Five-year-old Mary Margaret sat on the window seat looking into the street. Softly, she crooned "On Top Of Old Smoky" to a cloth and porcelain doll that wore a matching gingham dress and white ruffled pinafore. Across the living room her mother in a stiffly starched, faded blue dress, half-slumped over an ironing board, her dish-water blonde hair tied back in a tight bun. As she ironed sheets she listened to "Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy" on the stained oak, floor model radio.
Outside the window, beyond the covered porch, birds sang in the ancient oaks over the grassy verge, separating the sidewalk from the street. Distant ridges towered between the valley town and Canada to the north. Along the street stood two and three storey Victorian homes ranging from excellent condition to could use some work, but not run down. Many of the multi-colored houses sported small flower gardens in window boxes and along the fences. Mary Margaret especially liked the house painted in four shades of blue, with gold scroll-work around the edges, and a round stained-glass window above the gold door.
Mary Margaret's head jerked up, her otter brown Shirley Temple ringlets bouncing. She stopped singing, and sat rigidly straight, as her hazel eyes stared in alarm down the street. A large, muscular, broad-shouldered man with short, dark brown hair and beard, wearing oil-stained lumberjack clothes, staggered across the corner neighbor's yard. He scowled at the world.
She clutched her doll closer, jumped down from the window-seat and scuttled pass her startled mother. Scrambling up the stairs, Mary Margaret bolted into her pink and white room, dropped to the oak wood floor, and slid under the white-painted brass bed. There she silently lay, screened by the chintz, low hanging, pink coverlet.
The front door slammed and a deep voice bellow "Shut that blasted thing off!"
The radio program abruptly vanished. Mary Margaret's mother pleaded, "Oh, Andy you promised you'd stay sober. Please don't do this to us."
"Oh Andy," mocked Mary Margaret's father. "Whine, whine, that's all you ever do."
"I just want things to be like before the war came and changed everything. It's no good the way it is, Mary Margaret is terrified of you. Andy, you're a good man when you're yourself."
"Stop clinging to me. Clinging, whining, never want a man to have a good time, and no damn good between the sheets." His voice changed to a sneer, "Not lady-like giving a man his needs, is it?"
"Andy! She'll hear you."
"Who cares what a worthless brat hears?" he shouted. "A man works hard lonely hours fixing ancient lumber company machinery in the back of nowhere. He gets home, looking for warmth and affection and finds himself married to a born nun with a cleanliness fetish."
"Andy you mustn't talk like that."
Upstairs, Mary Margaret's lips trembled as she shed silent tears of fright and confusion. She heard her mother cry out as something crashed to the floor. "Don't tell me what to do, you frigid bitch. You even iron the damned sheets."
"My sergeant," Mary Margaret whispered, "my sergeant, please come." Mary Margaret buried her face in her doll's soft cloth body. Her mother's screams, and well-known sounds of blows from a large fist echoed up the narrow two-story house's stairwell, and through the open door into the child's bedroom.
Through her open window, Mary Margaret heard a rapidly approaching siren. It choked off in front of their house, and two car doors slammed. Heavy footfalls hurried up the wooden steps and across the white painted porch. "Open up, McGregor!" called a familiar voice as he pounded on the door.
"Damn you, Ryan" shouted Mary Margaret's father, "get off my fucking porch. You got no right butting in. She picked me, not you. Can do anything I damn well like with my own wife."
Mary Margaret lifted her face from her doll's body, listening intently. Heavy feet, cussing, and bodies slamming against the small wood house echoed from the porch.
"McGregor," said Sergeant Ryan, "you're under arrest for disorderly conduct, assaulting two officers in the performance of their duties, resisting arrest, and being a public menace."
Mary Margaret's mother pleaded, "Don't hurt him, Ryan. Please don't hurt him. He doesn't know what he's doing."
"For God's sake, Jeannie," Ryan said, "open your eyes. He's no damn good, never was. Think of Elf . . . say, where is Elf?"
"Elf!" said the drunken man, laughing nastily. "A good name for a nothing kid. Wouldn't give me a son a man could be proud of. Someone to carry on my name. All you could produce was a worthless girl and an under-sized one at that."
"Oh for . . . Rafferty, help me get this crud to the car."
Again, footsteps crossed the porch as the policemen hauled away Mary Margaret's cursing father. A car door slammed. Lighter steps recrossed the porch. The screen door banged.
"Jeannie," asked Ryan, "where's the kid?"
"He didn't hurt her. She saw him coming and ran upstairs. He doesn't mean to be like this, it's only when he's drunk. He's always sorry afterwards. It's just the war preys on his mind, all those months in the Jap prison camp."
"Crap! He's no different now than in high school, just bigger. He's been trouble ever since coming to town, and . . . Oh hell, what's the use talking to you? You won't listen, not even to save your child. Elf?" called Ryan from the foot of the stairs. "It's all right. You can come down."
Mary Margaret re-buried her tear-stained face in her doll's soft body and trembled. Muted footsteps came up the stairs as Mary Margaret's mother cried downstairs.
Steps hesitated outside the open bedroom door. The coverlet hem raised on one side. Sergeant Ryan, his bright red hair and green eyes in sharp contrast to the pale pink coverlet, sprawled on the floor and smiled. "Hi, Elf."
"Hello, My Sergeant," Mary Margaret said in a small trembling voice.
"It's safe to come out now," Ryan said as he gently untangled a ringlet caught in the iron bed springs.
"I know . . . it's just. . . ."
"Sure and don't I know" said Ryan with the Irish accent he often used with small children. "It hurts when the people you have every right to expect shelter and comfort from say and do bad things. But that's nothing to do with you. It's them that's lacking, not you. You got to refuse the hurt and guilt they try to shove on you."
"But Daddy's right, I am only a girl, and smaller than everyone else."
"Poof and posh. Why, me darling lass, girls are the best idea God ever had, even better than butterflies, flowers, and rainbows. As for smallness, the tiniest emerald is worth millions more than the largest hunk of iron ore. Don't let any mere iron ore shard convince you being an emerald is no good. I can tell you from long experience, all iron ore are brainless."
Mary Margaret giggled.
Ryan reached out to her. "That's my Elf. Come on out. We'll go downstairs and see if your mother has any milk and cookies for a good girl."
Mary Margaret wiped her nose on her gingham dress sleeve and crawled into the sergeant's waiting arms.
"Do you really think girls are better than boys?"
"Cross my heart, eat a toad if I lie. Who are you after believing, the leprechauns' bonded friend, or a no account hard and nasty creature?"
Mary Margaret threw her arms around Ryan's neck and buried her face in his shoulder. "You."
#
Several weeks later, Mary Margaret held her mother's hand, running to keep up with her. They paused at the base of an ancient, red brick police station. Ten broad, granite steps rose to the large double oak doors. Inside the stark white marble hallway, dark oak paneling reached halfway to gray painted walls. The hall's dimness was like twilight after the street's bright glare.
Mary Margaret broke from her mother's grip to race up the short hallway to a towering beige room. Sunlight poured through tall, wide windows. There, Sergeant Ryan sat behind the giant, elevated, mahogany desk.
He looked up from his paperwork and smiled. "Well now, if it isn't my favorite elf! How would you be this fine brave day?"
"Hot!" said Mary Margaret, brushing her damp ringlets away from her hazel eyes.
Ryan laughed. "Sure, and it's all of that." He stood, reached into his pocket. "How would herself like to get some fine caramel nuts from the wee machine in the hall?"
Mary Margaret ran around the high desk to the three narrow steps alongside. Three copper pennies dropped into her hand. "Has your leprechaun friend Bridget written about any more adventures?"
"That she has. I received a letter from her yesterday."
"Oooh!" said Mary Margaret. Delight wiggled inside her like an excited puppy. "Did she meet any dragons? I like dragons."
"So you do," said Ryan with a smile as he settled back into his chair. "I'd forgotten. Strange your mentioning them just now though. As everyone knows, there aren't any dragons in Ireland."
"Oh. How awful!" said Mary Margaret appalled that anyone could not see how beautiful dragons are.
"Well now, I don't know but what most people would disagree with you. But as it happens, my friend Bridget went to visit a pixie friend, a fine brave lass called Buttercup, who lives in an elegant place in England called Kensington Gardens. Off with you now. When you come back with your candies, I'll tell you about those two brave girls and how they helped a dragon in distress."
As Mary Margaret swooped passed her mother to scurry down the hall, she heard Sergeant Ryan say, "He's waiting for you, Jeannie, go on in."
In the darkened hallway, her three pennies tightly clutched in one small fist, Mary Margaret ran into a pair of blue pant legs. She bounced into a sitting halt at the feet of Patrolman Hernandous. Beside him stood Officer Rafferty.
Rafferty and Hernandous both squatted down beside her. "Are you okay, Elf?" asked Rafferty.
Mary Margaret nodded.
"You should be more careful," said Hernandous. "This is no place to be running races."
"I'm sorry. I want to get back quick, 'cause my Sergeant's going to tell me about a dragon a friend of his met."
"A dragon?" Hernandous looked at Rafferty.
Rafferty covered his mouth with one hand and cleared his throat. Taking his hand from his face, he looked at Mary Margaret with regret and shook his head. "Unfortunately, we have to go out on patrol. I'd like to hear that one."
"Why don't you stay? You don't want to go out there. It's gunky."
"You tempt us more than you know," said Rafferty, "but duty calls, in case anyone needs help. See you later, Elf."
"Bye," said Mary Margaret, waving at the retreating men. A couple of minutes later, carefully carrying her treasure of caramel covered nuts in her bunched pinafore, Mary Margaret climbed the desk platform's narrow steps.
Ryan lifted her onto a cleared desk corner. "Would you still be needing those feathers at kindergarten Monday?" "Yes. We're making turkeys for Thanksgiving. But I can't get any turkey feathers," said Mary Margaret through a mouth full of nuts. She chewed rapidly and swallowed. "Mrs. Morris asked her son George to bring chicken feathers from his farm when he came into town, but he forgot. It'll be too late the next time he comes."
"Well, now, I can't come up with exotic turkey feathers, nor elegant chicken feathers. But, it so happens this building's roof is loaded with pigeons and doves." Ryan took a large brown paper bag from under his desk, and opened it for Mary Margaret to look in. "Do you think this would solve your problem?"
"Oooh! They're great!" She threw her arms around Ryan's neck and kissed him. "And so are you. You're the best friend ever. Wish you were my daddy. When I grow up, will you marry me?"
"Well now . . . " Ryan smiled. "I can't think when I've had a nicer proposal. If you feel the same in thirteen years, ask me again. Any man would be honored to marry you."
"I will! I'll love you forever and ever, for always."
Ryan smiled as he closed the bag of feathers. He set the bag to one side. "Now, wasn't I after telling you about our friend's trip? Let's call our story Dragon In Distress."
#
The following Monday, Mary Margaret walked home from kindergarten, the proud owner of a clay and pigeon feather turkey. She felt particularly important, as she'd been the magnanimous owner of enough feathers for herself and nine other children.
Crossing the railroad tracks, she saw Sergeant Ryan half a block away standing at the curb across from an alleyway. She hurried her steps, anxious for his approval of her work. "My Sergeant!" she called when a few feet away.
Ryan half-turned with a smile on his face. Suddenly, he saw something in the alleyway. He reached for his gun yelling, "Keep back, Elf!"
Mary Margaret jumped as a loud bang resounded. Ryan had his gun half out. He doubled over, as if hit by a giant fist, and pitched backwards. Blood spurted like water from a fire hose, splattering the cars and buildings near-by his sprawled body.
Mary Margaret stared in disbelief as her father stepped from the alleyway, holding his bear-hunting rifle. He turned. Mary Margaret stood immobile. The rifle pointed at her. "Little bastard," he snarled. "Don't believe I sired a runt."
Distant sirens sounded as people burst from a near-by bar. He looked from Mary Margaret at their yells, and quickly turned to run up the alley.
#
Mary Margaret sat shivering on the bed's side in the frigid hospital emergency room. A cooing nurse removed her blood-splattered pinafore and dress. The nurse had tried to take the turkey bag away, but weeping Mary Margaret clung to the bloody sack. Finally they compromised. They put the turkey into a nicer bag.
#
Mary Margaret drifted from a drugged sleep to the sound of low voices. Slitting open her heavy eyelids, she saw her mother and Rafferty standing in the doorway.
"From all accounts," murmured Rafferty, "the foreman ran from the office shed, hollering for the men to be rounded up. Someone in the office set off the emergency horns, and the men dropped their jobs to hot-foot it to the cookhouse, expecting news of a forest fire. A barman in town had called the foreman, who relayed the information about Andy bushwhacking Ryan. The foreman called for volunteers to run Andy to ground."
"Michael Ryan always was popular," said Mary Margaret's mother quietly. "Andy never was. After he returned so changed . . . well . . . ." She gave a sad shake of her head.
Rafferty nodded. "Unfortunately, the self-appointed posse cornered Andy near a played-out mine by the tracks leading into Canada before we got there. They shot it out like a cowboys and Indians flicker. The idiots still have hero fever. They know perfectly well that isn't the way to do things."
"Suppose," said Mary Margaret's mother, "it's hard to set aside war training, and go back to how things were before, especially when a good friend is attacked." She sighed deeply. "Strange, I should be doubly grieving for the loss of a good friend, and my husband. Andy wasn't always that way you know." Mary Margaret's mother shook her head. "Or perhaps grieving for Ryan, and relieved it's over with Andy. But all I feel is numb."
"That's normal," said Rafferty. "If you want, I can deal with the burial preliminaries. Right now, Elf is more important. She needs you. Ryan was a big part of her life."
She nodded. "I know. I should've married Ryan when he asked. He'd have made a good father. But, being pregnant. It didn't seem right when he wasn't the father." She sighed. "Yes, please take care of things. Don't think I can make any decisions now. I don't know where the money will come from."
"His V.A. benefits will cover it." Rafferty patted her shoulder and left.
Mary Margaret fought back hot tears for her lost friend, the father she might have had. She lost the battle and started to cry. Her mother hurried across the room and gathered the child into her arms. Mary Margaret cried, off and on, for several days. Nothing anyone said or did comforted her. Then the dream came for the first time. She lay hidden under her bed. Sergeant Ryan sprawled alongside the bed smiling. "Hello, Elf."
"You went away. You left me. I don't have anyone who loves me anymore."
"Sure, and would I do such a thing?"
"You're gone!"
Ryan shook his head. "No Elf, I'm still here. I'll always be here, just a memory away." His hand reached to her. "Come out, Elf. Live your life like the brave lass I know you are. I'll never be far away. You've only to remember, and there I'll be whenever you need me."
Mary Margaret looked into Ryan's gentle green eyes, and crawled into his arms.
"Sure, and that's my girl," Ryan said approvingly.
"You promise, cross your heart, eat a toad if you lie, you'll always be near?"
"Cross my heart, eat a toad if I lie, I'll never be farther than a memory away."
"I'll never forget," promised Mary Margaret.
She woke to bird sounds, and looked outside her bedroom window. A late butterfly danced on the flowered trellis. "I'll never forget," she whispered. "Being a girl is the best thing to be. Girls are God's best idea. Better than even flowers, butterflies, and rainbows."