Now,
in loving the jewels – it may not seem so – but the little girl was very
naughty. Her mother did not like
jewels. They were not holy. Her father did not like jewels. They cost too much money and he was very busy
working and spending all his money on food and clothes for the family. The older sister did not like jewels. They did not please her mother.
In
fact, the older sister had collected a whole drawer full of jewels and then had
stopped wearing them. They lay there in
the dark, quiet drawer, day after day, with no one to admire them or play with
them or watch them sparkle in the sunshine.
This
was too much for the little girl. She
wanted to see those jewels every day, but she was forbidden to open the
drawer. Often she would go to the
doorway of the older sister’s room, and look at the chest of drawers that
contained that special drawer, and think
about running her fingers through them.
But then someone would come down the hallway and she would scamper away
so as not to be caught standing in the sister’s doorway.
Oh,
how the little girl wished her sister would give her some of the jewels. If she
didn’t want them, why should she let them lay in the drawer? It seemed so wasteful of a precious
treasure. She longed to walk into the
forbidden room, open the drawer, and run her fingers through the strands of
pearls and many-colored gems. She could
picture herself trying them on and spinning in front of the mirror.
One
day the temptation was too much. None of
the rules of the house seemed to matter, nor did displeasing her mother or
angering her sister. No fear was so big
that it blocked her plan to play with the jewels.
It didn’t take
long. Her dad left for his work of
painting houses, her sister left for school, and her mom was baking in the
kitchen. In she went, tugged open the
heavy drawer and stared in guilty pleasure at the contents.
There was no
stopping her now. She picked up one
necklace after another and slipped them over her head, walking to the mirror on
her big sister’s vanity table to admire herself. She did not see a five-year-old girl in a
muslin night gown with tousled brown hair.
She saw a princess in a golden tiara wearing three pearl necklaces!
Then she heard
her mother’s heavy footsteps in the hall, and the magic was over. She was scolded, sent to bed for the day, and
that evening was subjected to her sister’s angry silence.
The next day
there was a lock on the drawer!
But there is no
lock on dreams. Or on the
imagination. The girl now had a dream
that someday she would own all the colorful jewels that she wanted.
She grew up and
took a job. She worked hard. She never made much money – not the kind that
buys real diamonds and gold and silver – but fortunately there were jewelers
who made beautiful things that even poor girls could afford. And she bought lots of those kinds of
gems. She bought pins and brooches and
many-stranded necklaces. She had gold
metal and silver metal jewelry of every shape and description. She collected clip-on earrings, and
screw-type earrings, and – after they invented them – earrings for pierced
ears. There were luminescent pearls of
amber, pink and rose, and many, many strands of ivory pearls – long, loopy
strands, double and triple strands, and short chokers with a single teardrop
pearl. If there was any shade of red,
green, yellow, orange or blue that she didn’t have in her large jewelry chests,
I haven’t seen it!
Her jewelry was
fascinating, and reflected the history of her life and loves – from the picture
locket her true love gave her during the Great Depression to the last piece she
wore to her granddaughter’s wedding.
She was a great
lady with many-colored jewels, and she always shared them generously with all
the little girls in her life.
THE
END
Ldm 5-22-14
[Story loosely based on my mother's life.]
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