The Little Girl Who Lived Behind the Store
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The Little Girl Who Lived Behind the Store
By Tammy Sharp – Lawson
Once upon a time…I think all stories are supposed to begin this way…When I was just a little girl, oh maybe 5 or 6, my Mom and Dad owned and operated Sharp’s Store in Norma. Back then, there was a family who lived behind the store. They had an older daughter who was married, three sons, one was in Vietnam, and a little girl just a little older than me. I stayed at the store a lot back then, because Momma had to work while Daddy delivered groceries to the head of Smokey and Bull Creek. I didn’t have a playmate, except for the little girl, and she was a great little playmate and friend!
This family was very poor, and I remember that her mother was sick. Every time I went to her house, her mother would be in bed. I always felt so sorry for my little playmate, because since her mother was so sick, I thought she was lonely, I never saw her get a hug, and I never really got to know her mom. They didn’t have a TV, and so we would play with dolls, make mud pies, catch butterflies and pick honeysuckle in the summertime. She taught me how to pull the pistils out of the honeysuckle and taste the sweet nectar. She kept the spiders away when I had to go to the outhouse. We drank water from dipper in a water bucket. (Yep, everyone drank from the same dipper) They carried their water from Mrs. Murley’s well just like Dad did for the water he used at the store.
At Christmas time she would chop down a small evergreen tree and place it in a bucket with gravels and water. She made homemade decorations from stringing popcorn and drawing ornaments on a brown paper bag and coloring them with crayons. She then cut them out and tied red yarn on them so she could hang them on the little tree. I remember helping her decorate the little tree, and it was so much fun, but I felt so sad that her family didn’t have a bigger tree, and “real” ornaments like we had on our tree and like the ones on the tree at my Grandma and Grandpa Sharp’s.
One Christmas Eve, my Daddy came home from the store with a present for me. It was from the little girl who lived behind the store. It was gift wrapped neatly in a brown paper bag; decorated with ornaments, stars and bells, brightly colored with crayons. It was tied in a pretty bow with the red yarn. I opened the present to find a little plaid dress that I’d seen her wear to Sunday School. I sat down and cried because this act of kindness and love from one little girl to another, was more than my little 6 year old heart could hold. I told my Momma that I wanted to take her a present too. My Momma assured me that she had already made sure that the little girl had gotten something nice for Christmas.
I still love that sweet little girl today, and 56 years later, she is still my friend. I want her to know I have never forgotten that Christmas so long-long ago, and I love her so very much. Merry Christmas to everyone, but most of all, Merry Christmas to the little girl who lived behind the store.
Mark 10:14b Jesus said unto them, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”