I loved the story of “Little Red Riding
Hood” when I was a little girl. To this day I love the story. It was so much
fun for me to read so many different versions as I prepared for my folktale
expert presentation. I also read the book The
Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood edited by Jack Zipes. At
the end of his book, Zipes comments on the illustrations that go along with many
versions. Zipes relates, “There are three major scenes which invariably
accompany the text, whether it be the Perrault or Grimm version.”
One of the scenes he mentions is Little
Red Riding Hood’s mother with a raised finger addressing her daughter before
she walks off down the path to Grandmother’s house – instructing her and
warning her. After reading this section in Zipe’s book, I browsed through all
of the Little Red Riding Hood books I
gathered. Sure enough, in almost every single one of those books, there was
Little Red Riding Hood’s mother with her finger in the air, looking down at her
daughter, instructing her about what and what not to do on her way to Grandma’s
house.
As I studied the pictures I thought,
“That is my mother… Little Red’s mother is my mother.” After realizing that our
moms had so much in common, I remembered the time when my little red wagon went with me
into the neighborhood…
As my sisters and I were growing up we had
all sorts of my mother’s rules and regulations we had to follow like…
- Do not cross the street to play unless
you ask me first! - Do not ride your bike without your
shoes on! - Do not ride your bike on the neighbors’
grass – stay on the sidewalk! - Be home by dinnertime! Be back in our
yard before it gets dark! - If you are climbing the cherry tree,
don’t climb onto the roof unless you tell me first!
As long as we minded my mother’s
instructions, we had lots of freedom as we played in our neighborhood. But if
we did not obey, one of our mother’s punishments would surely come our way and
we knew it.
One day my sisters and I got bored. We
were tired of playing badminton. Tired of playing kickball. Tired of climbing
the cherry tree. So we decided to go walking around the block. My sister Donna
was really little (3 years old) so my older sister, Janet (7 years old), and I
(6 years old) got our little red wagon out of the garage and told Donna to get
in. Off we went, pulling the little red wagon down the sidewalk… tra la la la la.
Now I cannot really say one way or the
other whether we set out on our little trip with any specific plan in mind, but
once we saw them a plan sure did hatch real fast in our little heads. “FLOWERS!” Donna said. She pointed. “FLOWERS!” There were the prettiest
flowers you ever did see a few houses down from us, growing right by the front
porch of our neighbor’s house. Janet and I ran, little red wagon in tow, right
up our neighbor’s sidewalk to where the flowers were growing. Here’s the thing:
We had a nice yard – green grass, bushes, and lots of trees. But we didn’t have
any flowers. I guess my father liked a low-maintenance yard. So when we saw
those flowers we just could not
resist. We picked. We walked as far as the sidewalk took us that day and every
time we saw a yard with flowers, we
picked. Red, orange, yellow, pink, blue and purple. Pretty soon the whole wagon
was so full of flowers that Donna had to get out and walk. We started home… tra la la la la.
We were just about home when we stopped
singing and we started thinking. Janet is my older sister, so I asked her, “Do
you think mom is going to be mad at us for picking the flowers?” We both knew
the answer. Of course mom was going
to be mad at us. Even though we did not specifically remember her telling us
the rule Do not pick flowers from the
neighbors’ yards! we were pretty sure that a rule like that would be on her
list. We were both thinking… what should
we do?
When we got home we pulled the little
red wagon into the backyard. My dad was cutting the grass. He looked at the
wagon. He looked at us. He shook his head. “You know your mother is going to be
really mad,” he told us. “Will you help us hide the flowers, Dad?” we asked. He
didn’t say anything. “Please, Dad.” He looked around the yard. He walked over
to his wheelbarrow. “Come here, girls. Bring the wagon.” Just as we started
pulling the wagon, the backdoor slammed. Our heads turned. It was our mother.
She looked at the wagon. She looked at us. She looked at my father. Then… she
raised her finger in the air and started waving it around. “Who told you girls
it was ok to pick flowers? You should never pick the neighbors’ flowers. Haven’t
I told you to never pick other people’s flowers?” It was useless to tell her
that no, she never really told us that, so we just said we were sorry and that
we would never ever do it again and that we would always follow her rules for
the rest of our lives. And then we waited for our punishment.
My mother made us take the little red
wagon back through the neighborhood to every single house where we picked
flowers. We had to apologize and ask everybody if they wanted their flowers
back. Nobody did. And my father had to go with us. But that wasn’t all. The
next day, for one whole day, we could not go across the street and play with
our friends who we played with every day. All day long we just waved to each
other from our sides of the street.
About a week after that, my dad said to
us, “Come here girls. I want to show you something.” He showed us… flowers
that he planted in our front yard and our side yard and our back yard. He
winked at us and said, “Girls, if you ever need
any flowers again, there you go!”
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