Using Her Words

Grand View Lodge had a wooden crate of communal sand toys that the bambini used most every day we were there. One day, Joe had gotten Clara a water gun--a pistol, if you will--from which Clara wandered too far at a moment when it was spied by a boy slightly older than Joe. He naturally scooped it up, reminding Our Birdie of the vulnerability of, in particular, shared toys and the rough justice that often characterizes the negotiations of childhood. Oh but Brigade, you should have seen her. Her voice may have been shaking, but she used it to tell the boy that her brother Joe had gotten that for her, she was using it, and could he please give it back. The boy tossed out the old finders keepers line, to Clara, and then to his mother who had by now intervened. His mother was having none of that and so the boy pitched the gun at Birdie who scooped it back up and kept it near from then on. The assist from the boy's mom was key. Without it, the gun surely would not have been returned. Still, we were proud of Our Birdie trying to set things to right with her words.