Free the Children
by Mary Ellen Gambutti
A vintage cast iron ashtray now holds paperclips on my desk, but I recall, when Granddaddy smoked his pipe by the screen door at our New Jersey home, it was on the red-checked chrome kitchen table.
In those days, I imagined the two figures on the back edge of the ashtray children waiting for a ride to school; he with a book in his hand, a sack lunch by her side. His black shoulder-length hair hangs below a black brimmed hat. A black vest partly covers black suspenders and red shirt; trousers and shoes are also black. Her hair and neck is covered by a plain black bonnet. Only the hem of a long red skirt shows beneath her black coat.
Stoic, immobile, stuck. As a child of five, I smoothed my fingers over the cold miniature children; their sad, old-fashioned clothing. I couldn’t imagine their world, their school, where they played.
Granddaddy smoked quietly. I stepped back when he tapped his pipe on their heads, grey ash dropping into their laps. They remained mute, un-protesting.
One summer weekend, I accompanied my grandparents to their old home place in central Pennsylvania. Through rolling countryside, we passed Amish
farmhouses and barns, where their blue and black garb waved high on lines, and the scent of fresh summer-cut hay breezed through the open car windows. Men and boys wearing straw hats drove wagons pulled by mules and horses. I recall Granddaddy teased me, “The brown cows give chocolate milk,” as Nana pointed toward grazing dairy herds, lush green cornfields and glistening wheat.
Cars shared country roads with black horse-drawn carriages on Sunday, people dressed in serious black clothing. Nana said the men held bibles, and women brought food for shared Sunday dinners. So, that was what the ashtray girl carried--a basket!
A lifetime later, the ashtray reappeared as I packed up my grandparents’ household and memories. I noticed, “Wilton Prod., Wrightsville, PA,” on the bottom, and a bolt, which if turned, could allow the children to be removed. Might I have persuaded my grandfather to set them free?
Here’s rust where he set his pipe. The boy’s nose is chipped, their dreary garb more faded. The girl winks at me as I type, and I smell Granddaddy’s fragrant pipe.
In those days, I imagined the two figures on the back edge of the ashtray children waiting for a ride to school; he with a book in his hand, a sack lunch by her side. His black shoulder-length hair hangs below a black brimmed hat. A black vest partly covers black suspenders and red shirt; trousers and shoes are also black. Her hair and neck is covered by a plain black bonnet. Only the hem of a long red skirt shows beneath her black coat.
Stoic, immobile, stuck. As a child of five, I smoothed my fingers over the cold miniature children; their sad, old-fashioned clothing. I couldn’t imagine their world, their school, where they played.
Granddaddy smoked quietly. I stepped back when he tapped his pipe on their heads, grey ash dropping into their laps. They remained mute, un-protesting.
One summer weekend, I accompanied my grandparents to their old home place in central Pennsylvania. Through rolling countryside, we passed Amish
farmhouses and barns, where their blue and black garb waved high on lines, and the scent of fresh summer-cut hay breezed through the open car windows. Men and boys wearing straw hats drove wagons pulled by mules and horses. I recall Granddaddy teased me, “The brown cows give chocolate milk,” as Nana pointed toward grazing dairy herds, lush green cornfields and glistening wheat.
Cars shared country roads with black horse-drawn carriages on Sunday, people dressed in serious black clothing. Nana said the men held bibles, and women brought food for shared Sunday dinners. So, that was what the ashtray girl carried--a basket!
A lifetime later, the ashtray reappeared as I packed up my grandparents’ household and memories. I noticed, “Wilton Prod., Wrightsville, PA,” on the bottom, and a bolt, which if turned, could allow the children to be removed. Might I have persuaded my grandfather to set them free?
Here’s rust where he set his pipe. The boy’s nose is chipped, their dreary garb more faded. The girl winks at me as I type, and I smell Granddaddy’s fragrant pipe.
Mary Ellen writes about her life as an Air Force daughter, search and reunion with her birth family, her gardening career, and her survival of a stroke at mid-life. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Gravel Magazine, Wildflower Muse, The Remembered Arts Journal, The Vignette Review, Modern Creative Life, Halcyon Days, The Book Ends Review, Nature Writing, Haibun Today, PostCard Shorts, Memoir Magazine, Borrowed Solace, Thousand and One Stories, StoryLand Literary Review, CarpeArte and SoftCartel. Her memoir chapbook is 'Stroke Story, My Journey There and Back." She and her husband live in Sarasota, Florida, with their rescued Chihuahua, Max.
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