A unique structure not at all appealing to ordinary eyes, my playhouse, nevertheless, offered unlimited scope to my active imagination as a preschooler.
My teenage brother, Cliff, used slabs from Dad’s sawmill to build my playhouse. Architecturally it had four walls that came halfway up, a roof that was halfway slanted and a dirt floor that was halfway smooth. To escape the reality of loneliness or boredom on the long hot days of summer, I resorted to my “halfway house.” The other half I supplied with my own ingenuity.
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Orange crates made good cupboards for my supply of cracked dishes, and the woodpile became my source of furniture. I piled sticks of wood crossways with a couple of short boards on top for my table; two stumps were my chairs. The only thing missing was a staircase and I remedied that little oversight by stacking wooden apple boxes just so. I made continual trips up and down those three box steps tending to my “children,” who all slept “upstairs.”
The one little inconvenience was the stove. I had to share it with my mother, who insisted that it be under the elm tree where she could bake bread on very hot days. Every time I made mud pies, therefore, I had to stir them up in my playhouse kitchen, decorate them with berries from the columbine bush nearby and then take them all the way over to the stove under the elm tree to “bake.” And that was only after I fetched some water in a leaky pail from the pump and scratched up enough mud for my pies from the garden at the east end of the yard.
Such work. And I with a baby doll to dress and care for. It’s a wonder I didn’t wear myself out.
Under the circumstances, I decided to ask for a doll carriage. I could go for long walks down the lane while my mud pies baked, or I could take my baby with me when I went “shopping” for empty tin cans to replenish my grocery cupboard. Sometimes all I needed for that finishing touch to my playhouse were some wild violets to decorate the table, but they grew only along the shady bush trail, and it was so far away I couldn’t possibly carry my heavy doll all that distance.
And so, I asked and pleaded and hoped and prayed for a doll carriage.
I never got one.
Disenchanted, I gradually lost interest in my playhouse. In time, it tumbled down from neglect and was toted away as rubble. A fir tree planted on the empty spot grew to mark the site where childhood fantasies faded.
Many years later, while gazing at that evergreen tree, I thought back to the days of playing house at that exact location, of mixing up mud pies, climbing the pretend stairs, and caring for my doll. I looked down at our firstborn son, stirring in his sleep and I realized those childhood fantasies had not only been fulfilled, but far surpassed. Gently placing our baby in his carriage, I went for a long walk down the country lane while mud pies baked in my memory.
