The Pink Maple House

It was a bright October morning. The trees had begun to turn red, yellow and brown. Some of the leaves had fallen to the earth in last night’s wind. 


Polly usually loved this time of year. She liked the feeling of the crisp, chilly mornings, the lovely blue haze in the woods and on the hills. She loved the faint smell of camphor in her sweaters and mittens which Mother unpacked for cold weather. She liked the feeling of coziness the sweaters gave her in the first cold mornings and the thought of all the fun she would have at school and at home during the winter. Usually she could hardly wait to get outdoors on a morning like this. She and her best friend Jenny Spears would walk to school scuffling their feet in the leaves and making the most lovely shushing sound. 


But today Polly was too unhappy to pay any attention to the bright leaves and the cold, crisp morning. She was far, far too miserable to let herself think of Jenny. For today she was moving away from the school where she and Jenny were beginning the third grade, away from this little house she had always lived in. Oh, it was too dreadful to think of! Away from her darling best friend Jenny! 


Polly was eating breakfast on the kitchen table because all the other furniture was packed. The kitchen things, all the dishes and pots and pans were packed in barrels. They stood about the kitchen like fat policemen waiting to see that she swallowed her cereal. 


When she finished—if she could choke it down past the lump in her throat—she must wash the bowl and the kitchen spoon with which she was eating. It made the morning seem gloomier than ever that she had to eat with a dull spoon. 


“When I’m grown I’m going to have silver spoons, even in my kitchen,” she thought, looking at this one with distaste. 


She must hurry now, and wash the things. She must put them in one of the barrels from which the handles of the potato masher, two knives and a rolling pin stuck up. 


She put a chilly spoon of oatmeal in her mouth and jumped up from the table. Already she could hear the men in the front of the house tramping around to get the living room furniture.