When You Were Young

Molly paused on the hilltop to bend down and pick a flower. She studied the round yellow blossom. It smelled sweeter than any flower in England. She couldn't remember anything so lovely since leaving Ireland.

She lay down in the grass, thinking back to when she was a very little girl-four or five, she couldn't remember-and Mama and Papa took her to visit cousin Danny out in the country. She gawked at the lush green hills that were unlike anything in Dublin. "What is this place?" she asked Mama.

"These are meadows, dear," Mama said.

Later on, while the grown-ups were talking about grown-up things, Molly went outside to run through the meadows. The air, the grass, even the dirt smelled fresh and clean. She flopped onto the ground, rolling around to soak in the scent until her white dress turned green and brown.

She got up and continued running into a field dotted with flowers similar to the one she held in her hand. Beautiful yellow flowers, each as bright as a miniature sun. She breathed in the flower's perfume, savoring it in her memory for years to come. When she returned to Dublin with Mama and Papa, she cried at the stale air tinged with rotting garbage and animal waste. "Mama, when can we go back to the country?" she asked.

"Soon, dear, very soon," Mama said. They never did go; Mama and Papa died of fever a few years later and Molly was sent not to Cousin Danny in the country but to hateful Aunt Clara in dreary old England.

Until she came here to the New World, Molly never thought she would smell anything like those flowers in the meadow again. Reverend Crane said they had found paradise and she had to agree. This place must be the lost Garden of Eden with its enchanting sights and smells that made her feel so alive.

She decided she must get Mrs. Gooddell out of that dank old tent and up to the top of the hill. Surely the wonderful flowers would cheer her up; she'd been in such a terrible funk for the last day. Mrs. Gooddell said even less than usual and almost anything made her cry. Molly wondered if the missus weren't receiving a visit from Miss Redbottom as Aunt Clara used to say. Or more likely Mrs. Gooddell was feeling sad about her husband going off to talk with the savages.

Molly couldn't understand why Mr. Gooddell wanted to talk with them. Reverend Crane said the savages were heathens and couldn't be trusted to keep their word like God-fearing people. She couldn't doubt an intelligent-and handsome-man like Reverend Crane, even though Mr. Gooddell had been nice to her for these last five years.