Sally Louise: Travel Adventures

By Sharon Young

Sally Louise is nine going on ten. She lives in a rural Alleghenies town. Her best friend is Greta. They love to write stories together and find ways to give dolls to poor young girls at Christmas. They both have new baby sisters. They love to play with them but sometimes don't watch out for them very well. Greta's mother is helping them to be better baby-sitters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329705661

Book preview

Sally Louise: Travel Adventures

Sally Louise:

Travel Adventures

Sharon Young

Copyright c 2015 by Sharon Young

All rights reserved

This book or parts thereof may not reproduced in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

ISBN 978-1-329-70566-1

Cover design and illustrations by Sharon Young

1

My friend Greta’s mother had her baby!  It’s a girl.

They named her Susie.  She didn’t have any teeth, and she cried all the time.  Although I loved her right away, I was glad to turn her over after several minutes of loud demanding cries.

She has reddish hair and large blue eyes just like Greta.  Greta is my best friend and has been since we were in kindergarten together.

Sometimes, Greta and I put Susie in her stroller and cover her up in a pink baby blanket.  Everything of Susie’s was pink: her little pink nose, her little pink cheeks, her little pink tummy.

When she isn’t crying, she smiles so sweet like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  I learned something.  God makes little babies to be so cute that you can love her even if she dirties her pants all the time and spits on your new dress up outfit.

Greta said, Sally Louise I am happy for the first time in my life.

Now, I was jealous of Greta.  She has two kittens and a baby.

I have one kitten and no baby.

We did a lot of happy dancing after Susie was born.

It is summer now in the Alleghenies.  The wild flowers pop up everywhere.  Seas of green, yellow, red, white and azure display their beauty like Monet paintings.

We have a collection of different artists in our home.  I look at them sometimes, and I wonder how anyone could paint such wonderful masterpieces.

Daddy is busy taking portraits with his camera as usual, and he has taught me how to draw people.  At first the faces I drew looked like they were melting.  They still aren’t much better.

Daddy has been a photographer for a long time and so he is well known.  There is so much to want to capture in the Alleghenies.  People come down on Route #15 to drive along a road that has mountains on both sides. Sometimes, they sit in their cars and watch the deer prance through the trees.

They like to pick the flowers and take them home, and in the process, they often see my father’s advertisements on a billboard near Mansfield, a small town near the Alleghenies.

Daddy makes enough money for all of our needs, and we all love the Alleghenies.  We are not rich, but we are a little more than middle class.

Yesterday, Greta and I looked for new ways to make beautiful crafts to sell so that we could buy dolls for the poor girls in the mountains like we did last year.

We sold so many crafts of Christmas trees that we pasted on cardboard last year that we decided to continue our work so that more poor girls could have dolls.  We have learned how to use wild flower stalks in a new way.

Miss Simpson, who used to be a teacher, is now our partner in making poor girls happy at Christmas. She gives us ideas, and we often go to her house to work on projects.  That’s where we learned how to make dried stalks into beautiful colors and shapes.

She bought several supplies last week to help us to continue, and we often spend many afternoons in her little house on the corner of Greta’s family farm.  This morning we went to Miss Simpson’s, and we sat around and remembered the wonderful way the poor girls loved the dolls that we gave them for Christmas last year.

Greta said, I was so stoked when we went to the little girl in the pea green house that has broken shutters.  The porch steps looked like they were falling apart.

Oh, yes, I said.  "When we handed her the wrapped gift, she cried many tears before she opened it.  When she did, her pale face changed to a sparkling shine.

She had never had a doll in her life.  In fact, she had never had a gift in her life.

What about the girl with bangs on her forehead? Greta said.  She kept looking at her new doll and didn’t say anything.  She just stared until her mother said, ‘Rosa, the girls gave you this doll.  They dressed it themselves, and they added the curls on her head.’  A minute later she hugged us over and over.

One afternoon we were brainstorming on the hay in the top part of Greta’s barn and came up with new ideas.

Sally Louise, we could weave baskets as well as dried stalks.  My mother taught me how to make dry flowers and when they have finished giving off their aroma, it is magic.

That’s a great idea, I said.

Making baskets is a lot of work and concentration.

We are spending lots of time getting them ready.

We should go to the festival in the Alleghenies where we went last year.  We will sell the stalks that we dry out and put together in lovely arrangements.  Since the festival only comes once a year, maybe we could sell the dried stalks we have already made in order to make some money to buy more dolls for the underprivileged like we did before, I said.

We could probably work all summer.  We pick them, and more of them pop out of the ground and more flowers come again, Greta said.

We will dry out flowers to put in baskets, but the main focus is the way we can dry the stalks and paint them.  We’ll tie them up with ribbons, I said.

stalksa.jpg

We are busy, and both Greta and I are always happy when we are busy. It keeps us out of trouble.

2

A few weeks later, Greta and I were ready for our ballet recital.  Our ballet teacher has been practicing with us forever.  Our group is a combination of girls from the Alleghenies, the small town of Mansfield, and also from Elmira, New York, which isn’t very far from Mansfield.

We had been practicing our ballet over and over for several weeks.

Most of our troupe practiced in Mansfield, but some of them were from a dance class in Elmira.

The music that we used for the performance was named Tzenda, Tzenda, Tzenda.

When we got our costumes, we couldn't wait to try them on.  Greta came home with me on the school bus.

There was a kind of tall Arabic hat with a veil that draped on our faces.  Everything was veils and kerchiefs.

We put them on and went down stairs to show Mama.

She was in the den reading a Jane Austen book.  She looked up, and she actually squealed with delight.

You girls look beautiful.  What kind of costume is Peter going to wear? she said.

Peter.jpg

Wait until you see. I said.  But I will get him to come over tomorrow.

My friend, Peter, was also in the dance.  He played the part of a jester.  Peter looked phenomenal in his Arabic costume.  Peter is my best friend except for Greta. The dancers from Elmira kept teasing Peter and found ways to hold his hand and touch his feathery silk.

dancera.jpg

So we all went to the performance together: Greta and her mother, Mama and I, and Peter and his dad.

Greta and I could hardly believe the size of the stage in the auditorium.  It was about fifty feet across and several feet from the front to back.

We danced in unison.  The costumes stole the whole show.  Unity is so lovely.  (Unity was Mama’s word.)

Our dance teacher had made the outfits.  I could hardly believe how wonderful they were.  Greta looked like a girl that lived some place in Arabia.  Her red hair harmonized with the purple colors that we wore.

One of the ballet teachers did a solo dance. I was thrilled to watch her.  She moved on her toes and seemed to fly across the stage.

On the way home, Greta's mother drove and Greta sat in the front seat with her.  I was so tired.  Mama held me, and I fell asleep on her lap.  At one time, she gently pulled some strands of hair along my forehead.  I was half asleep, but it was a tender moment.

We took lots of