by Edna Battersby from the Threadville Mystery series by Janet Bolin
A baby on her hip, the woman held my shop door
open for a pair of girls who looked about three. The mother smiled down at the
two little girls, but when she looked up at me, I saw the fatigue in her eyes.
“What can I do for you?” I asked. I sell
notions in my little store, Buttons and Bows.
She tilted her head to one side. “Make winter
end and spring come?” Even the grin looked tired.
During the night, snow had fallen, and
Threadville was charming under its white frosting. But the sun hadn’t peeked
out from behind the clouds for days.
And this mother had to bundle up two toddlers
and a baby just to go outside for a little fresh air.
The little girls stared with longing at the boxes
of buttons, sequins, and crystals arranged floor to ceiling along the wall of
one side of my store, and at the ribbons and other trims that I sell by the
yard on the other side. They were all too high for the children to touch.
I led the way toward the back sales room. “Come
with me.”
I showed the girls a bin full of brightly
colored pompoms. “Take off your mittens and feel how soft these are,” I said.
Shyly, the girls looked up at their mother.
“Go ahead,” she said. The baby clung to her and
stared at everything with dark, alert eyes. The mother looked at me. “You sell
beads, don’t you?”
I showed her the tables covered with open boxes
of beads, also too high for children to reach. I gave her a basket, reached out
for the baby, and to my surprise, he came, chortling and gurgling, into my arms.
While the mother chose sparkly beads, I bounced the baby and recited rhymes I’d
hadn’t thought about for about thirty years, when Haylee was about the size of
the two little girls.
The mother and I both kept close track the
girls, who were in their own little world. Cheerfully chattering to each other,
they created a game that involved sorting the pompoms by color and size.
I gave them small paper bags and told them to
fill them with their favorite pompoms. By the time their mother had chosen the
beads she wanted, the twins had decided on their pompoms.
The mother swished her hand around in her
basket of beads and let them fall between her fingers in rivers of sparkling
color. “Just seeing and touching them cheers me up.”
I handed her baby back to her. “What are you
going to do with them?” She was buying several pounds of expensive beads.
“Make jewelry. How much do I owe you for the
pompoms?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s the best I could do to
make Spring come early.”
“I love the colors,” one girl told me.
“Me, too,” said the other. “They’re like
flowers.”
The mother hugged the baby to her. “Thank you,
Edna. We’ll be back.”
The two little girls called, “Thank you,” again
and again as they walked to the door. They were still repeating it as the door
closed, and I heard them singing it out on the snowy sidewalk, too.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I hadn’t held a baby
for a long, long time, and the memory of the twins’ smiles warmed me like
spring sunlight.
What about you? What do you do to relieve the
winter blahs?
DIRE THREADS was nominated for both an
Agatha Award for Best First novel and for the
Bloody Words Light Mystery Award (the Bony Blithe.)
You can order DIRE THREADS and THREADED FOR TROUBLE from any bookstore or from these
booksellers.
Visit Janet at
facebook and
twitter.
And look what just arrived--the cover for the third Threadville Mystery, THREAD AND BURIED!
Those colors are enough to cure the blues. THREAD AND BURIED will be released on June 4, 2013, but can be preordered now from your favorite bookstore or online from
Barnes and Noble or
Amazon! And the fourth Threadville Mystery is in the works...
My sister and I just spent two nights in the hotel at a casino an hour away from each of us. We played, relaxed, and ate well. Outside, there was snow and ice. What a great break.
ReplyDeleteA getaway is always good! Especially where there's lots of light.
DeleteDelightful images
ReplyDeleteThank you
Thank you, Libby!
DeleteNow, that's what I call a cozy encounter! Very nice, Edna. My technique for coping with winter blahs is a good book and some chocolates.
ReplyDeleteI think I was as cheered by holding that baby as his mother was cheered by the bright beads and pompoms!
DeleteLove the new cover and I just keep telling myself, spring is just around the corner.
ReplyDeleteNew cover? Oh, I see. Uh-oh. I wonder what messes Willow will get into next? Well, my friends and I will be there to help her. It looks like something might happen during the Midsummer Madness Sidewalk Sale we're planning for June. Now I'm worried...
ReplyDeleteBut we had thunderstorms yesterday, in Northern Pennsylvania, in January. And today feels like spring. So maybe spring is just around the corner.
Aww. I saw the sweetest yellow crocuses today. They hold the promise of spring!
ReplyDelete~ Krista
Ooo that was a sweet story. I do hope they visit again in your books. I like to watch a favourite 80's movie to cheer myself up.
ReplyDelete