The Brooch

Don't Mess With Mama

Standing on the grassy edge of the driveway of  that old cabin at the end of the street, young Miss Maple Woods, stood with her hands still suspiciously hiding behind her back...
She was partially embarrassed by her own behavior and undoubtedly still outraged at what just happened... But nothing was more upsetting to Maple at that very particular time, than her Mama's perplexed expression of disappointment.

"Maple Joelle Woods! You hear me talkin to ya young lady?" Mama Woods fussed!

"Now don't that beat all  Mumma! I hear ya! But You's actually gonna stare at me like that and demand uh expla-nation?" Maple said shocked at her Mama's scowl.

"Yes... young lady I am!  Mama Woods quickly replied. "I raised you betta than that! To be not onlay hollerin on about like that in an unladylike manner no less, but to be chasin yo elders? No! And Lawd knows whatever else you were bout ta do if I didn't catch ya and see you with my very own eye!" She ranted.

"She had it comin! And I'd do it again!" Maple hissed!

"Did you just raise yo voice at me and in this here yard while Mrs. Mavis and Lawd knows who else could be near and hear ya carrying on like that? Child for yo sake young lady, Reverend Mosay, betta not be nowhere nears here on his weekly neighborhood visits! I would skin you alive with that tone if he were! Goodness!" Mama Woods said sheepishly looking around her small neighborhood. "Who do ya think you're talkin to? And you watch yo tone with me young lady! In all of yo young life I can honestly say I have Neva Eva seen you in such a state as this!"

"Exactly Mumma! Exactly! Ya ain't evuh!" Maple pouted.

"All the more for you to tell me..." Mama Woods said trying to compose herself in a calmly and delicate manner... "Naw..." She said taking a deep breath in... "Tell me...Whut just happened!"

Now you see, Maple Woods, a sweet quiet and oh so bashful girl in her small yet booming town didn't have much. Her family was definitely not of the richest. Nor were they the poorest in that quaint ole town of Ponchas Avenue Row. In fact, their family was smack dab right down the middle of that quaint ole town. Still, Maple and her family didn't possess much. But what she did have was good right proper manners and a not so elegant apple crumb brooch to call her own...

And if you knew the sometimes hushed Maple Woods, you knew everyday, around the same time, she would go into her Mama's untouched sewing room... Why? Just to stare at that plain old apple crumb brooch of course.

And everyday like clockwork, she would pull out her daddy's ole shoe shiny kit cloth and she would shine, shine, shine that little apple crumb brooch.... What's funny is She never grew tired of doing that one simple task. Polishing it up to keep shiny... well... as shiny as it could get.

And when she felt that brooch was at its shiniest spit spot perfection, she would always delicately place, her Mama's brooch, back in the same spot and in the same angled position. Right on that tired worn out splintered sewing machine shelf.

If you don't already know by now... That apple crumb brooch, was her most prized and well loved possession. It had been given to her by her most beloved mama. Perhaps to some it was a plain brooch. But oh not to kind bashful young Maple Woods. For it had been in the family for generations. And she intended someday to pass it on to her sweet precious babies if the Lord, tarried.

So it is why you have to understand why the always sweet bashful Maple Woods became like a spitfire goose on the lose on that one Saturday afternoon in the now not so quiet town of Ponchas Avenue Row. And furthermore, why she snatched that scruffy old wig that looked like a scraggly dead rodent, right off of that crabby old Mrs. Crowder's now nappy head! Especially when she caught Mrs. Crowder red handed, right in the act of pocketing her most treasured brooch! Worse... how Mrs. Crowder in the heat of her guilty crime, tried to claim the apple crumb brooch as hers.

With no one home, on that inquisitive noon, but Maple and the thieving Mrs. Crowder, Maple now knew she was about to be in a fight. Not only to save her family's heirloom... but to save what she did not know would be the greatest treasure that would bring She, and a young Malcom Tatorson together... (But that folks is another story.)

On that Saturday afternoon the biggest question of the day for Mama Woods, besides why a now poor and hairless Mrs. Crowder was still running down the street like a chicken with its head cut off, but moreover why, Mrs. Crowder was in her home. What was her visit really about? And what stirred up, her precious sweet daughter in such ire...

"Well Maple...I'm waitin." Maple's curious mama uttered again as her white hand gloves tapped on her hips...

"I ain't gots nuthin ta say Mumma..."

"Maple..."

"Not now... not till I properly cool down..."

"Child..."

"Then I'll explain.... Everythang... I promise... And by that time, I can tell you this, you too's gonna be wantin ta yank the naps from old Mrs. Crowder's head!"

Maple boldly stated as she stomped back into the old cabin house leaving her wondering and flabbergasted mama still standing outside of their cabin at the end of the street.

Straight to her bedroom Maple quietly sat on the edge of her bed... Now safely holding the still fragile, and now broken, apple crumb brooch in her grief stricken hands...

"If only you knew Mumma." She mumbled. "If only... You knew..."