Mrs. Little

On the last day of third grade, 1978, I was walking home and came across an old lady working on the edging along her sidewalk. She was sitting on the ground, digging out the grass along the sidewalk with handtools. This was Mrs. (Marcia) Little. I started talking to her, and thus began one of the most important friendships of my life.

I began to spend a lot of time at Mrs. Little's grand house on State Road, Ashtabula, Ohio. We'd sit for hours in her livingroom, me on the always-covered couch, her in a winged armchair, and she would tell me the stories of her life. She was Dutch, from a well-to-do family, with three brothers. She called her parents "mother" and "father." So many escape me now, but there were stories of large parties in her family's home, where all the people would come. The boys would crack walnuts and the girls - some other chore I can't remember now. They sounded like such wonderful parties, from a time I could only read about. Her brothers were older, and she, always tiny and with bright blue eyes, was the apple of not only her father's eye, but theirs, too. When she married Dave, they had a boxer named Corky. There were a lot of stories about Corky, one of the most loyal breeds, completely devoted to Mrs. Little. Once he got into a bees nest and came running to her with his jowls full of stingers. She sat, with his head on her lap, a pan, and pulled them out one by one - and he never whimpered or moved. One time when she and Dave were sitting on the couch, just fooling around, he pushed her in the shoulder, and in a flash, Corky jumped onto the couch between them and held Dave's hand in his teeth, staring at him; he didn't hurt him - just stared into his eyes as if to say, "Don't you ever do that again." There was a porcelain boxer standing in a show pose that looked like him.

We also played “Lawyer”, in which you answer a question with a question. We played Gin Rummy.

She often repeated a poem. I tried to memorize it, but still wonder if I’m missing something: One a task is begun, never leave it til it’s done. Be a labor, great or small. Though others quit with pleasure, you not at all.”

I would crack the mixed nuts while she talked. The nutcracker had a screw-down clamp to hold the nut, then I squeezed the handles to crack it. I became quite skilled at cracking various kinds of nuts just along their cleavage. She told me one kind they used to call "nigger toes." There was a black walnut tree in her yard, and we harvested nuts from the ground in the fall. We wore gloves because they turned your hands black. I took home a brown paper bag full of them.

Mrs. Little taught me how to set a proper table. Occasionally, we ate dinner in the formal diningroom, then she would let me set it. Knife protects the spoon, that was my way of remembering. Most times we ate in the alcove in the kitchen. That’s also where we took our tea. I added sugar cube after sugar cube to mine, with the spring-loaded claw tool made just for the job. Sometimes, I would drop them in quickly, othertimes, I would hold it hovering on the surface and watch the tea soak through grain by grain. There was also a woodpecker toothpick holder. The bird stood up over a hollowed log which held the toothpicks; I pushed him over to the lot and a single toothpick would lodge in the tip of his beak. On the same shelf was a glass bird filled with red liquid, which would rock back and forth over and over if you pushed it all the way to one side just once.

Mrs. Little walked around the block with me to meet my parents when I wanted to spend the night for the first time. I could tell they thought it was a little odd, but I was so happy they let me. I packed my clothes. She and I went to Moses grocery store at the corner, and we picked out what to eat for dinner. At home, we put cans in the pantry. “If you find something you like, buy a lot of it,” she advised. Her peanutbutter, for example, and our pickled beets, were arranged in duplicate in the cupboard. On Saturday nights, we would eat from TV trays in the livingroom and she would bring out the TV so we could watch Lawrence Welk. She turned off Sha-Na-Na because it wasn’t appropriate somehow; I enjoyed the show myself, as Bowser was one of my role models in “cool.” Then she showed me to the guest room, an enormous blue bedroom, which I now realize was the master bedroom. There was a weight machine standing in it, the old kind with a leather belt that you put against your middle, then turn it on and it vibrates like crazy. She let me try it. Mrs. Little slept in a smaller room nearer the stairs. She gave me something to read; I enjoyed the yellow hardback “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” which she said had also been a television show. Sunday morning, we read the paper in her room, in bed. I would read the comics. It was there she brought out her tin of buttons and let me look through them. I laid them out on the bed systematically, the wooden Dutch boy and girl and animals in one column, ivory rounds in another, etc. Mrs. Little said that when she died, I could have her button collection.

She was Dutch. The Dutch way of saying things was “Let’s cross the street over” and “Outen the lights”. The latter was on an iron hotplate in the kitchen.

A sign over the stairs leading into the basement read, “Enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think.” The basement was unlike anything else. It was a “rec room.” The wallpaper was orange and gold and black, with pictures of people dancing and drink glasses and olives. There was a leather couch, but I sat at the bar when she let me look through the huge collection of swizzle sticks. She even let me have some to keep. They were colored plastic with figures on top.

Once a woman was over on business and we were all standing in the kitchen when I passed gas. I stood perfectly still and hoped no one had noticed. When the woman left, Mrs. Little told me that when I had to do that, to go into another room. I was grateful for the advice.

She toweled off Puss when she came in with rain glistening on her black fur. Puss would then sit on the stairs and look at us through the rail. When Mrs. Little changed the livingroom some, she got the thickest, most lush green/blue carpet I have ever seen. I gleefully ran my hands through it while she told stories, making pictures in it and combing up excess fibers into piles. I could practically do snow angels in it. She also got faint blue paint antiqued onto the ornate gold frame holding Blue Boy, a painting she loved. I stared at its every detail, but never understood why she was so fond of it. Then she opened up the sunroom. I laid on the carpet there in my homemade mermaid tail while she talked.

We did yardwork now and then, and drank iced glasses of Coke when we came in. Once when she wanted her yard mowed so badly and the boy hadn’t come, I went across the street to Charlie Moses and told him I would pay him 50 cents if he would mow it for her. It was a total ploy; I knew this was a pittance, but I played the kid card and the pity card on her behalf, and before long, we looked out the bay window, and there he was in his riding mower.

I visited Mrs. Little less and less as I became older. I felt bad about it when I thought of it. When I was 15, she died. I went to the funeral and sat in the back. Where had all these people come from? They must be family. Her brothers, her actual brothers must be in this room. You mean they’re still alive? Why hadn’t they visited? Where did they come from now? Who had even arranged this funeral? I spoke to no one.

I’m an adult now, and I had recurring dreams of going back to Mrs. Little’s house. It’s all changed, emptied, people have taken away its grandeur. And from the looks of it from the outside, this is in fact the case.

I miss Mrs. Little. I really do.

I wish I had a photograph. If anyone ever reads this who remembers her or knows of descendents, I would love to hear from you.