turned to sit at the table. There, as if it had appeared while my back was turned, was Grandma’s book. It reminded me that I’d never confessed snooping the day before, or told her how much the yellow bonnet story meant to me. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t mentioned it—perhaps because I was embarrassed about snooping, or maybe afraid she’d be angry. One thing I had learned on my childhood visits to the farm was not to touch her things.
Still, if the book were private, she wouldn’t leave it lying around. . . .
I subdued my conscience in a flash and opened the book with curiosity and a sense of anticipation, hoping to read the story about the yellow bonnets again.
But the pages of the story had been removed from the book as if they had never existed. Milk , bread , and oleo had replaced the words that had shown me children running through yellow fields.
“A shopping list,” I muttered, feeling strangely let down and even more guilty. My theory that Grandma had written the story for me to read was a wash. If it were for me, she wouldn’t have taken it out of the book and put it away.
The next page was blank except for dots of ink that had bled through from the page after. Turning the page, I found writing that quivered like Grandma’s hands.
“Time For Tending Roses,” I whispered and thought of the beautiful rose garden that bloomed on the lawn in summertime. It had been there for as long as I could remember, carefully manicured, every bloom perfect—just as perfect and neat as everything else in Grandma’s household.
I read the title again, then dove into the story with a strange hunger for the words.
When I was a young woman, I seldom owned anything of which to be proud. When I was old enough to work in a shop in St. Louis and live on my own, most of my wage was sent home to provide for my younger brothers and sisters, for my parents had not even their health by this time. When I was married, I came to my husband’s farm with all that I owned packed in a single crate. Everything I saw, or tasted, or touched around me belonged to my husband. I felt like the air in that big house, needed and used, but not seen.
God sent an answer to me in worship that spring, when an old woman told me she wanted the gardens cleaned around her house, and if I would do the work, I might have flower bulbs and starts of roses as my pay. My husband pretended to think the idea rather foolish, as I was needed on the farm, but he was patient with me as I worked through the early spring, cleaning gardens and moving starts to a newly tilled bed by our farmhouse. He was older than I, and I think he understood that I needed something of my own.
Those roses were the finest things I had been given in my life, and I tended them carefully all spring. As the days lengthened, the roses grew well and blossomed in the summer heat, as did I. Coming in and out of the house, I would look at them—something that belonged to me, growing in soil that belonged to him.
Even passing folk admired my roses, for my work made the blooms large and full. Once, a poor hired lady came with a bouquet of roses and wildflowers clasped in her hands. She told me that her children had sneaked into my garden and picked them for her, and that they would be punished. I bade her not to scold the children, for I was proud to give them this gift. She smiled, and thanked me, and told me that, with so many children, she had no time for tending roses.
I did not understand her words until my own children were born. When the first was a babe, I took her outside and let her play in an empty wash barrel so I could have time for tending my roses. I was often cross with her cries while I was at my work. As she grew, and as my second child was born, I understood what the hired lady had told me—that motherhood leaves no time for selfish pleasures. Only time for tending others.
My roses grew wild and died as I busied myself with feeding and diapering, nursery rhymes and
Still, if the book were private, she wouldn’t leave it lying around. . . .
I subdued my conscience in a flash and opened the book with curiosity and a sense of anticipation, hoping to read the story about the yellow bonnets again.
But the pages of the story had been removed from the book as if they had never existed. Milk , bread , and oleo had replaced the words that had shown me children running through yellow fields.
“A shopping list,” I muttered, feeling strangely let down and even more guilty. My theory that Grandma had written the story for me to read was a wash. If it were for me, she wouldn’t have taken it out of the book and put it away.
The next page was blank except for dots of ink that had bled through from the page after. Turning the page, I found writing that quivered like Grandma’s hands.
“Time For Tending Roses,” I whispered and thought of the beautiful rose garden that bloomed on the lawn in summertime. It had been there for as long as I could remember, carefully manicured, every bloom perfect—just as perfect and neat as everything else in Grandma’s household.
I read the title again, then dove into the story with a strange hunger for the words.
When I was a young woman, I seldom owned anything of which to be proud. When I was old enough to work in a shop in St. Louis and live on my own, most of my wage was sent home to provide for my younger brothers and sisters, for my parents had not even their health by this time. When I was married, I came to my husband’s farm with all that I owned packed in a single crate. Everything I saw, or tasted, or touched around me belonged to my husband. I felt like the air in that big house, needed and used, but not seen.
God sent an answer to me in worship that spring, when an old woman told me she wanted the gardens cleaned around her house, and if I would do the work, I might have flower bulbs and starts of roses as my pay. My husband pretended to think the idea rather foolish, as I was needed on the farm, but he was patient with me as I worked through the early spring, cleaning gardens and moving starts to a newly tilled bed by our farmhouse. He was older than I, and I think he understood that I needed something of my own.
Those roses were the finest things I had been given in my life, and I tended them carefully all spring. As the days lengthened, the roses grew well and blossomed in the summer heat, as did I. Coming in and out of the house, I would look at them—something that belonged to me, growing in soil that belonged to him.
Even passing folk admired my roses, for my work made the blooms large and full. Once, a poor hired lady came with a bouquet of roses and wildflowers clasped in her hands. She told me that her children had sneaked into my garden and picked them for her, and that they would be punished. I bade her not to scold the children, for I was proud to give them this gift. She smiled, and thanked me, and told me that, with so many children, she had no time for tending roses.
I did not understand her words until my own children were born. When the first was a babe, I took her outside and let her play in an empty wash barrel so I could have time for tending my roses. I was often cross with her cries while I was at my work. As she grew, and as my second child was born, I understood what the hired lady had told me—that motherhood leaves no time for selfish pleasures. Only time for tending others.
My roses grew wild and died as I busied myself with feeding and diapering, nursery rhymes and
Similar Books
