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|   Get to Know Her Describe what a typical day is like for you. Now that it's summertime, I have to spend a lot of my day helping Mom around the house -- doing the washing and hanging it outside on the line, sewing, sweeping and dusting, doing the dishes. It's even my job to cut the lawn, since Dad is always so tired when he gets home from work now. But I try to get some time to read my library books whenever I can sneak off for a bit. Luckily there's a library not too far away, and Mom lets me go as often as I want. In the evening we all listen to the radio, but only until nine o'clock. Then Grandpa Sanders wants all the lights out -- he says that electricity is too expensive. And now that I've met Amy, who lives next door, I hope we'll be able to spend lots of time together. I'll actually be glad when school starts again in September -- I'd rather do schoolwork than housework. Amy and I will probably be in the same grade, since we're both ten. I'm hoping that I'll make some more new friends there. I had a lot of friends in my old school, but of course I don't see them now. Who is the most important person in your life? I would have to say it's my mother. I know she says "No" to me often, but she does try to get me things I really want -- like a new dress for the first day of school. Sometimes in a book when I read about a girl whose mother dies, I almost cry, thinking about how awful it would be to grow up without a mother. What thing do you love most in the world? I guess what I love most are books to read. I can't imagine what it would be like not to be able to lose myself in a good story. It's easy to forget your own problems when you're reading about someone else's life and their problems. Thank goodness there are public libraries, where you can borrow as many books as you like and it doesn't cost a cent. What is your greatest wish? My greatest wish is for this Depression to end, so that my Dad would have his job in the bank again, and we'd have our own house again, and I'd have a room of my own again. Since I have to sleep on the couch here in Grandpa Sanders's house, I don't have any place that's private. I would love to have some place where I can be alone, to read and think and daydream. What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is that my father might lose his job again. I can't bear to think of him wandering around the country looking for work, and having to ask people for a meal, the way Will does. I know Dad's job at the factory isn't much, and he gets awfully tired, but at least he's not like Will. What do you do for fun? Well, at our old house I had lots of friends and we played hide-and-seek and hopscotch and skipping. Sometimes we played games like Snakes & Ladders, and one of my friends had a new game called Monopoly. I used to like playing with paper dolls, but I'm too old for that now. I do enjoy listening to Grandpa Sanders's radio, especially the funny shows like the Jack Benny Show and Baby Snooks. There are some scary shows, like Inner Sanctum and The Shadow Knows, but I don't like them. Before Dad lost his job at the bank, Mom used to sometimes let me go to the movies on Saturday afternoons, especially for a Shirley Temple movie. But even though a ticket only costs 12 cents for children, I haven't gone for ages now. I hear that there's a new movie coming out this year (in Technicolor too!), The Wizard of Oz. I've read the book and really liked it, so I'd love to see the movie. But I don't suppose I will. What aspect of life in the twenty-first century do you think you would love the most? Dad read in the newspaper that there is a new invention called television, which is like radio but with pictures, on a tiny screen. Just imagine -- it would be like going to the movies in your own living room! And you wouldn't have to pay a cent, either! And this same article said there would soon be machines that would do your washing for you. You just put your dirty clothes in this machine and turn it on, and the clothes are all washed and rinsed and wrung out when you take them out. That would certainly be a lot easier than what Mom and I have to do every Monday. What aspect of life in the twenty-first century do you think you would dislike the most? I don't think I'd dislike anything. With machines to wash clothes and wash dishes, and vacuum cleaners to clean and dust, everyone must have lots of free time to read and watch movies! Maybe, if Dad got his bank job back, we'd even have our very own car to drive around in. Just as long as there aren't any more Depressions, where fathers lose their jobs they way Dad has. |
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