AN: Crayola started producing boxes of children's wax crayons in 1903 from their mill in Pennsylvania. They were an immediate success.

1904

I smoothed creases from the brown paper that Nana's package had been wrapped in, spreading it on the kitchen table. She had sent treasures from Pennsylvania, mostly for Mama, but also a few for me. The best by far was a set of wax crayons in eight colors. They didn't smudge like chalk, and it was easier to make a clean line with them than with paints, though you couldn't blend the colors well, like you could with watercolors. But then, you didn't have to wait for them to dry, either. I loved them, and I'd been trying to use them just a little at a time. I wanted to save them, but this piece of paper was calling to me. It was rough, with bumps and lines. It felt like an old friend.

"Are you sure, Mama? You won't need it?"

"You go ahead, Esme," she said from the kitchen counter, where she was mixing flour and butter. "Make some art with it. Nana would want you to. Do you have any ideas for it?"

"Yes…" Part of me didn't want to make this drawing; I would end up using the entire blue crayon. Maybe if I sent her the picture, Nana would be willing to send more…

I raised my face up to the ceiling, closing my eyes. I remembered the crisp air on my skin, the way the shadows played across my eyelids when the wind blew… how the blue blazed and pierced my eyes with its pure hue when I opened them.

I took my blue crayon and started with the largest triangles first. Long narrow ones at the sides. In the upper half of the page I started drawing a mess of different shapes: narrow slivers and wide triangles, even the odd parallelogram and trapezoid. I turned the crayon, keeping the tip sharp so I could make the corners of my shapes clean. As I moved toward the edges, the triangles grew closer together, with only narrow bands of brown separating them. It was shaping up. I could see the form emerging from the paper.

"What are you drawing, Esme?" Mama asked as she rolled the dough.

"Something I saw near the hay field last week," I answered. "It was so beautiful."

She glanced at me, and then looked at the paper, puzzled by the blue shapes. "Was it water?"

"No, Mama."

She tilted her head as she studied it. "Did someone break some glass?"

I giggled. "No, Mama. You'll see."

We worked together comfortably, Mama making her pies and loaves, and I drawing my shapes, until lunchtime.

Papa came in just as Mama was setting the noon meal on the table. His boots were dirty and tracked in mud.

"Esme, what are you doing? Why aren't you helping your mother?"

I froze, looking at Mama.

"I told her it was okay," Mama said, quickly serving some biscuits and placing a bowl of chicken soup in front of him as he sat down. "My mother had included a note in the package she sent, asking Esme for an original drawing made with her new art supplies. She wanted to know that Esme was using her gifts."

He grunted, grabbing a biscuit and breaking it into his soup. "You shouldn't encourage this, Evelyn. She should be learning from you at this point. How to make bread, how to make supper. You're not doing her any favors letting her draw or wander though the orchard all day. She should be learning skills, doing chores. Not wasting time and money on frivolous hobbies."

I looked back and forth between them as silence fell. "I did my chores this morning, Papa," I said in a small voice.

He harrumphed as he continued chewing. We ate in silence for several minutes, his eyes moving occasionally to my unfinished drawing. He was trying not to be curious. Finally, he asked, "What are you drawing, anyway?"

I didn't think he would want to guess like Mama did. "A tree, Papa."

He gaped at me, and then laughed. "Esme, with all the time you'd spent messing around in them, I'd have thought you'd known that trees were brown, not blue." He threw his napkin on the table, got up, and left the house, muttering under his breath.

The easy mood Mama and I had enjoyed all morning collapsed in on itself. We both sat in silence for a moment, staring at the center of the table. Her shoulders were hunched and a veil clouded her eyes. She look defeated…the same way I felt.

I knew he was right. Mama needed help, and while drawing was important to do, it wasn't important to do this very minute. I'd been selfish, letting her work alone. She always worked so hard. Papa, too, for that matter. I'd been lucky that they let me be outdoors so much, appreciating the beauty to be found on our farm: the green light coming though the orchard leaves when they were new and translucent chartreuse; the constantly changing patterns of waves the wheat made when the wind blew, shadows and light dancing across the golden stems. And the amazing architecture of my tree — the giant old elm in the middle of the hay field. It was glorious… a tangled mess of branches reaching and weaving through each other like an intricate puzzle. It was my favorite. So old, but new every spring. So strong, but delicate at its edges with fragile stems and leaves. So grounded, its roots buried deep in the moist fragrant earth, yet always reaching to the stars.

It was hard to remember that sweeping was important as well.

Tears welled in my eyes as I glanced up at my mother. She looked pale. She didn't always sleep well. She often stayed up late working after Papa went to bed. As much as I hated to admit it, Papa was right. I needed to do more to help. I looked at my drawing and it seemed very unimportant. Silly even. I sniffled as I reached for Papa's bowl to clear it to the sink. Mama looked up abruptly, and suddenly her eyes were shining…fierce.

"Esme?"

I couldn't answer. I knew that if I tried to talk, I'd cry, and that would just make things worse. She read my silence correctly and held out her arm to me.

"Come here, child." Her eyes were full of sympathy, and she wiped her cheeks as I got up and allowed myself to be folded into a one-armed embrace, standing next to her as she remained in her chair. She pulled me into her side and I melted against her, feeling her affection seep into me. It warmed me like the sun.

"Esme Anne Platt, don't you dare blame yourself for this." She pulled my head towards hers and planted a quick kiss on my temple. "This was my fault, not yours. I suggested you draw instead of help. Anyway, it's important to let Nana know we appreciate her gifts. You can help me make the meatloaf tonight, after you're finished with it. Now," she said, reaching across the table for my drawing, "why don't you show me what you have so far?"

She studied the drawing, and I watched her face. She wasn't seeing it. She was focusing on the blue shapes, but that's not where the tree was. She raised her gaze to me, and I saw the confusion and disappointment in her eyes. She wanted to see it; she just needed help.

"If you sit under the big elm, with your back against the trunk, and you look straight up, this is what you see."

She looked doubtful, but studied the drawing again, tilting her head.

"Oh, I know what will help." I took a brown crayon and started drawing lines connecting some of the triangles along the sides that were lined up with each other. Some outlines were interrupted where they met with other perpendicular spaces. Soon the brown spaces between the blue shapes appeared to be long, interwoven boughs emanating from a broad trunk. I heard her gasp as she finally saw it.

"The tree is the paper? The brown paper? And the blue is…"

"The sky," I finished for her, straightening up and giving her a smile.

She shook her head slightly. "Amazing. What made you think to do it like this? Most people would draw the tree from a distance. And they'd…well, they'd draw the tree…"

I shrugged. "I know that tree better up close. And the paper's rough…it already feels like tree bark. It made more sense to use it than cover it over. Though I think I need to do some shading where the branches cross," I said, tilting my head to get a better look at the picture. I smiled at the limbs. They really did look just like that elm. I leaned into Mama and whispered, "Someday, when I'm older, I'm going to climb all the way to the top of that elm. I bet I'll be able to see for miles from up there."

"I'll bet you're right," she said, giving me a squeeze. She was still studying the drawing, and her face grew wistful…like she wanted to climb that tree herself. "I still can't believe you made a tree by drawing… nothing all around it."

"Mama! That's not nothing," I said, scandalized. "That blue sky peeking through the branches…that's where all the possibilities lie."

AN: Thanks to StormDragonfly for being kind enough to beta this, and for helping me keep Esme's voice child-like.