Playhouses
Did I ever tell you about my many attempts to build playhouses? When I was a small girl of eight or nine, I lived on a big commercial cattle farm in the folding hills of Virginia. I belong to Virginia, you see, almost as much as I belong to Massachusetts and the Atlantic. My father's ancestor came to Virginia in the late 1700's, and our family had a great manor-house called Somervilla down in the south, and lived beside the Rapidan river and had many, many adventures. I know; I've been there and heard the stories.
The house that I lived in was not called Somervilla. It wasn't called anything, although it was over 100 years old and ought to have had a name. The porch on that house was weathered silvery, and you could watch the summer thunderstorms roll down our valley from it with a feeling of complete security. Like all real farmhouses, you didn't get into my house by the porch; you got in by the kitchen door. My dear, that kitchen door had real stepping stones leading up to it from a real picket fence. I used to tie my white pony up at the white fence of a summer afternoon, and wash her down with hose-water from the pump, and Johnson's baby shampoo.
All I will ever understand about idylls has its basis in that house, that life, those two years spent in the beautiful narrow valley between the Blue Ridges and the Short Hills, in northern Virginia. The farm has since been subdivided, and new houses stand in the front 20 acre fields, where I used to kick my pony for an exhilerating canter up the slope to home. Those two years in Virginia will haunt me forever. The last ten have not eradicated them - I can still see the early morning shadows on my ceiling, still feel cold wooden floors beneath my feet, still haven't mastered my fear of shoving another small log into the roaring woodstove, still feel the itch and tickle of new gray-green-yellow hay.
I remember the sharpness, the vivid immediacy that I knew then. I remember the afternoon sunlight, the dirt beneath my fingernails and the baths that I had sometimes, when the power went out and we were allowed to wash by candlelight. I remember pulling laundry from the clotheslines and I remember how it smelled. It was not like perfume. It was like God's own breath, like a shake of Aslan's mane. It was too rich and rare for use, yet exactly fitted to use all the same. I think grace must smell like sun-drenched white sheets, after a day on the line in May.
There was a certain corner of the yard, on the porch side, far away from the apple orchard and the horse paddock. A flower-bush grew there, and the picket fence met the wrought-iron fence, and beneath those blooming branches there was a sort of hollow. That was the first playhouse, my dear. We had acorn shells for cups, and leaves for plates, and bread-and-butter from Mother for our tea feasts. But that was the yard playhouse. There was another, Queen Anne's Island, so named because of the lacy flowers that grew on that little spit of land - it wasn't really an island - beside the stream.
There were two very graceful little trees, and fine grass, and hundreds of the white, soft blooms. The Island was in a front field, about ten minutes walk from our yard. I began my first story with it, about a little girl who lived during the Civil War. I was sure that she had existed, and that she had known and loved my Island just as I did. It was always like that with me. Growing up in a house 100 years old, how could I not imagine those who had come before?
My dear, there were no ghosts in that house. I believe that every room in it had always been happy... except for the living room. The living room was away off on the other side of the stairs, across from the library, and we never went in there if we could help it. I am sure that something horrible happened in that room. It faced the apple orchard, and should have been a pleasant place, but one could never feel all right about sitting there. None of us ever did.
I will never regain those playhouses, or that idyll. They passed, and were succeeded by a plain brick house on a plain half-acre of quite neighborhood street in Maryland. Don't pity me too much; I pitied myself. But you see, there was a lilac bush in the back yard of the plain brick house. That was enough, you know, even without the old boards and tents and things that Mother let us have. I built three or four forts there, and made lilac perfume by sealing the blossoms in little jars, and got pokeberries and mushed them up and wrote with the ink, or dyed old sheets lavender with the juice.
I had never cared for dolls, my dear. By the time we left the brick house, I was fourteen, and getting too old for playhouses. The last one I ever made was rather silly; we hoisted our big dog-house up into a tree and had a treehouse for a day or two, until Mother found out. It was quite unsafe, gloriously so!
Then we moved again, and then it was time to grow up. How I hate growing up! I don't mind the added responsibilities so much, or the increasingly serious and courteous demeanor expected of me. I mind not feeling the sharp delicacy of spring grass against my toes. I miss those dawn-shadows on my ceiling. I miss the dirty, verdant, vibrant, LIVING air of the farm. But I am absolutely certain, my dear, that all I felt then, and all I loved and experienced, is not worth comparing to what we gained by moving away. We gained the church where I learned to love God. I gained... I gained a new idyll, one not yet experienced. I am sure that there must be something like a white picket fence in Heaven, and I am sure that the fence of my childhood will look black by comparison. And perhaps... perhaps I will have a new playhouse... and acorn cups?
The house that I lived in was not called Somervilla. It wasn't called anything, although it was over 100 years old and ought to have had a name. The porch on that house was weathered silvery, and you could watch the summer thunderstorms roll down our valley from it with a feeling of complete security. Like all real farmhouses, you didn't get into my house by the porch; you got in by the kitchen door. My dear, that kitchen door had real stepping stones leading up to it from a real picket fence. I used to tie my white pony up at the white fence of a summer afternoon, and wash her down with hose-water from the pump, and Johnson's baby shampoo.
All I will ever understand about idylls has its basis in that house, that life, those two years spent in the beautiful narrow valley between the Blue Ridges and the Short Hills, in northern Virginia. The farm has since been subdivided, and new houses stand in the front 20 acre fields, where I used to kick my pony for an exhilerating canter up the slope to home. Those two years in Virginia will haunt me forever. The last ten have not eradicated them - I can still see the early morning shadows on my ceiling, still feel cold wooden floors beneath my feet, still haven't mastered my fear of shoving another small log into the roaring woodstove, still feel the itch and tickle of new gray-green-yellow hay.
I remember the sharpness, the vivid immediacy that I knew then. I remember the afternoon sunlight, the dirt beneath my fingernails and the baths that I had sometimes, when the power went out and we were allowed to wash by candlelight. I remember pulling laundry from the clotheslines and I remember how it smelled. It was not like perfume. It was like God's own breath, like a shake of Aslan's mane. It was too rich and rare for use, yet exactly fitted to use all the same. I think grace must smell like sun-drenched white sheets, after a day on the line in May.
There was a certain corner of the yard, on the porch side, far away from the apple orchard and the horse paddock. A flower-bush grew there, and the picket fence met the wrought-iron fence, and beneath those blooming branches there was a sort of hollow. That was the first playhouse, my dear. We had acorn shells for cups, and leaves for plates, and bread-and-butter from Mother for our tea feasts. But that was the yard playhouse. There was another, Queen Anne's Island, so named because of the lacy flowers that grew on that little spit of land - it wasn't really an island - beside the stream.
There were two very graceful little trees, and fine grass, and hundreds of the white, soft blooms. The Island was in a front field, about ten minutes walk from our yard. I began my first story with it, about a little girl who lived during the Civil War. I was sure that she had existed, and that she had known and loved my Island just as I did. It was always like that with me. Growing up in a house 100 years old, how could I not imagine those who had come before?
My dear, there were no ghosts in that house. I believe that every room in it had always been happy... except for the living room. The living room was away off on the other side of the stairs, across from the library, and we never went in there if we could help it. I am sure that something horrible happened in that room. It faced the apple orchard, and should have been a pleasant place, but one could never feel all right about sitting there. None of us ever did.
I will never regain those playhouses, or that idyll. They passed, and were succeeded by a plain brick house on a plain half-acre of quite neighborhood street in Maryland. Don't pity me too much; I pitied myself. But you see, there was a lilac bush in the back yard of the plain brick house. That was enough, you know, even without the old boards and tents and things that Mother let us have. I built three or four forts there, and made lilac perfume by sealing the blossoms in little jars, and got pokeberries and mushed them up and wrote with the ink, or dyed old sheets lavender with the juice.
I had never cared for dolls, my dear. By the time we left the brick house, I was fourteen, and getting too old for playhouses. The last one I ever made was rather silly; we hoisted our big dog-house up into a tree and had a treehouse for a day or two, until Mother found out. It was quite unsafe, gloriously so!
Then we moved again, and then it was time to grow up. How I hate growing up! I don't mind the added responsibilities so much, or the increasingly serious and courteous demeanor expected of me. I mind not feeling the sharp delicacy of spring grass against my toes. I miss those dawn-shadows on my ceiling. I miss the dirty, verdant, vibrant, LIVING air of the farm. But I am absolutely certain, my dear, that all I felt then, and all I loved and experienced, is not worth comparing to what we gained by moving away. We gained the church where I learned to love God. I gained... I gained a new idyll, one not yet experienced. I am sure that there must be something like a white picket fence in Heaven, and I am sure that the fence of my childhood will look black by comparison. And perhaps... perhaps I will have a new playhouse... and acorn cups?
posted by Praelucor at 2:35 PM
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