When Lizabeth thinks about the dusty shantytown where she grew up, she remembers Miss Lottie’s dazzling yellow marigolds. That, and the devastating moment when she became more woman than child.
At this time, the nation is in the middle of the Great Depression, though Lizabeth, her brother Joey, and their neighborhood friends are only vaguely aware of the extent of their poverty. One summer, when Lizabeth is fourteen, the children decide to go throw stones at Miss Lottie’s marigolds. Miss Lottie is an old woman who lives in a ramshackle building with her disabled son, John Burke. The children scamper over to Miss Lottie’s house and decapitate a few marigolds. Miss Lottie yells at them, but Lizabeth dances around her, mocking her and calling her a witch. Finally, John Burke jumps up and chases the children off.
Though the other children revel in the success of annoying Miss Lottie, Lizabeth feels ashamed. The child in her thinks it was all in good fun, but the woman in her flinches at the thought of the attack that she led. Lizabeth is in a bad mood all day and goes to bed upset. She wakes in the middle of night and overhears a conversation between her parents in the other room. Her father laments that he can’t find work and provide for his family. He relies on his wife for financial support, which makes him feel emasculated. He begins to sob loudly and painfully. Hearing her strong, traditionally masculine father cry bewilders Lizabeth. Her mother then comforts him by humming soothingly, as if he were a child.
Lizbeth is baffled. Her dad is supposed to be strong, her mom soft. The world has lost its boundary lines. She wakes Joey because she doesn’t want to be alone, and she runs out of the house, toward Miss Lottie’s marigolds. She leaps into the garden and pulls furiously at the flowers, destroying them all. Lizabeth looks up and sees Miss Lottie standing before her. This time, however, she doesn’t view Miss Lottie as a witch. Instead, she sees a broken old woman who dared to create something beautiful amid so much ugliness. Lizabeth feels compassion for the first time in her life, completing her transformation from child to woman.
