Читать книгу Bedtime Stories for the Child in You - Louise D. Jewell - Страница 9

One hot summer day, I spotted a black phone receiver on the side of the train tracks behind our house. I picked it up and listened with rapt attention.

And there I sat, the gravel burning beneath my bottom, my eyes squinting under a blinding sun. I strained to hear what the lady was saying.

We didn’t have a phone in my first childhood home. And this was the first time I had ever held a receiver in my hand. Don’t ask me what the lady talked about. I do remember feeling as if I was connecting with a land far away. What was I doing sitting on the side of an active train track as a three-or four-year-old?

I was keeping myself company while Mom cared for a deathly ill newborn. My three older siblings were away at school. And as there was no one to play with, I created my own world, a private world only for me.

I never told Mom about listening in on that telephone conversation. I knew better than to say a single word. A child in those days was never permitted to pick up a phone without permission.

I knew I would be in big trouble if I spilled the beans. Best keep the lid on what I’d done. And that is how I lived much of my childhood. Quiet, observant, and all ears. Exploring a world of my own. A land rich with mud pies in the front yard and dancing diamonds on the water.

And sparkling stars in the night sky that bid me goodnight at the close of every day.

Not all those who wander are lost.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring