Chapter One
The first
sixteen months of my life were spent in that log cabin. I slept between my mama and daddy, in the bed
where I had been berthed. I learned to
crawl and to walk on the hard dirt of the cabin floor. I also learned just how close I could get to
the fireplace and that wood chips weren’t to be eaten.
My mama was
part Cherokee Indian, French and Irish.
She was a small woman standing less than five feet with hair black as a
raven and eyes like wet coal. Her name
was Ruth.
My daddy,
Virgil was Irish and English. He had
clear blue eyes and a touch of red in his hair.
He was of average height, yet appeared smaller as he always stood with
his shoulders slumped.
We had few
pleasures in that log cabin, our lives given to the task of surviving another day. My mama
joined daddy in the fields not long after I was born. I was taken along in a
cardboard box and tended to by my sister, Rosa Lee. Mama would put me under whatever shelter she
could find, returning from the fields only twice a day – my feeding time as the
sun hit the half-way mark, and evening as the sun went down.
Many times
mama would put me to her breast as we walked the dusty lane back to our
home. Rosa Lee followed behind carrying
my make-shift bed and holding James’ hand securely. Daddy usually walked alone in silence, his
mind a far piece from the cotton fields, dust and worries.
Each evening
after a meager supper of day-old beans, or cornbread and milk, mama would sit
outside on our porch and watch the moon climb above the stars. As she sat rocking back and forth, with her
chest resting against skinned knees, she would begin to hum to herself, her thoughts
lost in the stars.
Rosa Lee, James
and I would grow still and listen as words soon replaced the murmuring. Mama’s song was always sad and sung in such a
tired manner. Before her lament was finished, we would be asleep.
It was a sorrowful
day for us all when Mr. Green told daddy we would have to move out of the log
cabin. He had been a good employer and
friend to our family, but with the depression starting and the tired soil not
producing, there wasn’t any other choice.
My mama,
with a tear in her eye, told us how fortunate we were to have known Mr. Green;
me, most of all. Mr. Green
not having any daughters had given me my name. “Call the child, Edith Marie and
I’ll provide all her baby clothes for one full year,” he had promised. He proved to be a man of his word.
*
Daddy’s half
brother, Jim and his wife, Lou lived in the northern part of Arkansas. Knowing we would be welcome, daddy relocated
us there.
Arkansas was
a strange and wondrous place. Gone were the plains, sand storms and sharp winds
of Oklahoma; replaced by rolling hills, mountains and lush green valleys.
The
mountains were covered with tall pine trees, wild ferns and deep grass. In the
springtime, a blanket of purple, yellow, white and red wild flowers; placed I
knew by God’s own hand, dotted the fields and meadows. During the warm Indian summer, the palette
changed slowly, becoming a collage of amber, orange, and golden shades as the
leaves of maple, oak, elm and hickory trees began to turn.
Springs
bubbled from openings in the mountain sides, sending cold, clear water to pools
below. Winter brought snow, a white lace
coverlet edged with ice crystals.
With spring
approaching, the mountain seemed to weep as the winter sun touched the crystals
which glistened like tears on a shiny cheek.
It was a
wonderful place to live, yet proved to be a sad time for us all. We hadn’t been there long before mama and
daddy separated. My brother James went
with mama. Rosa Lee, or Sissy as I now
called her, and I stayed with daddy. I
could never understand why mama left us; especially me, her baby and moved far,
far away. Sometimes when I looked at the mountain, I thought the tears were for
me and my loss.
After mama
left, daddy couldn’t take care of Sissy and me alone, so he put me in the care
of Glen and Selma Lawson. An unfamiliar
word was added to my life …. adoption.
*
My new home
was a three room house. The main room
was the kitchen. There Selma cooked our
meals on a wood-burning stove. It was
the warmest room in the winter and a busy arena in the spring and summer. A place which touched every sense of ones’
being.
The aroma of
fresh-baked loaves of bread gently danced with the scent of hickory which
lingered long after the day was over.
How I loved the shiny, golden-brown wonders, placed in a row against the
back of the sideboard. Close enough to
see, close enough to smell, yet too far for a small arm to reach.
Wild
squirrel slowly simmering in a cast-iron pot of home-made dumplins … the sounds
of churn paddles turning cream into sweet butter … the crisp snap of a fresh
green bean … baby peas rolling out of a cracked pod dropping into a large crock
– the symphony was simple, yet grand.
One room had
only a bed and a dresser in it. The bed was home-made from hickory, which had been carefully twisted and bound together
with strips of rawhide. A quilt,
fashioned from many small pieces of brightly colored material covered a soft
mattress of feathers.
The dresser
was made from planks of oak which had been smoothed by Glen’s knife and hours
of patience. Wooden pegs held the planks
together. It was truly a piece of fine
furniture. The finest I’d ever seen.
Sitting upon
the dresser was a bowl of paraffin apples, pears, and grapes. One day, having resisted the temptation of
that fruit many times in the past, I just couldn’t control myself so .. I took
one of the pears and bit into it. YUK!
It was terrible!
I quickly
placed the pear back into the bowl and removed the bite from my mouth. Then, I hid the piece under the bed. I’m sure Selma found the pear, but she never
mentioned it to me. I knew I deserved a
spanking, but didn’t get one. I also
knew I never again would try to eat any of that fruit.
In one of
the other rooms, there wasn’t any furniture at all. I loved playing in the empty room. The floor was made of wood with cracks
between the boards; I had a set of pretty china dishes that someone had given
me. I wasn’t sure who had been the
donor, so I pretended that my mama had sent them to me.
With great
care, I would take the plates and saucers one at a time, stick them in the
cracks, then push hard. I watched as
they broke and fell through the cracks to the dirt below. When all the plates and saucers were gone, I
would lie on my stomach and peek through the crack.
I could see
the pieces scattered in small heaps and drew as much pleasure watching them lay
there, as I had breaking them. The house
is still there today and probably so are my pretty china dishes.
*
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