The Rag Princess-Country School, Ginny Temple,age 8, Plays Clara Barton

A petite girl with chocolate hair and freckles walked up to Celeste. “I’m Ginny Temple,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Celeste. Celeste Dusty,” a tiny voice answered.

“How old are you?” Ginny asked. Her long, ribbon-tied braids dangled to the tops of her shoulders.

“I’m eight. I’ll be a third-grader.”

“Me too. We’ll be in the same class together. There will be five of us, counting you. Four girls and one boy. I don’t like him though. He picks his nose. Mostly, I don’t like boys no matter who they are.”

“I don’t like them either.” Celeste hadn’t given them thought either way. In her opinion, girls caused the problems.

“The school’s down the road a mile. We’ll walk together every morning.”

“We will? I mean, we will.” No one had walked with Celeste at her old school. She was always the invisible one—except when her clothes got too patchy. Then the kids teased her.

“I came over to see if you could play. Like dolls?”

“Mine’s packed in a box. I’ll never find her today.” Celeste’s eyes flickered, looking away. As soon as Ginny learned about her dirty doll, the friendship would end. Oh, well. They weren’t friends yet anyway. Celeste had never had a close friend. “I’ll have to ask Mom if I can play.” Celeste paused. She might as well tell Ginny and get it over with. “My doll isn’t pretty. She has bad hair, an eye is missing, and one leg is gone. A dog attacked her.”

“Ouch!” Ginny exclaimed. “We can have a hospital. We’ll play Civil War nurses. I’d love to be Clara Barton. We did her in school. I was Clara, and several of the boys were injured soldiers. Will, my crazy brother, the one helping your father, was a doctor. Some of the girls were nurses, and some were wives. We cut up old sheets for bandages, using water from the classroom pump to wash the catsup off the patients. We also fed them soup.”

“Why the catsup?”

“Blood. We used chocolate cookies for dirtying the soldiers.”

“You really do things pretty real. Were you scared they’d die?” She smiled, knowing better.

“No,” Ginny laughed. “The stage was our hospital. We heated the bandages over near the stove. When it was all over, the parents had a potluck. I wore a Red Cross outfit that Mom made. I should show it to you sometime. We can both be Clara, and the baby pigs can be our patients. Or we could use dolls. Let’s ask if you can play.”