Pearl's Eye: A Boyish Bob

Young Pearl stood in her front walk; actually Grandpa Hatke's front walk, absently staring across Johnson Street. Her Grandma had just put her little brother Rowland down for a nap, and she didn't expect her mother to come home from work for several hours, yet.

They had come to live here after Pearl's parents got a divorce. Her Dad was in the Army and was living somewhere else, which was all she had known for half of her young life.

Her life was not lonely by any means. The house was also residence for two uncles, Bob and Bill, and a spinster cousin Annie Neuman. All the men in the house seemed to be firemen, and the two younger women worked at different factory jobs, like the candy factory at the moment.

Grandma Hatke came out the front door. "Be sure to pick up the yard before Opa comes home, Pearl."

Pearl ignored her Grandma, intent on looking out for the boy who lived in the house next door. Maybe an ambush would be fun, since facing him in a fight seemed a simple victory.

Before Pearl knew it, Opa was coming down the street on his bicycle at the end of his work day.

"Pearl, you must pick up all these things laying about!"

Seeing her Grandfather straddling his bike, she calculated that he would be too encumbered to enforce his wishes. "I don't have to!" she cried.

She almost forgot to run when she saw how quick Opa was off the bike and after her. That was the only spanking she had ever received from him.

After supper, in the livingroom, Pearl sidled up to her Opa in his chair. "Could I play the Victrola?"

With a pat of her hand and a smile, he nodded. Before she could rush to the phonograph, he admonished, "You shouldn't bully the boy next door so much. They are renting from us, but some day that house will belong to my 'Dandy Girl'."

Old Wilhelm listened contentedly as his granddaughter played every record in the cabinet. What a joy to watch his grandchildren grow up in his house.

Elsie, Pearl's mother, entered the livingroom. "You should take dancing lessons, Pearl." Then sitting and becoming serious, she said, "You are going to see your father tomorrow. You need to take your brother down to the barber's for a haircut. You could use a trim, too. I'd like to see those ragged ends gone."

It promised to be a sunny day as Pearl and her brother, Rowland walked down to the barber shop.

After watching her brother's hair being cut, she informed the barber that she needed a haircut also.

"Well, hop on the chair and tell me what you would like done," replied the barber.

"I want a boyish bob," declared Pearl.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Pearl, "Give me a boyish bob."

Elsie Selbo was surprised to see how identical her children looked with practically the same hair cut. Pearl's dress was the only thing that kept her children from looking like a pair of boys instead of one child of each gender.

Perhaps it was to document her daughter's deed as well as to keep a momento, when she decided to go ahead and take the picture she wanted for the occasion.