Golden Slippers英语美文分享

After the funeral, the family made its way from the cemetery back to the house. Ladies from the church had arrived early, uncovering casseroles and platters of sandwiches and desserts. Nobody talked much. Poppa mumbled that he didn"t know how he was going to get along without Mama around anymore. We all agreed it was going to be hard.

After lunch, we just sat there, all out of tears . . . not really knowing what to do without Mama there to organize everybody. I forget who it was that broke the silence.

"Well, we need to make some decisions soon about dividing up Mama"s things."

There were furs and furniture, photos and antiques, crystal, handmade quilts, hats and shoes, rockers and jewelry. It all needed to be divided between the four children and their families.

Suddenly, from the adjoining room, my thirteen-year-old daughter came running. Her ears had perked up when she overheard the conversation about dividing a household of her grandmother"s belongings.

"I know what I want," she said boldly. "I want Grandmommy"s dancing slippers!"

"Dancing slippers?" I asked in surprise. "But Grandmommy doesn"t have any dancing slippers."

"Oh, yes she does. I"ll go get them and show you."

I followed closely as she hurried down the hallway - straight into Grandmommy"s bedroom. Not the pink bedroom where she slept every night, but the rarely used guest room at the far end of the house.

It was a stately room, featuring a four-poster bed and an antique washstand draped with linens. In the corner was a vase full of peacock feathers from Uncle Henry"s farm. Granddaddy"s Bible lay open on the marble dresser, his reading glasses folded and resting somewhere in the Book of John. And sure enough, beside the bed, on a hand-made wooden shoebox, sat a pair of golden slippers with pixie pointed toes.

My daughter picked them up and held them out for me to observe.

"Honey, why do you call these Grandmommy"s dancing slippers?" I asked. "Grandmommy didn"t dance."

A look of disbelief swept across her face.

"Oh, yes she did! Grandmommy always danced in these shoes!"

As quickly as she spoke the words, I remembered. My mother had, indeed, danced many times. I had forgotten about the earlier years when we visited. She took my two children back into her special guest bedroom and closed the door. And there, before her private audience, she would put on her golden slippers and dance the Charleston.

Often I would sneak a little peek. My children would sit on the floor, wide-eyed and watching, as my mother crossed her hands over her knees, twirled her invisible string of pearls and danced so fast she would fling her golden slippers aimlessly into the air.

Laughing as they watched her dance the jitterbug, the children cried, "Do it again. Dance again!" So out of breath she could hardly speak, she would find the golden slippers, slide them onto her feet and start the performance over.

Twenty-five years after Grandmommy"s death, my daughter got married. She arrived at the chapel wearing a shoulder-length veil and a white satin dress accented in butter-cream lace and pearls. A boys" choir marched before her in the processional and as the organist played the first notes of "Trumpet Voluntary," she took hold of her father"s arm and began her long walk down the aisle.

Snug on her feet, sliding across the stone floor, was a pair of aged, worn-out golden slippers with pixie pointed toes. And in the air was the feeling that somewhere up there, part of a private audience, was Grandmommy, wide-eyed and watching, smiling . . . and dancing the Charleston.