Window Shopping

      More Letters From Paradise
          Window Shopping

He had discovered it in the window of the consignment shop.  It was a very small tricycle, antique certainly, he thought.  The price tag read through the glass, was marked $50.  Oh, but it was wonderful, he thought. The large front wheel was only about ten inches, and the whole thing was constructed of iron.  Iron pedals and wood handles, with a tiny wood seat.  Someone had recently painted the tricycle with black paint, covering the few places where rust had  begun its work. How old was the child who rode this tricycle?  He would have to have been very small,  he thought.
He imagined the tricycle sitting under a candle-lit tree one Christmas a  century ago.  It would look real good inside the entrance of a house,  just after the outside door closed.  Perhaps a stuffed teddy bear sitting astride the tricycle, or maybe a pot of flowers sitting on the seat.  I must remember to call my daughter about this, he thought.  See if she thinks she would like me to buy it for her.  I'll come back tomorrow and get it.
The following day he looked in the shop window, and saw that it was no longer there, and he suddenly felt very sad.

          Aloha
          Grant