Article March 20, 1976 Issue

Laurie Remembers

Eleanor Young Clapp

Laurie's home had a long field in back, and at the end of it was a little forest of pine trees. After school Laurie and Roy and her other friends liked to play there. They could crawl in under the branches on the soft pine needles. Sometimes each one would choose a tree and make a house, pushing the pine needles aside to form walls and sprinkling some of the pine needles on top of a low branch to form the roof.

The friends would visit each other playing "neighborhood." Sometimes they just built one large house and played "family" or "school." Roy's mother always rang a bell at the end of the afternoon, and that was the signal for him to come home and get ready for supper. All the others left then, too. But Laurie was allowed to stay out a little longer because her family ate supper later.

Laurie loved her friends, but she also loved this time all by herself. She would sit all cozy in her little house and pull some of the pine needles over her legs like a blanket. Then she would watch the sun setting through the trees and see the clouds turn pink and gold. Soft breezes would make a "hush" sound as they moved through the branches and sometimes made pine needles drop quietly around her.

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