children on their birthdays by truman capote

photo by Mary Ellen Mark from Streetwise

from "Children on their Birthdays" by Truman Capote

Yesterday afternoon the six-o'clock bus ran over Miss Bobbit. I'm not sure what there is to be said about it; after all, she was only ten years old, still I know no one of us in the town will forget her. For one thing, nothing she ever did was ordinary, not from the first time we saw her, and that was a year ago...


Anyway, we were sitting on the porch, tutti-frutti melting on our plates, when suddenly, just as we were wishing something would happen, something did; for out of the red-road dust appeared Miss Bobbit. A wiry little girl in a starched, lemon-colored party dress, she sassed around with a grownup mince, one hand on her hip, the other supporting a spinsterish umbrella.

"Begging your pardon," called Miss Bobbit in a voice that was at once silky and childlike, like a pretty piece of ribbon, and immacuately exact, like a movie-star or a school-marm. "but might we speak with the grownup persons of the house?"


As Aunt El said, whoever heard tell of a child wearing make-up? Tangee gave her lips an orange glow, her hair, rather like a costume wig, was a mass of rosy curls, and her eyes had a knowing penciled tilt; even so, she had a skinny dignity, she as a lady, and, what is more, she looked you in the eye with a manlike directness. "I'm Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, Miss Bobbit from Memphis, Tennessee," she said solemney.

Coloring like an apple, Billy Bob said, please ma'am, it being such a hot day and all, wouldn't they rest a spell and have some tutti-frutti? and Aunt El said yes, by all means, but Miss Bobbit shook her head. "Very fattening, tutti-frutti; but merci you kindly," and they started across the road, the mother half-dragging her parcels in the dust.

...

Miss Bobbit pranced into the yard toting the victrola, which she put on the sundial; she wound it up, and started a record playing, and it played the Count of luxembourg. By now it was almost nightfall, a firefly hour, blue as mlkglass; and the birds like arrows swooped together and swept into the folds of trees. Before storms, leaves and flowers appear to burnw ith a private light, color, and Miss Bobbit, got up in a little white skirt like a powder-puff and with strips of gold-glittering tinsel ribbonning her hair, seemed set against the darkening all around, to contain this illuminated quality. She held her arms arched over her head, her hands lily-limp, and stood straight up on the tips of her toes. She stood taht way for a good long while, and Aunt El said it was right smart of her. Then she began to waltz around and around, and around she went until Aunt El said, why, she was plain dizzy from the sight. She stopped only when it was time to re-wind the victrola; and when the moon came rolling down the ridge, and the last supper bell had sounded, and all the children had gone home, and the night iris was beginning to bloom, Miss Bobbit was still there in the dark turning like a top.
...