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Wildflower Girl By Dana Stewart Quinney Hidden Shelf Publishing House P.O. Box 4168, McCall, ID 83638 www.hiddenshelfpublishinghouse.com Copyright © 2019, Dana Stewart Quinney Hidden Shelf Publishing House All rights reserved Cover photo: Dana Quinney as a child Graphic design: Allison Kaukola (back cover), Kristen Carrico (front cover) Interior layout: Kerstin Stokes Editor: Carol Anne Wagner Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Quinney, Dana Stewart Wildflower Girl ISBN: 978-1-7338193-0-5 Printed in the United States of America WILDFLOWER GIRL “When Dana was three years old, she mastered a somersault, a monumental time in her young life. She wanted to remember that somersault forever, and her Mom taught her a way. She applied the same method toward remembering all the important events in her life. They are assembled together in this captivating compi- lation of short stories. Travel with Danny through these magical times as she witnesses a murder (or did she?) from her secret watching place, finds the stars with her adventuresome father, and almost loses her life in her grandpa’s waders. And, always the botanist and biologist, twenty years after Danny’s grandpa told her that “all of the animals isn’t all found out” she discovers a new species of Fairy Shrimp. I became lost in these fascinating stories.” – Carol Howell, Jade Mist Shetland Sheepdogs “This lovely book of short stories is like a portal, taking the reader back to a simpler, more innocent time in a magical place. It is a place that was real, but unavailable to anyone in today’s world, unless you allow this book to take you there. The author’s descrip- tions are crisp and clear. You are taken on one adventure after another in a most vivid and delightful way and introduced to some amazing characters. Whether or not you are familiar with the area and the time, you have a clear view of her world and her life. I am so thankful for the memories stirred to life by the author’s sto- ries.” – Margaret “Mib” Brown Kelly, childhood friend in Ketchum, Idaho “In Wildflower Girl, Dana has gifted us with glimpses of a child- hood that was often magical, without losing sight of some of the hard truths of learning about life in general. She is a gifted story- teller and the memories of this time and place are so well crafted that the reader can see the stories and feel the emotions. Thanks to Dana for the invitation into these experiences; I’m sure I am not the only one who will revisit frequently.” –Lisa Butterfield, Windanseur Arabians 3 QUINNEY List of Stories Introduction . 5 The Purple Glass Pitcher . 7 The Finder and the Pool of Gold . 16 The Spotted Smallmonster . 24 The Secret of Lily’s Garden . 35 Dust . 39 Hollyhock Dolls . 45 The View from Stewart Granger’s Snowshoes . 53 Just a Story of Murder . 59 Crusader Turtle . 66 Sonata . 77 The Anthology . 84 The Fairy . 93 The Star of Knob Hill . 99 New Stars at Little Falls . 109 Seven and Two . 116 The Horned Skull . 122 An Afternoon in Gramps’ Waders . 131 Tony and the Other Face of the River . 142 The Animals Isn’t All Found Out . 150 Shag, His Saga . 159 A Farewell . 166 Blood Moon and the Band of Gold . 174 Up Lake Creek . 182 The Silk Road . 194 Safe . 203 The Ghosts of North Fork . 215 4 WILDFLOWER GIRL Introduction When I was small, I set out to find treasure. I’m a finder, you see. We finders find things. A horse, a dog, a field guide, a book of poetry, a notebook, a packed lunch: these were my tools of discovery. I found white buttercups in the snow of the Fourhills above our house, shining trout in beaver ponds, silver-marked butterflies near the mouth of an old mine, strange creatures and stranger flowers in the far places of the world, and above all, I found stories. The Fourhills of Ketchum, Idaho led me into a life filled with creatures and flowers, fish, and trees, wonder and awe—all the things experienced by an outdoor biologist as she searches the world for her kind of treasure. Since you are holding this book in your hands, I know that you are a finder, too. Welcome to my world of little lives. 5 QUINNEY To my parents, Bernice Stewart and Clayton “Stew” Stewart. Me at age 4 in my grandmother Lily’s garden. 6 WILDFLOWER GIRL e Purple Glass Pitcher “You cannot remember that much detail after so long a time,” people tell me. “You cannot remember what it’s like to be three years old when you are 70. You cannot remember what you were wearing, what clouds were in the sky, what your mother said, how your puppy’s bark sounded. That’s not possible.” But I can and it is. I don’t remember everything, of course. Just as you have, I have forgotten countless things, countless people, countless happenings. But there are some things I remember with a crys- talline clarity, all because of my mother. I was three and a half years old, and on a blustery gray November morning, I got dressed in navy corduroy overalls, a green blouse, and my brown-and-gold checked wool coat, the one with the brown velvet collar and the silver buttons that looked like little flowers. Mom was busy ironing and sent me out to play in the yard. As always at over 6,000 feet, the November grass was crisp, pale, and dormant. A cold wind blew down from the Fourhills. Mom tucked the back-end triangle of my yellow headscarf into my coat collar, and I toddled out into the front yard. Our yard was raised about three feet from the dirt road that went up the hill past our house, and on two sides, the yard had a bank, a short, steep slope down to the road on one side and down to the driveway on the other. This 7 QUINNEY little slope was perfect for me to slide down on the seat of my pants (grass stains) or roll down, over and over (more grass stains). But today, this little blonde girl in the tidy braids had a mission, something much more exciting than rolling four feet down a grassy bank onto the edge of a dirt driveway. I had seen one of the big boys in the neighborhood, Jimmy Campbell, do a somersault. In fact, I had watched Jim- my do several somersaults, and I had been thinking about them for a day or two. Today I was going to do a somersault. Jimmy had put his head right down on the grass, yep. I did that and kicked my legs a little, as I had seen Jimmy do. I fell over to one side. I did it again. I fell over to one side. By this time I wasn’t paying much attention to where I was, and my scrabbling around on the grass had brought me to the edge of the steep little bank. Gritting my teeth, I put my head down once more on the cold grass. Bracing with my arms, I kicked up, trying to stay straight. And I did a headstand, my first! But, because I was right on the edge of the bank, I tumbled over and somersaulted down the bank! Whoa! This knocked the breath right out of my small lungs. But because I had tumbled down the bank as well as doing my first somersault, this was big. Very big, for someone not yet four years old. I scrambled up the bank and did it again. Whoof! And again. At this point, I had to tell Mom. I rushed into the house, breathless. Then I tugged at Mom’s hand until she put down the iron and came outside into the icy wind to see me do a silly, tumbling-down somersault. We both laughed, and then ran back inside. Mom picked up the iron. She was ironing my favorite dress, a light blue cotton dress with ruffled sleeves, printed all over with 8 WILDFLOWER GIRL blue and yellow butterflies. “I want to remember that forever!” I told her. “Forever and ever. “I looked out the window for a moment, at the bare aspens down at Coats’s house bending in the wind. Even at that age, I knew that I forgot things. But this I wanted to keep. “Mommy, how can I remember this forever and ever?” I asked her. Mom put down the iron again and pushed back her hair. “Well, here’s how, Danny,” she told me. I stared at her; she wasn’t joking. She went on. “I know you can count to five. On the first day, you think of it five different times. Each time, you think of what you did, what you saw, what you smelled, what you touched, what you felt inside, if it was cold or hot, what you were wearing, and what you were thinking.” I nodded eagerly. “Five times,” I said. “Then the next day, you think of it five times again.” Mom picked up the iron. “For a week, you think of it every day, five times. Then for a month, you think of it once a day, and five times on a certain day in that week. Do you know what a month is?” “A month is four weeks, and the months have names,” I said. “November, December. And April, where my birthday is.” “That’s right,” Mom said.

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