Her mom had told her about May Day traditions, including dancing around the May Pole, and boys hanging a basket of flowers on the door knob of a girl, then running so she’d have to guess who the mystery guy was.
It was a sunny May Day morning with a light breeze--the kind of morning that made her pause to consider whether or not to wear a light sweater. The cardinal was whistling loudly as she walked around the house, admiring the many varieties of daffodils in bloom in their flower gardens. It seemed like the kind of day that she would have liked to find a basket of flowers from a secret admirer on the door knob. The kind of day that she would have liked to wear a full, flowing cotton dress with a bow around the waist, dancing and intertwining around a May Pole.
“Mom, may I pick some daffodils?”
“Certainly. Here’s the garden scissors. What do you want to do with the daffodils?”
“It’s about 2 1/2 years since I walked through the woods after dark and came across Mrs. Medusa’s cabin. Her sister hasn’t visited for over 2 years and she rarely has visitors. I’d like to take her some flowers.”
“That’s a sweet idea, Honey. I’ll get a vase for you to take with you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She knew Mrs. Medusa would be up this time of the morning because she always picked up the newspaper from the front porch at about 6:30. After cutting a nice bunch of assorted daffodils, she handed her mom the scissors in exchange for the vase and started down the sidewalk toward Mrs. Medusa’s house.
“Where are you going with those flowers, runt?”
“I’m taking them to Mrs. Medusa, Clyde.”
“Mrs. Snake Head don’t need no flowers, runt,” grumped Clyde as he grabbed the flowers and stomped on them, twisting his engineers boot to crush the blooms against the sidewalk. The vase rolled onto the grass and did not break. “Besides, why would you go visiting, all covered with mud?” as he wrapped his boot behind her foot and pushed her down into a mud puddle.
She was too angry to cry. She turned around and walked home, not giving Clyde another glance.
“What happened to you?”
“Clyde pushed me down,” she replied as she ran upstairs to clean up and change clothes.
As she came down stairs in clean blue jeans and a white top, the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find Mrs. Medusa with a jar in her hand, wearing a yellow cotton dress with white polka dots and a white straw hat with a yellow ribbon. “I saw what that naughty boy did to you. I thought you might like some of my homemade raspberry jam.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Medusa. I was going to bring you some flowers for May Day.”
“That was such a sweet thought, child. But your flowers are so pretty right there in the garden. Thank you for thinking of me. You’ve made this a very special May Day for me.
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Comments: 47
Very nice story lines, John.
In her world, she and her sisters would cut round circles of white butcher paper and then folded them to make little cut designs on them like paper doiles...fold them into a cone, glued a paper handle on the open part to hang and fill with flowers...these they would hang from the doorknobs of favorite neighbors...
Nice story John. I actually learned something (the flower on the door knob thing) and I love learning new things. Now I gotta go look up May Day customs ... LOL!
Thanks for taking the SatWE challenge.