MY FIRST SCRIBBLER
by Mary Wilson Hann

This story is a reflection of loving and caring at its best. I dedicate this story to my parents, George and Cecily Wilson. It happened in 1931 and I was only nine years old.

My story begins with a reminder that life was not always easy during this time and you worked very hard, but loving and caring is what helped everyone get through things, especially during the Depression.

Each day my Momma would send me off to school with my little scribblers that she had made out of paper bags that she had saved up. I got tired of writing on these made up scribblers and one day I decided that I wanted a brand new scribbler. Very few of them were available in our school at the time. I also knew that the trader boat was in Merasheen and had scribblers on board. This particular day I went home to lunch and I was focused and determined to get my own scribbler.

I ate my lunch and Momma sent me back to school. I refused to go back and stood outside the kitchen window bawling for my scribbler. A short time later Papa came along and noticed me crying. He asked me what was wrong: I told him my story and he took me by the hand and kissed me. He then asked me to follow him. He took me to his fish store and gave me a yaffle of fish and told me to take them up aboard the trader boat that was up by Mr. Pat Houlihan's wharf.

Happy as a Iark, I strolled off with my yaffle of fish. Mr. Houlihan met me on the wharf and helped me board the trader boat. I got my money for the fish and I bought my first scribbler in the little shop that was set up in the trader boat. The scribbler had lined pages and it had a purple cover. It had the word MAMMOTH written across the center in black letters. I rushed home as proud as a peacock to show my first scribbler to Momma. Her reply is as vivid in my memory as the day she said it. ‘Mary honey, they made that scribbler especially for you because you are a Maw-Mouth“. She meant that for crying and bawling to get my own way I was what they called a Maw-Mouth. That was how she pronounced the name of the scribbler. After it was all over, she laughed in only a way that my Momma could and kissed me on the cheek.