Fannie is planning her Halloween costume, Pearl, with a great deal of enthusiasm.  On Monday she's going to be a witch.  But by Tuesday she's scheming about turning her dance leotard into a boa constrictor skin complete with lumps to suggest undigested small mammals.  Her excitement is contagious.  Louise wants to darn that old flapper dress she used to let us borrow for dance contests and wear it to greet the trick or treaters who come to the door.  I remember the year you were the pig.  Do you still have that photo?

I Remain As Always,
Your Devoted Miss Blue

My beautiful Evie and wonderful Mazen married yesterday!

                                                                                                 

Improving little Buddy Hecker's life was our true intention, Miss Blue. Anything less hadn't occurred to us - why else would we have been chosen? And so we spent the morning at the player piano where we played our favorite march, Under the Double Eagle, sitting on the piano bench, with Buddy between us. The music made Buddy so excited he constantly had to have his diaper changed. We could hardly wait until his mother came home so that we could tell her about his musical talent.

I really loved Buddy's teddy bear, and so I hid it behind one of the piano rolls in the closet, remembering which piano roll it was behind so that I could find it and give it to him if he cried, of course.

We wrote a report, all about our first babysitting job and how we had improved a baby's life when we returned to school on Monday. Our teacher was impressed with the music part. We were proud.

With Loving Memories.
Pearl

Dearest Pearl,

Remember how excited the Heckers were when they finally got their baby after years of trying?He was so loud! And he would only eat buckweat cereal. And he wore diapers until he started first grade. What a perfectly awful time we had of it when our mothers conspired to leave us alone with him one Saturday afternoon. Who knew how dreadfully, completely, superbly, we would demonstrate our complete ineptness as babysitters. Remember how rude we were about his teddy bear? And how we switched his silver spoon for a knife and fork? I can hear him wailing still!

I Remain As Always,

Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dear Miss Blue,

Yes, the Queen Anne Apple tree stood right at the far end of our father's garden. It bore the best of apples - red and juicy - and we were allowed to eat the ones fallen to the ground. The tree was not very tall but we did prop a small ladder against the trunk so that we could pick the apples from the taller branches. We took turns standing on the ladder, reaching as far as our arms would reach without losing our balance and kissing each rosy cheek apple tenderly before sending it off into the late summer air to the basket below.

And so we picked and ran in and out of our house with our baskets of apples while out mother washed and peeled apples. She said she was putting up applesauce and apple butter. The kitchen was all over with pots on the stove, vinegar bubbling crazily with chunks of white pulp glistening as they bounced up and down in the pot. Our mother was busy poking, then straining apples into another pot, adding brown sugar and spices, until finally it was all done and the jars were lined up on the table for filling.

The apple tree was mostly bare, leaving a few scattered throughout the branches almost hidden from our sight. The birds would find them, we knew. The jars of apple butter and apple sauce would go with us from Gagetown to Detroit. That's what our mother said. Other times we had climbed the apple tree and sat on its small spread-out friendly branches while we telephoned with tin cans our messages to whoever was on the ground - cats, dogs, birds, one another. All in a summer in Gagetown.

Stories from Pearl

Dearest Pearl,

Thank you so much for shedding light on the whole Giant Grasshopper business, Pearl. I was relieved to know that it was not YOU singing Hail Britannia that enraged the towering insect. I remember how you loved to sing. And how fascinated you were with all things British that summer in Gagetown. You spent long hours tending to that Queen Anne Apple tree in your father's garden. Say, what ever happened to those apples?

I Remain As Always Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dear Miss Blue,

The giant grasshopper must have heard the blasting of the whistle from the locomotive as it sped along the tracks there at the bottom of the sand dunes, Miss Blue. It was unfortunate, of course, that the whistle and the first notes of "Hail Britannia" were both in the key of "C". Fiddling was in his genes (you remember the tale of the Grasshopper and the Ant) and the Grasshopper had spent his younger years fiddling for the sailors on board a Navy Vessel. Once his ship was blown up by enemy fire and he was thrown into the water along with his fiddle. A very frightening memory that led to many generations of grasshoppers being afraid of "Hail Britannia" - the strains of which filled his ears as he flailed about in the water.

Stopping the locomotive was truly a feat of purpose and physical achievement. Of course, the Engineer was grateful that the train was stopped although the absence of the Hand Car remains a puzzle to everyone who has heard the story of the Giant Grasshopper!

Salted green apples remain on the menu at the Diner, Miss Blue. I have always preferred their dry, tart taste to pretzels. If you have a green apple tree growing nearby you might shake an apple or two or three down for salting. An after school treat for Fanny.

Love from Pearl