autumn street by lois lowry- excerpt

7/31/2019 Autumn Street by Lois Lowry- Excerpt

1/16

AutumnStreet


2/16


3/16

I T WAS A lon g t im e ago.

Though i t seems, sometimes, that most things that

matter happened a long time ago, that is not really

t ru e. W h a t is tr ue is t h is: by th e t ime you realize h ow

m u ch somet hing mat tered, tim e has passed; by the

time i t stops h u r t i n g enough that you can tel l about

i t , first to yourself, and finally to someone else, moretime has passed; then, when you sit down to begin

the telling, you have to begin th is way:

I t was a long time ago.


4/16

If, instead of a pe n cil, I h eld a bru sh i n my h an d ,

I would paint the scene: the scene of Au tumn Street.

Perspective wou ld n 't matter; it wou ld be distorted

and askew, as it was t h rou gh m y own eyes when I

was six, and Grandfather's house would loom huge,

out of proport ion, awesome and austere, wi th the

clipped lawn as smooth and green as patchwork pockets on a velvet skirt . The rough pink brick of the side

walk, bordered by elms, would wind the length of

the street, past the Hoffmans' house, past the bright

forsythia bushes tha t grew around the great-aunts'

front porch, past the homes of strangers and friends

and forgotten people, finally disappearing where the

woods began.

Even today, w i t h a brush, I would blur the woods.

I would b lur them with a murky mixture of brown

and green and black, the hueless shade that I know

from m y dreams to be the color of pain.

But the sky above A u t u m n Street would be re

splendent blue. I n th e sky, the pain t ed ghosts would

flutter, hovering like Chagall angels, benevolently

smiling down on the strip of Pennsylvania where they

h ad peopled a year of my life. Grandfather would bethere in the sky, sailing past, holding his cane, wear

in g his most elegant suit, his tie in place and his hair

impeccably brushed. Gran dm oth er wo u ld n 't sail; she

2


5/16

would hover primly in the most tasteful and protected

corner of the heaven, but ton ed to her ch in and h old

in g her ankles neatly crossed. Th e great-aunts wouldsoar grandly by, holding hands and t i t te r ing , a t r io

of good manners and barely contained laughter , wear

in g gauzy dresses that bi l lowed.

Poor l i t t l e Noahthou gh I wou ld never have called

h im t ha t , thenhe is among t he ghosts, and I would

have to pain t h im lurk ing somewhere, perhaps behind

a cloud, sullen, the only one in my sky who would

not be sm iling.

Charles. How I would love pa in t ing Charles in the

bright blue over A u t u m n Street: feisty and streetwise

s t i l l , Charles would be shoving an d pu shin g his way

across the canvas sky, kicking pebbles, stepping on

ants, th rus t ing the clouds aside and heading for the

farthest corner, to explore.

Above them al l , majestic, would be Tatie. Tatie

would be wearing the reddest, the shiniest of satindresses, the bright red dress t h at I prom ised, wh en I

was six, I would one day give to her . She wo u ld be

bulky and brown and beautiful, and she would be

holding out her arms the way she held them out so

often , to me, whe n I needed a place to hide, a place

to cry, a person to hold .

Tatie wouldn't l ike that . She'd push away m y

brush , even th ough i t held th e red dress she had

3


6/16

dreamed of. "N o t m e," she'd say, brusquely. " N o t

Tatie. I don 't wan t no place i n no sky. You pain t

i n your grandma bigger, Elizabet h. An d you pain ti n that hat just r ight on her head, the way she likes

i t . Don't you try to be funny w i t h your grandma's

best ha t . "

I wouldn ' t be funny w i t h m y grand moth er's hat .

I ' d paint it in carefully, w i t h the t i n y black elastic

down behind her ears, holding it neatly to her head,

not a hair out of place.

But for once, for the first time, I'd have my way

w i t h Tatie . W i t h m y best brush , w i t h a generous

daub of golden paint, I would paint on Tatie's proud

head a crown that would beat th e h ell out of Gran d

mother's black Sunday Episcopal hat .

An d t h en , finally, no t yet hoverin g, b u t w i t h her

bare feet firmly planted on the lawn of her grand

father's backyard, I would paint a l i t t l e g i r l . She

wou ld be lookin g u p . She s t i l l lives, and her hair iss t i l l often uncombed; and she s t i l l needs, often, a

place to hide, or to cry, or someone to h o ld . She finds

those things, now, in places far from Autumn Street.

But in the painting she would be back there again.

She would stand there, watching, and would find i n

the sky the disparate angels of her childhood. W i t h

one small hand she would wave good-bye.

I t was such a long time ago.

4


7/16


8/16

Chick en pox was un expected , and it itch ed .

So was poison ivy, an d i t it ch ed , too.

Kindergarten was new, too, that year, and scary,

bu t Jess, my sister, sat beside me on the bus. She

retied both m y shoes and my hair ribbons when they

came undone . Jessica was a lot like Mama, even

though she was only seven.

T h e n , a surprise called Pearl H ar bor . I t soundedlike a lady's n ame. At th e grocery store on t he corner

of our New York street, a woman named Pearl sat

beh ind the counter and crocheted.

Daddy had been in the l iving room that day, read

in g th e paper; Mam a was in the kit ch en , an d the ra

dio was on in the kitchen. I watched her face. T h e n ,

f r ightened, I ran to find Daddy.

"Pearl Harbor is on the radio, Daddy," I told h i m ,

"and Mama is crying."

After t h a t , the answer to everything was "Because

of the war."

After t h a t , there were air-raid drills at kin dergarten .

W e had to r u n , h old in g hands, t o th e subway station

and hide there. Because of the war.

" W h a t ' r e those?" I asked, when my mother began

to stitch together huge lengths of th ick black cloth.I wanted her to make a ruffled dress for my doll.

"Blackout curtains."

"Because of the war?"

6


9/16

"Yes."

" I don ' t like t h em ."

"N o ones does," she said, matter-of-factly, p u t t i n g

blackout curtains in to the same category as cod-liver

o i l : unappeal ing , necessary, for your own good, and

yo u don ' t have to l ike i t , bu t you have to pu t up with

i t , preferably wi thou t making a face.

There were other things then that I didn ' t l ike , an dsome of them were more clearly defined than the dark

enveloping folds that covered our windows because of

t h e war. I didn ' t like soft-boiled eggs. I didn ' t like

the lady who lived in the upstairs apartment. Some

times I didn ' t like Jessica, who said I was too l i t t l e to

play Monopoly with her friends.

W h e n my father explained that maybe he would

have to go away to th e war, it was just one more

t h i n g that I didn ' t like m u ch . Bu t th ere were com

pensations. Th ere was h is un i f o r m : deep khaki and

glam orously fore ign . Sometimes he let me wear the

hat while he took m y pictu re. I wo u ld m arch arou nd

the New York apartment, wearing pink-flowered pa

jamas and his major's cap, and he would laugh and

tell me I was the best floor show in t own . M y sister,

too sophisticated at seven to provide a floor show,glowered.

Uniforms were nice: my father's especially so, be

cause it was t h ere, available to m e, an d I cou ld t ry

7


10/16

on th e Eisenhower jacket t h at came to my knees, an d

people wo u ld laugh . Bu t there were other u n ifor m s:

t h e Eagle Scout un i fo rm of my cousin, David, inMich igan , whose parents sent snapshots of him gr in

n i n g proudly . Then the snapshots changed, and

David was i n Na vy at t ire, an official ph ot ograph , h is

grin transformed from boyish arrogance to a stranger's

smile; and he was no longer the boy I had known

sum mers, wh o had t ickled me gen tly, bu ckled m y

sandals, and allowed me to fall exuberantly in love,

for the first time, at the age of three.

Then there were no pictures, only whispers, of

David . W h isper s between adults. I crept b eh in d

chairs, listened, and didn ' t unders tand .

"Where's David?" I asked, finally.

Th ey looked at m e, start led. I t was a qu estion I

shouldn' t have asked, a question they couldn't an

swer for someone wh o was on ly five. M y father was

s t i l l there, then. I had always thought tha t Daddy

would tel l me everyth ing. Bu t wh en I asked simply,

"Where's David?", my father looked away and raised

h is glass to his m o u t h , swallowing deeply, holding

t h e ice there against his lips for a long t ime.

" I n San Diego," someone said at last. " I n a hospi ta l in San Diego ."

I couldn ' t und erstand w h y the answer they gave

me seemed to fr ight en th em . I t didn ' t f r ighten me.

8


11/16


12/16

So I had my un i fo rm too. I t was n ot m u ch , a t i n y

gold tag wi th my name and address, b u t i t was wh at

I was given to wear as a way of acknowledging t h e

war. It was better t h an n ot h in g, and i t was someth ing

to suck on unobtrusively while we sat in the subway

station for air-raid drills.

N o t h i n g else th at I wore changed wh en th e war

came: the polished brown shoes, the knee socks, theplaid skir ts th at bu t t on ed onto starched wh it e blouses,

t h e hair ribbons that my mother t ied each m o r n i n g

in to my blonde hair, the dark blue coat wi th brass

but tons , the blue beret that I stuffed in to m y canvas

schoolbag each m or n in g as soon as I was ou t of m y

m oth er's sight. N o oth er chi ld in my kindergarten

wore a Fren ch beret. Th er e were ways in which I

didn ' t wan t to be l ike other ch ildr en , b u t wearing a

beret was not one of them.

"She refuses to dr i nk her milk at snack t im e , " they

wrote hom e to m y parent s.

" W h y won' t you dr i nk your milk at school? You

always dr i nk it at home," my mother said.

"I t tastes different . I don 't l ike i t . "

She sighed and wrote a note back requesting that

I not have to dr i nk school milk . It was true that i ttasted differen t . Th e paper container, the straw that

collapsed and grew soggy, and the wax that peeled in

flakes from the carton all conspired to give a strange

10


13/16

papery taste to the warmish milk they placed in front

of us at the l i t t l e kindergarten tables. Even l i s tening

to the gurgl ing sounds that the other chi ldren madeth rough the i r straws as they emptied the containers

brought a feelin g of gagging to t h e back o f m y th roat .

I t was the milk at th e very b ot t om th at tasted th e

worst . By t h en it was m ixed wi th spit.

At p ain t in g, too, I was d ifferen t. I loved p ain t in g,loved the sturdy wooden easels, the th ickjars th a t h e ld

the colors, the wide brushes, and the cotton smocks

tha t we wore but to n ed do wn the back. But I could

see that my paintings were not the same as the others'.

M i n e were of landscapes that I had mostly only

dreamed or im agin ed : broad expanses of sky, hills,

and mountains, in shades of blue, green, and purple.

I waited carefully for each color to d ry before I

added the next. Th e other ch ild ren didn ' t wait; they

swished t h eir paint brushes bo ldly, r u n n in g th e paint s

together wi th long drip marks, creating areas t ha t

t u rned brown as the colors flowed in to one another.

I envied them their boldness, but I loved my beauti

fully defined hills, my lone trees in their yellow-green

meadows. I loved, most of all, the place where the

sky and the distant hills met; it was the only part ofthe paintings where I would allow the colors to run

gently together.

I t was true, I knew, that in the faraway part of the

11


14/16

coun tryside wher e t h e sky an d h ills m et , t he colors

were un clear. I h ad seen i t , sometimes, summers i n

Pennsylvania, h ad seen how th e hor izon blu rr ed . Iblended those colors carefully wi th clear water on

my thick brush.

"Can you tell me why you paint the sky that way?"

a woman asked me in a k in d , qu iet voice. She was

visiting my school.

" W h a t way?" H er question fright en ed m e. I was

afraid that I had done it wrong.

"Look how you've painted the sky all the way down

to th e h ill s, " she p oin t ed ou t , as if I h ad done it by

chance, as if I h ad n ot kn o wn . "N o w look h ow t h e

other chi ldren have painted the sky."

I looked. Th e oth er skies were all blue strips across

the top of their papers. I lifted my gold dog tag to my

m o u t h and sucked.

"Yours isn't wrong," she said, aware of my anguish.

"Bu t it 's so differen t fro m th eirs. Do you k n ow wh yyou do it that way?"

"Because that's the way sky is," I whispered to her.

"Sky is all over, not just at th e t op ." But m y voice

trailed and made it more a question than a Conviction.

"Do you have other paintings that you can showme?" she asked.

I took th e rolled pain t ings fro m m y cubbyhole an d

gave t h em to her. I watch ed, t err ified, embarrassed,

12


15/16

while she spread them out one by one on a table.

There were all my skies, all my hills and mountains

an d fields. I loved those pa int ings m ore t h an an yth in g

else at school, more than the cherry-and-whipped-

cream dessert that was sometimes served at lu n ch . Bu t

at the same t ime I had two thoughts that didn ' t fit

together very wel l : that they were the most beautiful

paint ings in th e world , and that they were, for reasonstha t I didn ' t un derstan d, not good en ough.

"May I keep some of these? W o u l d yo u m i n d ? "

she asked.

I shook m y head sh yly. "You can have t h e m a l l . "

She took my paintings away, and I went back to

m y easel. But the feelings I had about the sky and

hills were gone, at least for t h at day. I n a corner of

the classroom I cou ld see the visit in g wom an t alk to

the teachers; they were glancing at me as they talked.

She was po in t ing to t h ings i n m y pain t ings. She was

saying som eth ing about "Elizabet h 's per cept ions."

Elizab et h was me; b u t wh at were per cept ions: kind s

of mountains or trees? I didn ' t know, and was hu

miliated.

I wat ch ed as she ro lled m y percept ions n eat ly, se

cured them wi th rubber bands, and placed them in abriefcase. H e r eyes found me, across the room, and

she smiled and waved, as if we had a secret together.

Then she went away.

13


16/16

autumn street by lois lowry- excerpt

Documents