The Kindness of Strangers
written by: Dawn DeBraal
“The last one there, is a rotten egg.” The kids around her took off running, leaving Angie behind. She was tired, and her princess shoes hurt her feet. Angie should have worn tennis shoes, but no, she had to look the part. Now she had blisters, and every step was agony.
Angie sat down to examine her feet. Pulling her shoes off, she saw that the skin was worn away from both heels, and a blister had started on her little toe. She considered walking home barefoot, but there wasn’t a sidewalk, and she could step on something, making her feet worse.
“Can I help?” A grandmotherly-looking woman startled her. Angie hadn’t even heard the woman coming.
“My feet are blistered, and I can’t walk anymore.”
“Oh my. Epsom salts will help that. I have some slippers you could wear. I live over there. I can help you with both if you’d like.” She stared into the face of a kind-looking woman offering her help. The house she pointed to was a stone building with a beautiful black wrought iron fence surrounding it.
“My name is Miss Pearl Wentworth.” She offered Angie a hand and helped her up. Angie limped through the gate and across the woman’s lawn into her house. Sitting on the kitchen chair, she waited while Miss Pearl heated water on the wood-burning cookstove. The woman poured Epsom salt into a dishpan and set it on the floor. When the tea kettle whistled, the nice grandmother poured the hot water into the dishpan, adding some cold water for the perfect temperature. Miss Pearl swished her hand to ensure the foot bath wasn’t too hot. Angie plunged her feet into the warm water and sighed.
“This feels better.”
“I’ll be right back.” The small woman disappeared into the house somewhere while Angie gazed about the room. The kitchen was old-fashioned, just what you would expect of someone who had lived in a home for a long time. A long cast iron sink with a gingham curtain taped around it like a skirt had a shelf above it with unique-looking canisters and handmade rag rugs on the floor. Everything was neat and tidy. Miss Pearl returned with a pair of pink slippers. The woman dried her feet and had her step into the silky slippers.
“This feels so good,” Angie told her host, “Thank you.”
“Now you will be able to walk home,” Miss Pearl said, smiling.
“I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”
“You are a smart girl; you would have managed.”
“Miss Pearl, I’ve never noticed this house before.”
“Yes, it’s a small house that blends with the woods. It’s hard to see because of how far it’s set back from the road.”
“How long have you lived here?” Angie asked, making conversation. Miss Pearl put down a cup of hot cocoa and a bowl of mini marshmallows. Angie took four marshmallows and floated them in the steaming hot chocolate.
“Hmmm, good question. What year is it?” Angie thought that an odd question, but you never questioned an elderly person.
“1976.”
“Oh, then I’ve been here at least twenty-three years.”
“Do you have kids?” She blew on her cocoa, cooling it down before taking a sip.
“No, never got around to that, though I wished I had.”
“You are good with them. I know because I’m a kid.” Miss Pearl laughed at Angie’s analogy.
“Are you married?”
“Never got around to that, either. Devon was not a good man; he was the man I fell in love with. We were to be married, but he did something awful that made me glad I wasn’t his wife. He stole a lot of money from his work.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. Did he go to jail?”
“No, never made it through the court proceedings. He was struck and killed by a car downtown many years ago. Most people suspected he did it on purpose.” This part of the story made Angie uneasy; she had finished her hot chocolate.
“I’d better get going. I’ll bring your slippers back, don’t worry.”
“Nonsense. I don’t need them anymore; you keep them. Goodbye, Princess.” Angie left the house with her dress shoes in one hand and her bag of treats in another. Waving at the elderly woman who stood in the doorway, she was warmed inside by the woman who showed her such kindness. Trick-or-treating was over for Angie, and the slippers got her home safely.
“You are home early,” her mother said when she entered the door.
“My feet hurt.”
“Oh honey, I’m so sorry. Those shoes were too new to hike in. What do you have on your feet?”
“Oh, I couldn’t walk from the blisters, and Miss Pearl soaked my feet in Epsom Salt and gave me a pair of slippers.”
“Miss Pearl?”
“I just met her tonight. She’s a very nice old woman. Her last name is Wentworth, and she lives in a stone house.”
“You went into a stranger’s house?” Her mother sounded quite upset.
“Mom, she was a kind, old lady.”
“I don’t care, Angie. That was foolish. It’s not safe to walk into stranger’s houses.”
“Well, she helped me and is my new friend. There was something about her that made me trust her.” Her mother pulled her in for a hug.
“I am glad you are home safe, but you are never to do that sort of thing again.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Angie was determined to return the slippers to Miss Pearl, and she even asked her mother if she could bake some blond brownies for her new friend. Her mother, curious, wanted to thank the woman for her help and took Angie, the slippers, and the cooling brownies to Miss Pearl’s house.
“She’s right around here, somewhere.” They drove back and forth, but Angie did not see Miss Pearl’s house.
“Are you sure we’re on the right street?”
“I’m sure of it, Mom. Here’s the cemetery; she lives right around here.” Angie looked at the row of houses, but not one looked like Miss Pearl’s stone house.
“Maybe it’s on the other side of the cemetery,” her mother parked on the side street. Standing at the cemetery gate, Angie’s mom noticed a mausoleum.
“Angie, look.” The young girl followed her mother’s finger, pointing toward a small stone building inside the cemetery gate. “Wentworth” was chiseled into the lintel above the door. They entered the cemetery, circling the mausoleum.
“Pearl Wentworth, 1860-1953,” Angie’s mother read aloud from the little plaque on the side of the building. “That would make her 93 when she died.”
“That can’t be. Miss Pearl is very much alive. She had a house with an old kitchen sink that had a curtain under it, a cookstove, some old rooster canisters, and furniture. She was real, Mom,” the daughter held up the pink satin slippers as proof.
“The kindness she showed you was real, Angie, but I think Miss Pearl came to you when you were in need. She wanted to help you.”
Angie placed the slippers at the mausoleum’s door—satin slippers of the palest pink sat upon the cold stone steps.
“Thank you, Miss Pearl, for your kindness,” Angie whispered, still not believing she had hot chocolate with a ghost last night.
“Are you ready?” Angie shook her head, getting back in the car. “How is this possible?” she asked her mother.
“Well, sweetie, strange things happen on Halloween. It’s a time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest point. I think Miss Pearl saw you were in trouble and decided to help you when you most needed it. You felt the love and comfort of a woman who is no longer of this world.”
Angie was surprised when she looked back at the stone house in the cemetery. The satin slippers melted into the steps. Miss Pearl had gotten her slippers back.
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