Observation Of Elvira

Remember we lived in this small Idaho town of eleven hundred people, except in summer when due to tourists, McCall swelled to three thousand. There were all kinds of churches: my best girlfriend was Jehovah’s Witness and one of my high school boyfriends was Mormon; the town undertakers were Seven Day Adventist, so it wasn’t as if we were all alike. The prettiest girl in town’s father had been black, and down the valley some Japanese farmers owned land, but that was pretty much it, color-wise except for the Basque sheepherders who brought sheep through Long Valley in spring. Many of the original settlers were Finnish and some still spoke the language though I never heard it spoken myself. That’s just the way it was and I never thought much about it until the Walkers adopted Elvira from Mexico. The Walkers were friends of my parents and sometimes Mr. Walker worked with Dad …show more content…
She didn’t speak much English yet and the Walkers hoped she would learn more if we played together before entering school in the fall. Although I had just turned ten and Elvira was three years older, we liked each other immediately. I remember she took my hand and we went walked in the woods behind their house, sharing words: árbol and tree, perro and dog. That didn’t last long for we each spoke to the other in our own language and understand perfectly. I had never heard another language before and thought her words sounded like music. It wasn’t long before I was parroting the syllables, the similar vowels, and talking nonsense to her as she spoke Spanish to me. In hindsight, I think Elvira, the oldest of her eight siblings, missed her family, her language, her home. Perhaps I, however temporarily, became one of her younger sisters. She was so alone in our small town, so exotic and innocent. I was shocked to hear my parents tell me the nonsense syllables didn’t sound right coming from me and that I wasn’t to speak like that