A Little Girl's Dream
詹恩·米切尔 / Jann Mitchell
The promise was a long time keeping. But then, so was the dream.
In the early 1950s in a small Southern California town, a little girl hefted yet another load of books onto the tiny library’s counter.
The girl was a reader. Her parents had books all over their home, but not always the ones she wanted. So she’d make her weekly trek to the yellow library with the brown trim, the little one-room building where the children’s library actually was just a nook. Frequently, she ventured out of that nook in search of heftier fare.
As the white-haired librarian hand-stamped the due dates in the ten-year-old’s choice, the little girl looked longingly at “The New Book” prominently displayed on the counter. She marveled again at the wonder of writing a book and having it honored like that, right there for the world to see.
That particular day, she confessed her goal.
“When I grow up,” she said, “I’m going to be a writer. I’m going to write books.” The librarian looked up from her stamping and smiled, not with the condescension so many children receive, but with encouragement. “When you do write that book,” she replied, “bring it into our library and we’ll put it on display, right here on the counter.” The little girl promised she would.
As she grew, so did her dream. She got her first job in ninth grade, writing brief personality profiles, which earned her 1.50 each from the local newspaper. The money paled in comparison with the magic of seeing her words on paper. A book was a long way off.
She edited her high-school paper, married and started a family, but the itch to write burned deep. She got a part-time job covering school news at a weekly newspaper. It kept her brain busy as she balanced babies. But no book. She went to work full time for a major daily. Even tried her hand at magazines. Still no book.
Finally, she believed she had something to say and started a book. She sent it off to two publishers and was rejected. She put it away, sadly. Several years later, the old dream increased in persistence. She got an agent and wrote another book. She pulled the other out of hiding, and soon both were sold.
But the world of book publishing moves slower than that of daily newspapers, and she waited two long years. The day the box arrived on her doorstep with its free author’s copies, she ripped it open. Then she cried. She’d waited so long to hold her dream in her hands. Then she remembered that librarian’s invitation, and her promise.
Of course, that particular librarian had died long ago, and the little library had been razed to make way for a larger incarnation. The woman called and got the name of the head librarian. She wrote a letter, telling her how much her predecessor’s words had meant to the girl. She’d be in town for her thirtieth high school reunion, she wrote, and could she bring her two books by and give them to the library? The librarian called and said, “Come.” So she did, clutching a copy of each book.