Career Day
Abby loved her Auntie Cook. She never called her that out loud not even to her grandma. Only in the little diaries she had given her at Christmas each year. She was too shy to talk about it, and she knew that Auntie Cook wasn’t really her aunt. But she sure felt like she was. When the girls at school talked about all their aunts and uncles, she knew that she had one too. But she was puzzled about something else. When the girls at school talked about what they were going to be when they grew up she thought some of it was dumb. Ballerinas, nurses, secretaries, and even some that the boys didn’t even want to be. Policewomen or firefighters. She didn’t like any of those things. She liked dancing but only in her room by herself. Her brother, Ben thought she was being dumb. She didn’t want to be a nurse. “That’s too icky mom! Needles and blood! Yuck!” A secretary was just boring, sitting still all day in front of a computer. Doing somebody else’s letters. A policewoman! She’d have to wear a uniform and be tough. Ben just laughed when she told him she thought about it. “You would cry if you had to be tough! Grownups don’t cry at their jobs.” She told him, she didn’t want to anyway. And a firefighter?! That was the dumbest. Going straight into a fire! Getting all dirty and maybe dead! She wouldn’t mind saving a cat up a tree or on somebody’s roof, but the fire part was too dangerous.
So she was puzzled. “I’m only seven years old. Why do I need to think about it now. I’m not even a teenager yet.” She closed her diary when she heard her grandma’s voice downstairs. Her mother was still at school and her grandma was coming to stay with them till her mother came home. She’d know what to do.
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Martha came bustling in the back door. “Hello, Ben. Are you just working on your homework?” She kissed him on the top of his head. “Don’t you ever comb your hair? Where’s Abby? I’ve brought some cookies with me from Cook....Yoo hoo! Abby! Come get some cookies before your brother eats them all.” She let Ben have one - he took two - and put them on the cupboard. She filled the teakettle and put it on to boil. “There you are, my Abby. Look at you, all neat and tidy. What’s wrong? You look worried about something.” Abby glanced at Ben and barely shook her head. “Oh, nothing.” Without looking up, Ben said “She’s trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up.” He got up, closed his books, grabbed two more cookies and was out the door before his grandma could stop him.
“Is that what’s wrong, dear? Why do you need to figure that out now?” The tea kettle whistled. Martha poured the water into the tea pot and got two of her daughter’s china cups out. “Let’s sit down and talk about it.” It seemed a big enough problem for her usually sunny granddaughter to be so worried. “So, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” She poured them each a cup of tea. Abby’s had more milk in it than tea, with just a little sugar to sweeten it. “I do, grandma, but you’ll laugh. And I don’t know how to do it anyways, so it’s probably just impossible.” She took a cookie from the plate her grandma has returned to the table. “Well, tell me, anyway. If I think it’s funny, I will laugh. If I think it’s a good idea then we’ll figure out how you can do it.” Abby was silent for a long time. So Martha kept her council, sipping on her tea. In a quiet voice, Abby said. “A scientist.” Martha didn’t laugh, but she had no idea how she was going to handle this one. Her granddaughter was very serious about this. “What kind of a scientist, dear?” She decided to start with that. It could be the little one may not even know what a scientist does. She wasn’t sure she even knew. “Teacher had a scientist come to talk to us today. She said she was a botanist and told us all about plants and flowers and bees and butterflies and how the climate changing is killing them. She said it lots better than that but, but I decided that’s want I want to do.” She ate the last of her cookie. “We can’t have all those dying, grandma! Where would we get honey from? It really sounded sad, but she told us how we could protect them. But I want to know about it, and maybe I can help somehow.” Martha smiled at her granddaughter. “It is a big problem and you have lots of work ahead of you if you really want to be a scientist. Did you know that you have people here that can help you get started?” Abby's face lit up. She was sure her grandma would tell her she was being silly. “Who? Is there a scientist that lives here on the Estate?” Now Martha did laugh. “No, dear, but there’s two people here who know about bees and the apple trees. Have you ever talked to Samuel before?” Abby looked shocked. “That old man that looks after the garden?” Now it was Martha’s turn to look shocked. “He’s not that old, dear. Not much older than me.” Abby grinned. “Sometimes I think you’re old, grandma. But why should I talk to Samuel? He just works all the time in the garden.” Martha gathered their teacups and the cookie plate with only crumbs on it. “I’ll start supper now for your mother. About Samuel ~ because he always works in the garden, and because Miss Dez set up beehives last summer behind the apple orchard, he knows about bees and butterflies and how the vegetable and flowers need them………….where are you going?” Abby had jumped off her chair and was running to the stairs to her room. “I’ll be right back. I just need to get something.”
~~~~~
The dishes all done, Martha sat down with her daughter Joanie. They had time for a quiet visit before James came for Martha. “It was good of James to let you stay for supper tonight.” Martha laughed. “He knows that he’d better not ‘let me’ do anything. We both were alone too long and have our own set ways.” Joanie smiled at her stubborn mother. “I know, mom. It’s just that James is a such good man. Now what else have my children been telling you. Any complaints about their mother?” Martha patted her daughter’s hand. “No complaints at all. They are just good kids. Abby did come to me with a big problem. She’s going to need some direction from you and a good pair of garden boots.” She went on to tell her of their earlier conversation, about science and how concerned Abby was. How she had raced upstairs and come down with a notebook to write down what to do. She’ll need some books you can probably help her with, much better than I could. I have told her that Samuel and Miss Dez may be able to give her first hand knowledge about plants, bees, butterflies, and apple blossoms.”
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“Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.”
~ Rosalind Franklin, Chemist & X-ray Crystallographer
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