Editor’s note: Mary’s inaccuracies and misspellings have not been corrected. We value our young sister’s perspective and have preserved her note as she gave it to us.
Year 42, High Summer
I have been asked to write a Resident Note, which means I must say something worth putting in the paper. I had six things to say before breakfast and they all went out of my head when I got the pencil. So I will tell about my tomatos. This is not the only thing I know, only the thing I know best.
There are three of us at our house just above the twenty-sixth mile of Pearl River: Da, my sister, and me. If you stand by the marker and hear a girl singing badly, that is probly me.
I am very good at growing things. Every body says so, though Da says I should not say every body when it is only twelve people. Twelve is a lot.
In Wales before, a fine big tomato took at least three months. Sometimes longer because the rain had to argue with the sun. Here most people can grow one in a week or two. Mine take eight days flat, every time. I scratch a mark on the pot each morning so nobody can say I counted wrong.
My secret is to sing to it every day and feed it scrapps from all my meals. Porridge, apple skin, a bit of bread, whatever there is. I put it round the dirt and the plant knows it is wanted. Some gardeners say plants do not get happy in that exact way. They have not timed mine.
I am meant to say something about before as well. Every year there was one morning when Mam and Da tried very hard to give my sister and me presents, though we were poor. They sometimes wrapped them in cloth we had already seen, and we pretended not to know. I liked all my presents. In the year I turned ten, Da made me a little wooden box with a bird scratched on the lid. I did not like that he still had to work while I was opening it. A present is better when the person who made it is there to see your face.
My sister was ill that year too, when the great sickness went through our part of Wales. She could not walk from the bed to the door without stopping. I got poorly after, and then the next part I remember is waking here two years ago. Now my sister is better than ever and can walk really well. Yesterday she carried a full basket all the way home and then ran back because she forgot the spade.
That bit sounds sad if you stop it in the wrong place, so do not stop there. The true end is my sister racing me from the river marker and winning, though only because I was carrying three tomatos.
At family worship we read Psalm 65:9. It says Jehovah cares for the earth and makes it fruitful. I like that because it means he notices beans and tomatos too. I thank him that the earth grows so gladly now. I think he does not mind my singing, even when Da says the beans might.
You may come and see my tomato plants whenever you like, and you may have some. We live near the twenty-sixth mile of Pearl River. Please bring me an interesting seed from somewhere else in the world if you have one. Tell me where it came from and I will write it on the packet, even if the spelling is difficult.
Now I have been in the paper, which was the thing I wanted most. Next time I shall know what to say at the begining.
Mary Bowen, age 12