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PatchWork by Joyce Whitis |
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PatchWork by Joyce Whitis |
Easter Morning in the Thirties
I felt the earliness of the morning before I opened my eyes, thinking slowly...then remembering that today was very special, one of the best days of the year! I grinned, eyes still shut, and my tongue felt the empty place where that front tooth had fallen out yesterday. Had the Good Fairy come? I wanted to wait just a little before I slipped a hand under my feather pillow. As I lay there, the good thoughts multiplied until I could hardly stand it.
The early morning was a little chilly in April, so I pulled the outing blanket up to my chin. Through half-opened eyes, I watched the light gather strength as it filtered through the orchard out back of the house and then long bright streaks of sun stabbed through the east window. Diffused by the lacy white curtains, the sun's rays brought the pink roses on the papered wall to glowing life. Limbs of a young elm, bristling with its first leaves, threw small shadows across the wallpaper and the paper roses seemed to unfold and climb ceilingward as my eyes were tricked by the light. A moment longer the illusion lasted and then the sun took a new position and the wall of my room was in shadow once more. The picture faded and my daydreams vanished too as I jumped out of bed, dressing as I ran across the room.
Today was Easter! Surely the Easter rabbit had come during the night! My brother met me at the door holding out my basket. "The Easter rabbit has scattered eggs all over the front pasture, " he said.
I took the basket and ran outside, leaped from the porch to the yard, ignoring the steps. "Whooppee!" The hunt was on. I had the whole 10 acres of pasture to myself. It was mostly Bermuda grass with a few early weeds, and over near the road, a grove of mesquite trees stood bare as yet.
I could see eggs clearly from across the barbed wire fence, but others were probably well hidden. I crawled through the wires and started filling my basket. I hunted for maybe 20 minutes and kept looking under the edges of rocks, rotted tree limbs, and in the forks of trees until I was satisfied that the full basket I held was all there was. I did a schoolgirl hop across the pasture, still looking in clumps of grass, climbed back between the barbed wires of the fence, ran across the yard and into the house. The family was ready for breakfast.
Setting my basket on the kitchen cabinet, I took out one of the candy eggs scattered among the colored hen eggs. Wiping the grains of sand away with my hand, I took a bite. I never really liked the candy eggs, too sweet...but I felt it was my duty to eat a few since they cost money and I wanted my brother to know how much I liked these yearly visits from that special "rabbit".
Those Easter mornings were repeated over and over until I was really too big to hunt eggs, but both my brother and I clung to that little bit of make-believe until he went off to war. The Easter bunny was a special event we shared but never discussed, lest the conversation destroy an illusion we both enjoyed.
He never knew the moment when I stopped believing in the Easter bunny, and I never knew when he stopped thinking of me as "little". Come to think of it he never stopped calling me his "little sister". More than 60 years have passed since those days when as a child I hunted the colored eggs my brother hid in the front pasture. Even after I knew no rabbit could lay colored eggs, I pretended to believe so that I could have the joy of childhood.
Today, when I hold a great-grandchild real tight on a special Easter morning, I see wonderful white rabbits with pink eyes, hopping through green pastures, leaving brilliant trails of colored eggs for the children of Eastertime.