The Stair Way

The Stair Way

As a child, I was intrigued with the stairway leading upstairs. It was not fancy at all, just a simple stairway of roughhewn boards nailed in place on a saw toothed frame ascending to the second floor. It was boxed in by the inside wall of the dining room and the outside wall of the house. There was not even a banister. Kids just bounded up and down and adults steadied themselves by grabbing the thin strip of wood nailed to the outside wall.

Things without a home were often found in the corners of the steps; a coffee can of nails, a chipped pitcher, a doll left to wait for its young mother, tools, a broom, rags. The landing at the top of the stairs was a depository for hurriedly left items. The empty fruit jars would rest there until we emptied a box to put them in. The heavy pressure cooker was shoved onto the landing after the summer canning. A ripped box bulged with old newspapers and magazines, the latest editions having been thrown on top. Nothing was thrown away, the thin pages of outdated catalogs and newspapers served as bathroom tissue in the outdoor toilet. Then there was the mysterious small closed box sitting undisturbed against the wall.

We loved to play on the steps. This was a place on which we could comfortably sit. The steps just fit the short legs of a child. The steps were also a stage for our paper dolls. We would play for hours; walking, talking, and visiting. We mocked life as we knew it and played it out as we hoped it to become.

Most of our paper dolls were cut from the slick pages of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The slick, stiffer pages also made wonderful furniture. The page was carefully cut, folded, and glued with spit to make beds, chairs, and couches. We even made an occasional truck to transport our families from one household to another.

Our favorite paper doll was Ruth. She was our only “bought” paper doll. I can’t remember how she came to be ours. Perhaps a “found” treasure when we moved into the house on the hill. She had no clothes except those we drew, colored and cut out for her. But, she was beautiful and cherished.

The stairs were by no means professionally made or finished. Each step was made by the conjunction of two unfinished boards coming together. At the back of each step was a crack. The cracks varied, some wide, some narrow. We paid little attention to the construction of the stairway until the fateful day that Ruth fell through a crack.

That was a sad day. We would peer through the crack and there she lay, flat on her back, face up, gone forever. It never occurred to us to ask for help to retrieve her. We just visited her occasionally, peeking through the crack in the steps. As I grow older, I find myself peeking through the cracks of the past, reliving for a moment the joys and carefree days of my childhood.