MY GOLD BOX
Although it is purely imaginative, I can see it as clearly as though it were real. It sits on a low,
broad white shelf under a window where the cold winter sun light glints on it every day; and it reflects
the golden radiance, filling its corner with warmth and beauty. For though it is imagined, its contents are
real and true. Springing from small - mere mustard seed - things that I have done, into unbelievable
beauty and charm - to give pleasure. Always the result of the other person's reaction.
The first regards a chicken:
Living below me, in a ruinous two roomed house by the creek lived an old colored couple and their small
gran' daughter. It was Christmas Eve. I had nothing to take them till I thought of their Christmas dinner.
Then I went to the hen house and got one of my pretty red hens, and in the dusk, ran down to their door:
"Aunt Sally," I told her, "you can dress this chicken better than I can. It's for your Christmas dinner."
She held it carefully, her arm around it, against her breast:
"Yes Ma'am. That I can. Ain't she pretty! We sure will enjoy this chicken." She stroked her hand over
its back. "Pretty. pretty." she said.
I was pleased next day, thinking they were eating chicken. Then I thought no more about it. The winter
passed. I saw them occasionally. One day in the spring the child came up; her Gran'ma wanted me to
come down there - right away, please Ma'am, if I could. No! Nothing was wrong.
I went. She was standing on the steep hillside, beaming; waiting for me, and in the grass at her feet
the hen with 12 fluffy yellow chicks.
"This hen have sure been company for us this winter, an' she laid a egg most every day. The last ones I
sat. I just wanted you to see 'em.
CHAPTER TWO
As I turn over the things in my Gold Box - it is just the size to hold a folded letter - the next thing I
come to is even smaller than the last: It had to do with some waffles.
The grass in my yard needed cutting and other small jobs, so I called John Mars. He had lived on our place
once; a splendid workman, entirely illiterate and very poor, with a large family and delicate wife.
I told him to be sure to bring his lunch. Living alone I rarely had things in the house to feed a hearty man.
He agreed; but when midday came, instead of eating he sat down for the noon hour, on the front steps.
Questioned he said:
"The old lady was sick and didn't have anything fixed - but I won't be hungry, and I'll get home to
supper." I was in a fix. I had nothing either. And had thought myself so smart to stave off the trouble, but...
I can make good waffles - and they are no trouble at all and I kept a cow so had plenty of butter and buttermilk.
My little breakfast porch was right off the kitchen with a big window between - cool and sweet with
climbing roses, and I could pass things right from the stove through to the big rustic table (that
I had made myself!). So I sat him down there. There is something in me that LIKES to do things when
its made to. So I went to work.
He was very apologetic. I LOVE to make waffles I told him. I really did that time. And I did it in no time
at all. I put him a pretty print of butter - fern leaves on it: and a big pitcher of buttermilk. A
big cruet of molasses. And I rushed those waffles through that window like lightening - brown and crisp.
They were good. But nothing to make - or to a hungry man.
I forebore to count, but I think there were about a dozen. The quantity I always made for four:
Christian, Florence, Ashton and myself; when they came.
When he finished the last one he stood up:
"I never knew there was eatens like that in the world."
I, too, enjoyed those waffles more than any "Eatens" I ever ate - though I never tasted them.
When evening came he did not want to charge me for the day's work. Of course I made him take it, but
the memory is sweet to me - sweet.
Years after, Ruby, his daughter (that I named) told me: "Pap never did stop talkin' about that dinner you
cooked him."
Ten minutes work.
HALLOWEEN
Halloween: I brought in everything portable and locked the door. All my beautiful pecans
brought from North Carolina, and home gathered black walnuts had, lately, been stolen off the driers.
I was feeling pretty grim.
Someone knocked. I went to the door and a diminutive ghost stood before me:
"Treats or tricks," he said. "I haven't got anything."
"You REALLY haven't got any 'treats or tricks'?"
"No."
He pulled off a home-made mask, of paper-bag construction; and a pair of glorious brown eyes smiled into
mine:
"I'm going to show you what I've got."
He opened a cavernous paper sack: It held four or five big red apples, with a scattering of candy and
suckers in the bottom.
He smiled at me again.
"I didn't really want you to give me anything. I came to see you because you lost your nuts. I brought
you this."
He pulled out his biggest apple. "Oh, no! Thank you. I couldn't."
"I want you to. I brought it to you," and he tried to put it in my pocket. It was too big.
"That's splendid of you and I appreciate it, but..."
A teasing light came into the handsome eyes:
I brought it to you. I can MAKE you take it." - He rolled it across the floor and ran.
Magically, our statures were reversed: He stood erect and self reliant, a bearer of happiness and good-will;
and I a very small ghost in a paper mask. Mrs. D. M. Trice, from an unidentified newspaper, 1952
