LittleSally was born while her mother Marie was vacationing in Italy. Her powerful and busy mother decided to leave her there to be raised until she was old enough to come to the States to work in her business. However, she decided to escape from the home of the people who had been raising her. They were an abusive old couple. They would taunt her about how her mother left her and that she would never see her Momma again. She also didn’t want to have to mash grapes with her feet any longer. It would stain her toenails and she felt she looked silly on the beach with purple blotches on her.

So upon one night, she took a small bottle of homemade wine to help her sleep at night on the journey, packed her dresses and some money, and went on her way to America. She bought some new white shoes, and after a long boat ride, mostly consisting of her avoiding large ship rats and insects, she arrived in New York.

LittleSally wandered the streets of New York with a desperate and pouting face looking for her mother. She went around asking strangers, “Where’s my Momma Marie?” Everyone would look at her strangely. They would turn their head slightly for a moment, and keep on walking past her. She didn’t lose hope though. She tried to keep a big radiant smile on at all times in case she would run into her mother on the street.

She then took a train down to Philadelphia, and asked everyone on the street, “Has anyone seen my Momma Marie?” No one would answer her. They would give her a quick glance, and move on with their errands, until one day, she decided a newspaper man about her Momma Marie. He told her somewhat sarcastically, “Well, you do have a father, don’t you?” A big smile blossomed across her face, and she jumped up and down for joy. “Dadda… Dadda… Dadda.” It took her a moment to remember his name, as it does with most people. “Dadda Sal!” She ran around the streets all excited and bought herself a balloon, content, until she realized, she did not know where her Dadda Sal was. She sat on the sidewalk, and thought for a while about what to do next.

And so… she traveled around the major cities looking for him until one grey and cold day she saw him on the street in Chicago. Shivering in excitement and from the frigid temperatures, she tried to run into her Dadda’s arms, but he didn’t seem interested in talking to her or hugging her at all. She fell to the ground, and she looked up at him sullen cheeks and moist eyes. She asked, “Where’s Momma? Where’d Momma go?” She repeated this again and again, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. He pushed past her and continued strolling past her dismissively before disappearing quickly into the crowd. LittleSally cried a million tears after collapsing on the wet sidewalk before she lost count. She was very lost, and out of money. Her white little shoes were blackened, and worn down. Her right toe was visible through them, and the heels were gone. She had discarded her socks already as they had been used to mop up her tears and socks, and they had many holes in them.

She walked around aimlessly until she made friends with some dogs on the street. They helped keep her fed for a few days by knocking over alleyway garbage cans and stealing food from street vendors. However, one day when she woke up in the alley she had fallen asleep with them in, they were gone, and she felt even more abandoned. She set up a box stuffed with newspaper as a nest on the street, and began begging for change. With tears streaming down her cheek, she wrote on the box using the ash of cigarette butts and hot dog mustard from used wax paper, “Where’s Momma Marie?” It snowed overnight, and she woke up covered in soaked newspaper and collapsing cardboard. Weakly, she stepped out from her little ruined home. Finally, someone in a dark trench coat and face, covered by a black hat and scarf, told her where to find her mother. He leaned down to her, and she was given an address on a gum wrapper.

She was so overjoyed that she kissed the stranger on the only uncovered part of his cheek and skipped and frolicked off to the place where she would find her Momma. She washed herself in a public restroom. She wanted to make herself presentable for her Momma, and she didn’t want to smell like dog anymore. She rubbed newspaper on her shoes to make them a solid grey, and she used rubber bands to put her hair up in pigtails. She couldn’t do much about her dress which was soiled by the street, however, she knew her mother would be so happy to see her, especially with a beaming grin of joy, that it wouldn’t matter much.

After readying herself, she got her things together for her last journey. As she approached the address, she found that the grass she walked on was finely trimmed, and she thought it might be a good place to play soccer with Momma. However, she started to see large marble blocks across the field, and finally, she found the one she was looking for next to a tree. She sat by the tree staring at the gravestone of a “Loving Wife.” She wept more and more. She wiped the tears away from her eyes and cheeks. Her lips flattened out and her eyes stared blank. Her Dadda didn’t want her, and didn’t want her Momma either. She went into her little bag, and pulled out her pink jump rope. She looked at it a little bit before she threw it over the tree. Her Momma whispered to her softly in her ear, “You’ll be with me soon, my dear. Be brave, my little girl.” She listened closely to her mother’s voice. It was then that she played her last game of jump rope, albeit just a little bit unconventionally… While LittleSally played her game, a raven landed at her seemingly floating feet. She didn’t touch the ground again after her jump. As her eyes flickered out and she twitched wildly, she saw her mother’s face in front of her eyes, bright and smiling at her full of love.