Grade 8 English Reading Comprehension

Remembering Mrs. Buell

For years and years, for what seemed like forever, I had gone to BUELLS when I had a dime to spare. It was a run-down, not very clean, corner store. Children went there mostly for bubble gum, comic books and ice cream cones. Mrs. Buells would sell you one scoop for fifteen cents. It was not a full scoop but it was cheaper than anywhere else was. It was the only place I knew where a child could spend one penny.

Mrs. Buell was run-down too, and a grouch. Little children were scared to go in there alone. I am a grown-up now, so I laugh at them but really, I understand. I felt it too, when I was smaller and had to face her towering behind the counter. She was always the same, except that one time. I had tripped going in, and fallen, scraping my knee. It had hurt so much that I could not move for a second. I was panting too, and I had to gasp for air. I managed not to cry out but I could not keep back the tears.

Mrs. Buell was huge, but she moved like lightning. She hauled a battered wooden chair out from behind the curtain that hung across the back. Then, without a word, she picked me up and sat me down on it. We were alone in the store but I was not afraid. Her hands, scooping me up, had been work-roughened; tough but kind. She still did not speak. Instead, she took a small rag out of her sweater pocket, bent down and wiped the smear of blood off my knee. Then stuck a band-aid on. “Does it still sting?” she asked, speaking at last, in a voice I had never heard her use before. I shook my head and she twinkled. Her smile only lasted a fraction of a second. At that moment Miguel Harrison came in with one nickel clutched in his fist. He was so intent on the candies that he hardly noticed me. He stood and stood, trying to decide. She had gone back behind the counter.

I waited for her to look at me again so that I could thank her. However, when Miguel left, she turned her back and began moving things around on the shelves. I had meant to buy some gummies, but I lost my nerve. After all, everybody knew that she hated children. I didn’t thank her and left. Yet, when I looked down and saw the band-aid I felt guilty. I did not go near the store for weeks.

She never took days off. She was always there. We did not like her or hate her. We sort of knew that selling stuff to children for a trickle of small change was not a job anybody would choose – especially in that pokey little place with flies during the summer and the door being open all winter, letting in blasts of cold air. Even after that day when she fixed my knee, I did not once wonder about her life.

Then I stopped at BUELLS one afternoon and she was not there. Instead, a man and woman I had never laid eyes on were behind the counter, sorting through stacks of stuff. They were getting some boxes down off a high shelf right hen, so they did not hear me come in. I was so astounded that I just stood there gawking. “How ma stood this cruddy hole I will never know! Didn’t she ever clean?” the woman said, backing away from a cloud of dust.

I went home completely befuddled. My mother looked at me and shook her head sadly. “She had a daughter named Glo. I think she got married recently to someone from Scotland,” My mother said, her voice echoing my own sense of shock. “Can’t believe Mrs. Buell died of a heart attack.” I too could not believe it somehow. Mrs. Buell had seemed to be invincible to me. She had always given the impression of someone who knew how to take care of herself. It was unbelievable that she would die from a heart attack! I tried to imagine Mrs. Buell as a child. Instead, I saw her bending down putting that band-aid on my knee. Her hair had been thin on top, I remembered, and she had dandruff. She had tried not to hurt me. It then got me thinking. Why hadn’t I smiled back? Why didn’t I thank her for what she did for me? Was it because I was terrified of her? But wasn’t she kind when she attended to me that day? Why couldn’t I pluck up my courage when I really needed to be brave? Regret gnawed at me.

I thought to myself that only when people are no longer with us that we realize what they meant for us. I would have given anything to meet Mrs. Buell and convey my appreciation for what she did for me that day when I fell down and scraped my knee. But alas! That chance was no longer there. It was gone forever. I did think of meeting and talking to Mrs. Buell’s daughter Glo, but later decided against it because she had not struck me as a person who would appreciate such a gesture from me. Even though Mrs. Buell was grumpy all the time, somehow, I felt that she was a person who would have appreciated me thanking her. The daughter gave a different vibe. Glo gave me the impression that she despised her mother to the point that she would not like to be reminded of her in any way.