A Fairy's Tale

Mary swayed her legs back and forth as she clicked her black heels together and tapped the top of her small black suitcase. It was not very heavy, for it only held her dearest possessions, two petticoats, and three of her dressed that Ms. Gil had instructed her to pack. Stocking, garters, and high button shoes, Mary had but one pair of each. She had been quite lucky to be allowed that much, indeed. Mary’s parents, both her mother and her father, died of influenza just two weeks before. After the death of her parents, she had been sent to the Wells Orphanage in New York City.

What a dreadful place! The thought of the cold, dimly lit, and overcrowded building that reeked of an overpowering, pungent odor sent a chill through Mary’s spine. Ms. Gil, the directress and head disciplinarian at Wells, had deliberately made Mary’s life at the orphanage difficult. She had taken away most of her belongings, and punished her for not finishing her supper, when Harriet, the cook, served her a plate of porridge that made Mary’s stomach churn. Mary was most jovial to be rid of that terrible prison. She had lived there for two weeks before her social worker, Ms. Alden, had located a distant relative who was willing to take her in. Had it not been for Ms. Alden’s kind efforts, who knows how long she might have been locked up there?

Now, after taking the train to a station in West Davenport, she had been waiting two hours for her Uncle Alan, whom she had never met before, to meet her and take her to his home where she would be residing. He certainly was taking a while.

“What if he has forgotten all about me?” Mary thought.

At that very moment, a horse and buggy pulled up in front of the train station’s platform. At the front of the buggy, with the reins clenched tightly in his fists, sat a tall, handsome man. He had a stern face, dark hair, and green eyes tinted with a bit of hazel, like that of Mary’s. He stepped down from the buggy, pat the horse’s head, and walked over to Mary at a slow pace. The man’s voice was gruff when he finally spoke.

“Miss Mary Anna Hoskins?”

“I prefer just plain Mary, actually,” Mary answered.

The man shook his head, and said, “Mary Anna is the name your mother gave you on the day of your birth, and that is what I shall call you.”

“Are you my Uncle Alan?” Mary asked in a timid tone of voice.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m very sorry about your mother and father, Mary Anna. Please accept my condolences.”

Before Mary had the chance to speak, Uncle Alan had taken the small suitcase out of her hands and placed it into the back of the buggy.

“Come along, now,” Uncle Alan said, motioning for his niece to follow. “The sooner we’re off, the sooner you’ll see your new home.”

Mary followed him in silence, hoping that her uncle would be a bit more open to conversation later.

The trip to Taran was long and tiring. The road was bumpy and winded around almost every tree they came upon while following the dirt path. Taran was a little town that sat quiet and undisturbed in the beautiful Pine Lake Forest. Mary assumed that her Uncle Alan was a quiet man who liked to keep to himself most of the time. After all, he hadn’t said a word since they had left the station.

The horse and buggy soon pulled into a large open square, filled with people buying and selling goods. There were a few houses on the corners of the square. In front of one household, a housewife hung up some trousers to dry on a clothesline. In front of another, a group of children ran about playing tag. There was a bakery, a blacksmith’s, a doctor’s, a carpenter’s workshop, a toyshop, a grocer’s, and even a schoolhouse.

Taran seemed to be such a warm, welcoming place, and at that moment Mary felt as if she would enjoy her time living here with her uncle, even if he did have a melancholy personality. Yet, that sweet dream that Mary had built up on a cloud of hope was whisked away by the powerful wind of reality. Uncle Alan shook the reins gently, and the horse continued onward into the forest. Mary was greatly disappointed. Why hadn’t her uncle stopped? Anxious to engage in conversation, Mary piped up,

“In what part of Taran do you live, exactly?”

“In the back of Taran Square, in front of Bowerman’s Brook,” her uncle replied.

“Surely your children don’t enjoy being so isolated from the other children in the village,” said Mary, wishing her uncle could have lived in the prettier and less isolated part of town.

“Don’t have any children,” Uncle Alan said, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Well, don’t you and your wife ever feel queer living out here all by your lonesome?” Mary inquired.

“Don’t have a wife,” her uncle answered promptly.

Mary went quiet. Her uncle was a strange, peculiar man indeed.

“I don’t mind living out here on my own that much. It’s nice to have some peace and quiet every once in a while. You wouldn’t get that living in front of Taran Square. Besides, if you’re worried about not having someone to play with you, you shouldn’t be. The Cretchny’s live ten minutes away. They have four little girls, and I believe their oldest, Julia, is eleven.”

Mary’s eyes lit up. Not only had her Uncle Alan spoken up, but he had said the very words she had been longing to hear. “I’m also eleven!” she exclaimed. “Oh, it would be wonderful to play with a girl my age. Julia and I could be the best of friends.”

“Tomorrow, you’ll meet her on your very first day of Sunday school,” Uncle Alan mentioned.

“School,” Mary thought. “It will be nice to sit in a classroom once again.”

The horse and buggy came to a stop in front of a worn-down seemingly dilapidated two-story cabin. The old place looked as if no one had resided there in ages. Uncle Alan stepped down the rickety buggy, and grabbed Mary’s suitcase. He then held out his hand to Mary, who grabbed it and hopped out of the buggy as well. Mary followed after him in silence.

The inside of the cabin was worse. Muddy shoes had left tracks on the wooden floors; the house had the stench of rancid meat in the air that caused Mary to scrunch up her face into a nauseated expression. Uncle Alan led her into a room to the right of the staircase. The beige paint on the walls was peeled, and there was a small bed with a wooden chest in front of it. To the right of the doorway was a small night table with a single drawer and a stool. Upon it, sat a lit candle. Uncle Alan placed the small black suitcase on the bed. Mary untied her bonnet’s bow from beneath her chin, and placed it next to her little black case of treasures.

The room was quaint. If you overlooked the cobwebs on the window, it was a decent room, with just enough space for Mary to keep all of her special things.

“Have you ever cleaned before,” Uncle Alan asked.

“Yes, I have. And I know how to cook also,” Mary replied proudly.

“You needn’t worry yourself about tonight’s supper. We will be having bread for our meal. As for now, this house is absolutely filthy. I’ll need you to tidy up your room and scrub down the floor in front of the doorway tonight. The pots and pans will be scrubbed down last, for they will take the most time to clean. Tomorrow, perhaps you can make a broth or stew of some sort. Once you have finished tidying up for the night, you are free to make yourself at home. You may roam anywhere around the cabin you like, as long as you first ask my permission, and may enter every room in this house except for the study upstairs.”

Uncle Alan exited the room, leaving Mary dazed. He is quiet and melancholy at one moment, and then demanding and stern the next. Mary crossed her arms. It seemed to her as though she would never understand her uncle. Nevertheless, Mary decided to obey her uncle. She wouldn’t want to displease him on her first day in Taran, and although cleaning was very strenuous work, once Mary’s room was dusted properly, she would be able to tolerate having to live in it.

At first, just the sight of such an untidy household left her in a state of disgust. It was now that she was actually on her knees scrubbing away at the sticky and stubborn smudges of mud on the wooden floor that she decided cleaning the mess in her Uncle Alan’s house was far more difficult to do than looking at it.