This is one of my all-time favorite autobiographical stories. One reason is obvious; another is that it shows someone making a spontaneous kind gesture; another is that it vindicates a child and there is all too little of that going around.
For my whole life long I have known that stuffed animals are real and need to breathe and like to see. When I was 6 or 7 I might not have known The Velveteen Rabbit but I knew Corduroy and I certainly knew my own animals. I have never liked, then or ever, to see an animal face down in a corner with nothing to do or look at.
My mother and I were in a department store; she was Christmas shopping and I was bored. My mental image, much embellished over the years, is of me in a snow jacket with a peaked hood, with my mittens attached to my cuffs with those little clips so they couldn't stray. Though I can add details to complete a picture, I know the basic, hazy memory is a true one, because my mother remembers it too.
As she browsed, or did whatever inexplicable thing grownups did in stores, I saw an end-of-aisle rack of stuffed animals who were piled up all higgledy-piggledy. I immediately began setting them to rights. My mother just as immediately reprimanded me. She said the store didn't want me to handle the merchandise. I have to include here, for a full understanding of the situation, that this was an ordinary comment, displaying her typical attitude and level of support. I also have to include, for the full understanding of the situation, that what I did next was also dead-on usual. I ignored her.
I arranged the animals so everyone could see, so everyone could breathe, so each animal was with others of its own kind so it could talk. They were perfect stuffed animals, plush and soft, mostly bears probably, the very essence of Christmas animality. I imagine that I worked there with my tongue between my teeth, huffing and heated in my outdoor clothes, for quite some time. I do recall that whatever my mother did took long enough that I had just about completed my task when a man in a suit, probably with a name tag I didn't read but that said "Mr. Somebody, Floor Manager," walked up to me. "I see that you like our animals," he began.
"You see!" hissed my mother. And I was scared; I thought he was going to put me in jail.
I don't remember exactly what the man said. Actually I don't remember anything he said. But he wasn't angry, not at all. He thanked me for setting up the animals and told me they looked much happier now. He was quite kind and wasn't going to put me in jail; he was only grateful, and probably just a little condescending, to this solid little child who believed in animals. I do remember what he did next. He gave me a chocolate marshmallow Santa that must have come from the store's candy department (that's how I know it was Christmas time).
Not only was he not angry, but he bought me a treat to express his gratitude. I must have stared up at him in complete stupefaction. How was he to know I didn't like marshmallow? I thanked him, and my mother did too. She told me (and him) that I didn't have to eat it right then if I didn't want to. But I did, unwrapping the printed foil and biting off Santa's feet. No, I didn't much like marshmallow, and I still don't. But I knew victory when I tasted it.
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Last modified 23 November 1997
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