Read Online The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer - Free Book Online
Authors: Louise Shaffer
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something called polite society because they had Sinned.
They were polar opposites, she and Lottie. She was a steady child, smart but not brilliant and not given to quick emotions. Lottie was all speed and fire. She learned fast, got bored easily, and reacted viscerally.
When an early hurricane uprooted an old Douglas fir tree and knocked it across the driveway, the workmen who were clearing it up found a nest of orphaned baby squirrels in the trunk. Pink-skinned, hairless, with eyes still closed, they were too young to survive without a mother. Ralph was going to take them to the spring and drown them, but Lottie couldn’t bear it. She wept so hard, begging him to let her have them, swearing that she and Maggie could take care of them, that he finally gave in. Maggie looked on, knowing the enterprise was doomed. But she helped Lottie wrap the little creatures in towels to simulate the nest they had come from and heated milk to feed them from an eyedropper. For three terrible days they tried to force milk and sugar water down the throats of the baby squirrels. Maggie watched Lottie stroke the little bodies, fighting to keep them alive through sheer force of will. There was something almost cruel in Lottie’s determination, and it was a relief when one by one the poor little things died. As they buried the last one, Lottie whispered, “All I wanted to do was save them. Why couldn’t we?” Maggie started to say, Because they were too little, and we never should have tried. But Lottie’s eyes looked so tragic that she said, “We didn’t know enough. Next time we’ll know more, and we’ll do it right.”
The next day Lottie said, as if they had just been talking about it, “That’d be the best thing in the world, wouldn’t it? Knowing how to make something keep on living.”
And for the first time since they buried the baby squirrels, Lottie smiled the big joyful smile that lit up her face. Sometimes Maggie thought everything that happened afterward had stemmed from that moment. And moments like it.
T HE CAKE PANS WERE GREASED AND FLOURED . Maggie grasped the bowl of cake batter and began pouring it into the pans, dividing the batter evenly without having to measure it. These days, because of her arthritis, she used an aluminum bowl; the old ceramic ones she loved were too heavy for her to lift off the shelf. So she was stuck with this metal thing that reminded her of the sick pans in hospitals. She finished pouring, tapped the pans gently to get rid of the air, and put them in the oven.
H ER LIFE HAD BEEN SO SIMPLE when she was growing up. She was the only child of two doting middle-aged parents. Except for Lottie, the only other youngster around was Harrison Banning’s daughter, who was ten years younger. Lottie’s older brother and two sisters were already out of the house and working when Lottie was born. So Maggie and Lottie ran free on the farm, playing their games untroubled by outsiders. Sometimes it seemed to her that it had been unfair of God to make it all so easy back then. Those days had not prepared her for what lay ahead.
In the early years, Maggie’s mama hadn’t worried about the friendship between her daughter and her cook’s child. She assumed it would end when Maggie started school. It often happened that way: A white child would befriend a Negro playmate, particularly when they lived in an isolated area without any other families nearby. It all sorted itself out when the white child went off to school with her own kind. So Mama waited patiently for Maggie to drop Lottie and start making some real friends. When she didn’t, Mama finally felt she had to say something.
“Don’t you see how unkind you’re being, Doodlebug?” she asked gently. “Lottie doesn’t even talk like a colored girl.”
It was true. She and Lottie did sound alike, although she hadn’t realized until that moment that Lottie spoke the way she did.
They were polar opposites, she and Lottie. She was a steady child, smart but not brilliant and not given to quick emotions. Lottie was all speed and fire. She learned fast, got bored easily, and reacted viscerally.
When an early hurricane uprooted an old Douglas fir tree and knocked it across the driveway, the workmen who were clearing it up found a nest of orphaned baby squirrels in the trunk. Pink-skinned, hairless, with eyes still closed, they were too young to survive without a mother. Ralph was going to take them to the spring and drown them, but Lottie couldn’t bear it. She wept so hard, begging him to let her have them, swearing that she and Maggie could take care of them, that he finally gave in. Maggie looked on, knowing the enterprise was doomed. But she helped Lottie wrap the little creatures in towels to simulate the nest they had come from and heated milk to feed them from an eyedropper. For three terrible days they tried to force milk and sugar water down the throats of the baby squirrels. Maggie watched Lottie stroke the little bodies, fighting to keep them alive through sheer force of will. There was something almost cruel in Lottie’s determination, and it was a relief when one by one the poor little things died. As they buried the last one, Lottie whispered, “All I wanted to do was save them. Why couldn’t we?” Maggie started to say, Because they were too little, and we never should have tried. But Lottie’s eyes looked so tragic that she said, “We didn’t know enough. Next time we’ll know more, and we’ll do it right.”
The next day Lottie said, as if they had just been talking about it, “That’d be the best thing in the world, wouldn’t it? Knowing how to make something keep on living.”
And for the first time since they buried the baby squirrels, Lottie smiled the big joyful smile that lit up her face. Sometimes Maggie thought everything that happened afterward had stemmed from that moment. And moments like it.
T HE CAKE PANS WERE GREASED AND FLOURED . Maggie grasped the bowl of cake batter and began pouring it into the pans, dividing the batter evenly without having to measure it. These days, because of her arthritis, she used an aluminum bowl; the old ceramic ones she loved were too heavy for her to lift off the shelf. So she was stuck with this metal thing that reminded her of the sick pans in hospitals. She finished pouring, tapped the pans gently to get rid of the air, and put them in the oven.
H ER LIFE HAD BEEN SO SIMPLE when she was growing up. She was the only child of two doting middle-aged parents. Except for Lottie, the only other youngster around was Harrison Banning’s daughter, who was ten years younger. Lottie’s older brother and two sisters were already out of the house and working when Lottie was born. So Maggie and Lottie ran free on the farm, playing their games untroubled by outsiders. Sometimes it seemed to her that it had been unfair of God to make it all so easy back then. Those days had not prepared her for what lay ahead.
In the early years, Maggie’s mama hadn’t worried about the friendship between her daughter and her cook’s child. She assumed it would end when Maggie started school. It often happened that way: A white child would befriend a Negro playmate, particularly when they lived in an isolated area without any other families nearby. It all sorted itself out when the white child went off to school with her own kind. So Mama waited patiently for Maggie to drop Lottie and start making some real friends. When she didn’t, Mama finally felt she had to say something.
“Don’t you see how unkind you’re being, Doodlebug?” she asked gently. “Lottie doesn’t even talk like a colored girl.”
It was true. She and Lottie did sound alike, although she hadn’t realized until that moment that Lottie spoke the way she did.
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