That Little Boy | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: That Little Boy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Margaret Goins
11/14/05
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THAT LITTLE BOY

Pulling her robe tightly around her, she moves the curtain and looks outside to define the scraping noise. That little boy is shoveling the front walk next door. The cursed snow is deep, and Louise shivers just to look at it. She puts the kettle on for tea.
Louise watches from her rocking chair, a mug of steaming tea cradled in her bent and aching fingers. That little boy. Nice to see him doing something helpful, something besides making constant noise that jangles a woman’s nerves and shatters her silence. He even talks to himself or sings! His mother seems nice enough, but she doesn’t do much to keep that boy quiet.
Walk shoveled, Louise watches that little boy get their newspaper and go inside. Quiet again prevails. But he comes right back outside and stands there staring, just staring, at Louise’s house. Louise moves closer to the window to get a better look. The boy is scowling and talking. What is he going to do now? How can a helpless old woman protect her property from such a child?
The scraping begins again, this time on Louise’s front walk. Behind the curtain, Louise hears that little boy talking as he gets closer to the door.
“But Jesus would shovel snow for a mean, grouchy old lady. He would do it just to help.”
“A mean, grouchy old lady,” Louise says in a whisper. “Is that what I have become with my Henry gone?”
That little boy brushes the snow from the plastic bag the newspaper is in and places it on the step. “Happy New Year, Mrs. Lowerman,” he says and goes home.
Louise wipes the tears from her face with her crooked hands. Happy New Year. It could be happier, she decides. She turns on the oven to make blueberry muffins for that little boy, that noisy, precious little boy, and his mother.

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