It is fitting that, on the day I decided to write about Mrs. Kier, I rose at 4:30 and started working, since she always got up at an hour deemed unfit by the rest of the world for an early start on the day. Of course, you could not visit her after 9 PM as she retired early for reading and sleep
The Kiers lived (and still live) in a big brown house across the street from our house. Mrs. Kier tells the story of opening the door one day and seeing a skinny girl who was all legs. I said, “Do you have a little girl for me to play with?” My mother had sent me across the street to ask, but already knew that Gillie lived there. Gillie was 4 and went to the same nursery school as my younger brother, while I was a big girl of 7. We became playmates on a more or less daily basis from then until sometime in high school. We ate in each other’s houses, went on each other’s outings, and played at every opportunity. One favorite game was playing “Little House in the Big Woods.” Gillie was invariably Laura and I was invariably Ma. Mostly we bounced around the neighborhood harvesting weeds and putting up provisions for winter, taking up residence in various sheds – moving from one to another much as the Ingalls did.
We organized various clubs that had elaborate initiation rites and dissolved into oblivion shortly after the initiations were completed. I wrote all the requirements down on little index cards to be checked off on completion. Who knows what they all were. Mostly I only remember the ones that eventually invited adult reprimand – like jumping off the garage roof. I got away with going to school not wearing underwear, but Gillie, who still periodically sucked on the front of her dresses, did not. Running around the block pushing a stroller and screaming obscenities was also not well received. Actually, the list of reprimands is embarrassingly long to remember. I was the one who got in trouble because I was the older one… and, yes, probably the instigator.
Another favorite game was staging plays, mostly fairy tales. We called ourselves the Porch Players. I loved being the witch, or any other evil character. We would recruit my brother to play extra parts, but he didn’t like to rehearse. Once, during a performance of A Christmas Carol (in the winter we set up in the basement), Gillie was a ghost and James was Scrooge. Neither one could remember their lines. I danced around behind our indulgent adult audience triumphing that my brother was paying the wages of not rehearsing as I had demanded. Mrs. Kier turned around a hissed at me to go cue them.
Gosh, the more I think about those days, the less nice of a kid I seem to be. No wonder Gillie and I drifted apart, though we had been inseparable for many enchanted years. I did remain close to Mrs. Kier, whose stagey fun-loving sense of drama is captured in the above snapshot. But since I veered off into remembering playing with Gillie, writing about her mother will have To Be Continued.
you bad girl, you! and here i grew up with everyone telling me i was bad when i never thought of instigating naughty things like you did! oh, i enjoyed this story soooo much!!!!
ps - go to school without underwear?? i'm shocked!
ps - go to school without underwear?? i'm shocked!