“It was
mid-morning—a very cold, bright day. Holding a potted plant before her, a girl
of fourteen jumped off the bus in front of the Old Ladies’ Home, on the
outskirts of town. She wore a red coat, and her straight yellow hair was
hanging down loose from the pointed white cap all the little girls were wearing
that year. She stopped for a moment beside one of the prickly dark shrubs with
which the city had beautified the Home, and then proceeded slowly toward the
building, which was of whitewashed brick and reflected the winter sunlight like
a block of ice. As she walked vaguely up the steps she shifted the small pot
from hand to hand; then she had to set it down and remove her mittens before
she could open the heavy door.
“ ‘“I’m a
Campfire Girl. ... I have to pay a visit to some old lady,’ she told the nurse
at the desk.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern novelist, short story writer, and
photographer Eudora Welty (1909-2001), “A Visit of Charity,” in The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (1983)
No comments:
Post a Comment