Sandra M. Smith

And in the whisper that speaks softly to the spirit....
Our lives like wings once touched....
Ache from losses we can not reclaim....
Flutter weakly...then stall and fall silent in regret.

S.M. Smith

The following story was written on March 2, 1998
It is a memory of my childhood while growing up and living with my Grandparents in Great Falls Montana.

Miss. Balls House
By
S. M. Smith

    Kicking back at lunchtime, taking a mental stock of all that needs to be done and all that has been done.  Gray, the sky is gray again and the chill is back in the air as if to threaten rain. I examine the terracotta pots I planted this past weekend.  I can see new buds are forming on the little Johnny Jump-ups and the little miniature faces on the blooms that have now opened.    I have been fond of this miniature version of the pansy for many years, years that have their roots in my childhood and the yard of the dreaded Miss Ball. Her house was located on the east corner of our block and sat atop what seemed to me as a child a large hill. Now to add to its formidable look the property had a rather large stacked and mortared slate retaining wall on all but the backside of the property, which adjoined the alley.  I spent many a summer night playing kick the can in the dim light of the occasional street-lamp. I passed this house daily on my way to school and my step quickened as I did, fearing something horrid was peering from inside at me. I never questioned my feelings or how I had come to have them.  I do remember on a rather chilly afternoon I was hurrying home from grade school and my attention was quickly drawn to something new in Miss Ball’s yard.  A new addition of a flower bed at the top of the retaining wall.  Dark soil had been turned and carefully leveled and a wheelbarrow with garden tools stood alone next to the freshly turned beds. I startled myself as I realized that I had stopped to view the new goings on in the yard and quickly got on my way as I looked at the big windows of the house to see what may be seeing me. I saw nothing in the windows except the reflection of the trees the lined the street, which had just started to produce the little green leafs, of an early spring.
     I slowed slightly the next morning on my way to school, as I looked for the wheelbarrow and the tools, but they where not to be seen.  They had vanished as quickly as they had appeared. I looked up to see if I was being watched from the windows and then quickly made my way past the Ball house.
     I had taken off my sweater as I started on the way home after school, it was warmer and being Friday and no school until Monday I took the time to doddle on my way home as I did every Friday. I hopped and skipped over cracks as not to break my mothers back and stopped to play with that gray striped cat that sat on the fence and would keep just out of my reach as I tried to pet it.  I suddenly stopped dead in my steps as if frozen in place.  I was looking at the Ball house and the bed of flowers that was not there this morning.  Like magic the beds were filled with colorful flowers. I hesitated as I contemplated climbing the stone steps to get a closer look at the magical event. Looking at the big house for signs of movement I saw nothing that seemed to resemble life. I then quickly climbed to the top and sat on the warm flat stone and leaned down to look at the flowers. Little faces, they had little faces. Two petals on the top were a dark purple, while the bottom three a bright warm yellow, there edges smudged with purple and the center a bright golden yellow.  Little thin lines of color radiated out from the golden spot that resembled a nose, giving a squint eyed appearance with a little puckered mouth. I leaned down closer to smell them and was surprised that they were not as fragrant as I thought they would be, just a subtle hint of a sweet freshness about them. As I reached out and felt the velvet of the petals I suddenly broke from my infatuation and looked around at the house, startled. Remembering where I was, I stood quickly and made my way down the steps and hurried home.
     Over the weekend the weather had warmed and I was in a hurry to get to school as I was every Monday morning, having missed my schoolmates over the weekend. In my pocket I carried my bag of favorite marbles.  Today was show and tell and I had chosen to bring them to school to share.  I had some I was very fond of that my grandfather had given me I called aggies and some colored clearies I had acquired at the Woolworth’s, just up the block from my Grandfathers office.
 Holding my not so full bag of marbles as I walked home after school, fighting back the tears. I had never been a marble player, I had just collected them for there gem-like qualities. That boy said it was not for “keepses”, but he had lied and when I asked the playground attendant for her assistance she told me I had to learn to be a good looser. I had lost my Grandfathers marbles he had played with as a boy and I would have to live with that.
     Wiping the tears from my face I was standing in front of the Ball house and I slowly made my way up the brown slate steps and there was my sweater, folded neatly next to the flowerbed where I had sat last Friday. I had not even known I had left it behind, but there it was. I looked at the house that sat up on that hill and saw no one moving about.  Sitting next to the flowers with the little faces I sobbed holding the leather marble bag close to my chest. In time the tears stopped and I felt the little faces of the flowers with my hands, how soft and like velvet they were.  I moved and lay on my stomach my chin resting on my hands at I looked into all the bright smiling little faces and soon I was smiling. I got up to go, as I did I picked up my neatly folded sweater. Then started down the steps, but I stopped and went back to the place where I had found the sweater by the flowers with the little smiling faces. I then gently lay the leather bag, holding what was left of my marble collection on that very same spot. I skipped down the steps and made my way home.