My Mother

My mother comes back from a trip downtown to the dimestore. She has brought me a surprise. It is still in her purse.

She is wearing her red shoes with straps across the instep.They fasten with small white buttons, like the eyes of fish.

She has come back with zippers and spools of thread, yellow and green, for her work, which always takes her far away, even though she works in our house, upstairs, in the room next to mine.

She is wearing her blue plaid full-skirted dress with the large collar, her hair fastened up off her neck. She looks pretty. She always dresses up when she goes downtown.

Now she opens her straw purse, which looks like a small suitcase. She hands me the new toy; a wooden paddle with a red rubber ball attached to it by an elastic string. Some- times when she goes downtown, I think she will not come back.