed up behind her like black smoke, holds it up to the class and yells “This is what happens when you disobey what I say” and she grabs it and rips it to pieces with a loud tearing sound. I am a tiny bug she squishes with her thumb. I am icky.

   It was on a snow day, the joy of no school. The stuff was deep and thick, just right for a fort though daddy was not there to help us to build it. We were full of joy and kept asking mommy when we could go out and play. Mommy said no, we needed to stay in our room and play while she practiced piano. As the day wore on we pestered her about it, but she kept on playing the piano on and on. We whined and asked and asked, then began to fight with each other, we became a pain, a thorn in mommy’s behind. She doesn’t respond, she needs to practice some more. She moans about how unlucky she is to have children like us. The day is long, the sun is warm out there and calls to us. We are cooped up, we fight, we hate each other, we whine and beg to be able to go out and make snowballs, but she doesn’t say yes. Instead she stops playing the piano and says in a spooky quiet voice that her mother (our nana) used to tell her and her sisters and brothers “it’s better to raise pigs than children, you can kill them and eat the pork chops!” I didn’t believe my nana said that, I was horrified and wanted to cry, but I just cried inside. Then we got quiet and went to our room. We didn’t fight. We just stayed quiet, it seemed for a long time.  In the afternoon Mommy tells us she is taking us shopping to the market. She bundles us up with itchy leggings, itchy scarf, and coats and hats and her own red mittens that are way too big. She takes out the yellow sled with a red arrow painted on it and ties a rope to it, she sits little Carol on the sled, and pulls it along. Carol makes jolly sounds like a baby does. After we cross Sherman Street and are near the market mommy becomes happy and starts to have fun in the snow and the sun with Carol. She pulls the sled very slow and suddenly yanks it fast and she and Carol laugh with each other. She becomes like a little kid, having fun in the snow and the sun. They glide and they smile. I follow behind. She acts silly and laughs so hard I’m afraid someone will know she’s my mother. We are almost at the market. We stop to cross the street and something awful happens to mommy! A huge glop of water on the top of her huge nose becomes larger and larger, her nose that’s like the baby elephant Ella’s trunk in the circus poem that mother got published in Scholastics Magazine. Her Italian nose that mother says she hates. And people walking by can see it. I’m afraid that glop is going to drop down on her coat and on me ‘cause I’m close to her face now, but I look up at her and I yell that she’s a horrible mother! I yell that she should wipe her nose, that everyone is looking at her and laughing. I yell that she didn’t let us go out all day and that Dorothea was waiting outside for me to play. I don’t remember what mommy said except that I felt so angry that I felt stronger and bigger than her. I felt like a monster that was bigger than her. I wasn’t afraid.  Then she yelled that she didn’t want anyone to know I was her child, she was ashamed I was her child so I had to wait outside while she and Carol went inside to Hunter’s Market.

    I stay outside and wish that my Mommy would die. I thought about how she said our Nana wished we were little pigs so she could cook us and eat us. I felt horrible for the little pigs and horrible for us. I felt afraid.  How my Nana said that. My Nana didn’t say that.  I couldn’t go out to play. And then Mommy played with little Carol and they left me behind them. And the biggest thing was that glop on Mommy’s elephant nose almost fell on my face. And people could know us and could see us. I wished my mommy would die and my Daddy could take care of us day and night. And I thought a lot about that.

    I keep learning about God and Jesus and Mary. If I obey the Sister and don’t talk to the other kids in school, if I don’t hit Carol or yell back at mommy when she yells at me or don’t tell a lie or disobey Daddy, some day I’ll be able to fly up above the clouds to Heaven where they all live. It won’t be like in school where I don’t have friends.  I’ll have loads of friends who are angels with gigantic wings. It won’t be like in school when I’m afraid and don’t make friends. Mary and Jesus have a magic light, a halo around their heads. They visit me at night when I wake up and don’t go back to sleep. I can’t see them but they are there.  If I die when I am bad I’ll live in Hell where there’s a terrible fire that burns day and night. It’ll crackle my skin but my skin won’t burn off, my skin will just crackle forever. But I’m going to receive Holy Communion soon. Then I won’t go to Hell. I’ll wear a long white veil that Aunt Edna sent me. It has circles of pearls for my head and she says it will be prettier than the veils the other girls wear. I’m wearing Dorothea’s Baby Jane black shiny shoes she wore for Holy Communion last year.  And white socks with ruffles. Mommy bought me a white organdy dress from Filene’s Basement. Daddy says it is like a princess dress. The veil and dress are white because I’m getting married to Jesus. I will kneel at the altar and Father O’ Brian will put the host on my tongue. The host is a kind of bread Father blesses so I won’t go to Hell. I will just kneel there and let it melt. I can hardly wait.

    Mommy finishes teaching her piano pupils so she can make supper. Little Carol and I are waiting for Daddy to get home from work so he  can tell us stories about Cowboy Johnny before Mommy  fills our plates with beef stew she cooks until the juice goes away and it gets thick and mushy. I eat enormous plates of food no matter how Mommy cooks it. Everybody says I eat as much as Daddy. And that’s as much as a barrel.  Carol holds her Teddy Bear close to her chest and chatters about him having a runny nose and taking a nap while she was at kindergarten. Now Daddy opens the door and throws his arms around us. At last he’s here and we are sitting on his knees and he jiggles them up and down as the horsey trots along. Daddy makes a clicking sound with his mouth and with his teeth to mean the horsy is trotting. He tells us how cowboy Johnny is making a long trip and is hungry and can’t wait to eat when he gets home sweet home to his cabin. Cowboy Johnny is cold because he forgot to pack his cowboy hat but anyhow he just sings a song as he trots along. Now finally he’s home and nice and warm. And now it’s time for our supper and I can eat a barrel of food.

    I have to go to confession today before I go get my First Holy Communion tomorrow. It is sort of fun. We go to church and we each take a turn going into the confession box. There is a tiny room with a curtain over it.  I move the curtain and kneel down on a cushion. I make the sign of the cross the Sister taught us, and wait for the priest to open the screen in his private hideout room. Then it’s time to say “Bless me Father for I have sinned.” Then I tell that sin and how many times. I tell the father I shouted back at my mother 5 times. That one time I was angry and wished that my mother would die. That I teased my sister 3 times and made her cry. That I told my daddy a lie one time. He asked what and I simply said that I lied and told daddy I did not go out on the street to pat the pony that pulled the ice cream cart. But I did. When the pony cart stopped and the pony man pulled the bell, I tried not to run across but I did. I didn’t have a nickel to buy a fudgicle but I gave the pony some quick pats on its neck then ran back across the street to daddy who I heard calling me for supper. 

   Today is Holy Communion Day. It is not a good day because I believe I do not have a Holy Communion dress as pretty as the other girls wear. Mother is a bad mother. She should have used some of the money from her piano pupils she teaches music to and bought me a prettier dress.  Daddy’s money that he makes at the factory at Raytheon is a small amount and Daddy works hard and can’t spare a dime. I’m kneeling at the altar and Father O’ Brian is wearing his long white robe and mumbles prayers to each girl and boy when he puts the host on our tongues. The host is a miracle. Something you don’t understand but it is good. It’s a round very thin thing that when you take it on your tongue and let it melt you don’t have to worry about hell. It’s as simple as that. It’s a kind of bread and it is Jesus. I don’t understand that. But I believe the Sister and Father O’ Brian are right. Somehow they are right. Now he puts it on my tongue and my tongue wiggles it a bit so I can see what it tastes like. It tastes good on my tongue, not as delicious as Nana’s spaghetti and meatballs but it’s like it would be yummy to eat.  I shouldn’t chew it or swallow it. I don’t do anything else to it. I just let it melt on my tongue. Now I am holy like an angel. I will not go to hell. And Jesus loves me.  And that is bigger than anything else, anything else. This confession and communion thing is fun. Go to Confession and Holy Communion and if you get run over by a car your guardian angel will fly you up above the stars to where Jesus and his mother Mary are. But of course I don’t want to die.

    In this second grade I am reading my book about Dick and Jane and their little sister Sally and Spot their dog and Puff their cat and their mother and father who all live in a big house. Jane and her baby sister have yellow hair and her mother and father’s and brother’s hair is brown. Jane runs and plays. She tells Spot their little dog to “go Spot go!” Puff is their cat. It is huge and orange and runs and plays. “Run, Puff, run!” Jane looks the same age as me. I wish I had a brother like Dick instead of a girl sister like Carol. If he was real and not just a boy in a book he would let me ride his bicycle.

     Then in the middle of the year I get sick with whooping cough and have to stay home from school, just Mommy and me. I lie on the couch with a blanket Mommy tucks around my hot body because I have fever and chills and she gives me cough medicine over and over because my throat hurts and my throat is so dry and my chest hurts but I don’t cry. She plays the piano and I listen to her music pieces and it sometimes feels good to be sick and keep Mommy company.  Daddy buys me tinker toys to build buildings with. Mommy also visits me and my tinker toys while I’m in bed to take my temperature and bring me warm chicken soup with pastina in it and the soup spills onto my tray but that’s ok with Mommy.

    I remember when I go back to school something is different in my reading group, I keep getting ahead of the other kids and it’s hard to wait until they catch up. The Sister raises her voice and tells me to pay attention. I keep getting in trouble for this. Sister then puts me in a higher group. Now I can read faster just like the children in my new reading group.  

    Towards the end of the year the Sister tells us she has an important  announcement to make and we should all sit up straight in our seats and fold our hands on the desk. She says two of the children have won a prize for the biggest improvement in reading, and that prize is that they are invited to visit the convent and choose a kitten from a litter of kittens that have been born in the convent where the Sisters live. Those two children are Donna O’Connell and Joan Cosgrove! I don’t understand right away what she says, I don’t believe it can be true. I don’t know Joan Cosgrove very well except that she seems richer than me, like she has different clothes than me. I am shy with her.   She is tall with yellow hair. The school bell rings and school is over. I run home to tell Daddy and Mommy the news! On Saturday I wear my best red plaid dress that mommy irons, she doesn’t iron unless it’s special like a wake she’s going to. Daddy and I drive to St. Pater’s convent where the Sisters live when they are not at school. He drives me to the convent so I can choose a prize kitten I have won. I am so excited that my tummy feels funny, like it’s mixed up in there. The rooms of the Sisters’ home are like a castle, they are huge and I have to put my head way back to see the ceiling. The walls are all shiny brown wood. The Sisters walk by and a Sister smiles at me and says I must be a smart girl to win a prize in reading. Did a Sister say that to me? To me? Smart? Joan and her mother and father are there and Joan’s mother wears a special fur coat that Daddy later tells Mommy was a mink coat. Joan smiles at me, I think we are friends at this special moment. Then the Sister of my grade comes and looks glad to see us and says hello to us and leads us to the big kitchen where a gigantic gray cat that has stripes like a tiger runs past us out of the room, and we all see a large box with kittens in it. There are five kittens all curled up and wiggling. Some are fat and some are skinny: a tiger kitten with a bright gray nose like the special gray marble Dorothea and I always try to win, and three that have black and white spots and one that is bigger than the others: it is orange as the frozen orange juice that Mommy makes in the morning when she is in a smiley mood. It is a boy cat. It looks exactly like Puff in my Dick and Jane reader! I am so afraid that Joan will choose it that my heart is beating fast and I bend down and grab it, even though I was afraid the Sister would tell me to stop. I grab it and hug it to my chest! Its eyes are green as our lawn that Daddy doesn’t mow even when mommy yells at him to mow it. It opens its mouth and there’s a pink cave inside with a pink tongue covered with goose bumps and it bites my finger – ow! –sharp teeth like Mommy’s sewing needles, and then it makes a rumbly sound like Daddy’s coal furnace. The sister says it is purring and that means it is happy! No one tells me to put it down, the Sister and Daddy are smiling, I don’t look at anyone else.  I just say “it’s name is Puff”, and I hurry out the door and daddy follows and we drive home. Daddy keeps smiling and calling me Charlie. I am the happiest in my whole life.