An Appalachian Mother's Love

By Tony Smith

I will get him a squirrel gun

A few days went by and one morning I got up out of bed before Mom and Dad did. I walked into the living room and quietly sat down. I could hear Mom and Dad talking in their bedroom. I heard Mom say to Dad, You could buy Tony a good shot gun if you would do it. I heard Dad say back to Mom, Now I just dont have the money.
Mom told him, Its a sin to lie. Dad said to her, Well, you go buy him a gun if you can. Then Mom told him. I will get him a squirrel gun if it harelips old Billy Hell, you just wait and see if I dont.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 18, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452061412

Tony Smith

Dr. Alveda King is a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a grateful mother and grandmother. She is a former college professor, author, mentor, stage and screen actress, Georgia State Legislator and presidential appointee. She has been “honored” and “blessed” to sit on several boards, and has received numerous awards and honors. Through her ministry of King for America and her vocation as Director of African American Outreach with Priests for Life, she devotes her God- given gifts and talents of writing, singing, song writing, producing and directing media projects and other gifts “to glorify God in the earth”. Tony Smith, Illustrator Extraordinaire is perhaps best known for his entertaining caricature gifts. When watching Tony draw, you can tell that he enjoys what he does; making people laugh! They keep him smiling! After attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Tony started entertaining with caricatures and has been doing so since 1983. His talents also include portraiture and illustrations.

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AuthorHouse™

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© 2010 Tony Smith. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/13/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-6141-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-6139-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-6140-5 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010912735

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Forward

What inspires Tony to write his stories?

Tony described how he recalls the people, places, sights and sounds from his younger days.

"Well, the time is 6:30 am. I have been awake for about three hours now. I sometimes wake up in the night or early morning hours with people that I used to know on my mind. I can see them all so clearly and I remember us all talking together. In my mind I can hear them and see them just as good now as I did back then.

When I woke up this morning it was still dark out. As I was laying there I was thinking about some of my friends that I camped out with for weeks at a time down on the Red Bud River. We would camp out and fish in the middle of the day and we would squirrel hunt of the morning and of the evenings.

Oh, I can see all their faces so clearly and I can still hear their voices just the way they talked with me and each other. Yes, I can see them as they talk. I can see Virgil Houndshell and his brother Cecil, Art Wynn, old man Fee Spurlock and Joe Gilbert. Now they are all dead and gone and I miss them all."

The real life characters truly come to life in all of Tony’s stories.

This is Tony’s second book about growing up in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. He chose the title, An Appalachian Mother’s Love because of his love for his mother. His mom, Marie, passed away in April of 2009 and in his journal for that day Tony wrote, Well, I have just lost the best friend I ever had or ever will have. My mom passed away on Monday April 20th, 2009. I don’t know if I can take all this or not. The first story A Mother’s Love was one Tony waited to write until after his mother died. He would talk about writing it but she would say, Tony, don’t be telling that, I go to church now. We don’t think she would really mind the story being told now. The story tells how Marie, Cousin Art and Tony supplied moonshine for Marie’s brother Melvin to sell to customers. The purpose of making moonshine was to earn enough money to buy Tony a squirrel gun.

To me this demonstrates the love and friendship that Tony had with his mom throughout his life. When I first started meeting with Tony many years back he had stories to tell but was very limited in his writing skills. His mother took the time and effort to help him spell the words as he wrote the stories. Working together with Tony writing and Marie spelling, he had enough great stories for These Old Hills. During this time Marie was inspired to write her own stories and some of them are included in this book, Chapter 2, Mom’s Stories Marie told me how she would lay on the floor for a couple of hours at a time and write down the stories she remembered about her family. She never really thought of doing this until Tony started writing his stories.

Tony is an inspiration to those who have stories to tell and write but don’t think they can do it. Like Tony says, You don’t have to be a college professor to write a book.

Keith Gilbertson

www.theseoldhills.com

Contents

Forward

Chapter 1

A Mother’s Love

Chapter 2

Mom’s Stories

Chapter 3

The Old Red Chicken

Chapter 4

A Cousin and a Friend

Chapter 5

The Tailgate

Chapter 6

A Ton of Coal

Chapter 7

Poems

Chapter 8

Song Lyrics

Chapter 9

My Journal

Chapter 10

Short Stories from Tony’s Collection.

Chapter 11

Wild Game Recipes and Home Cooking Menus

Chapter 12

For Teachers

Chapter 1

A Mother’s Love

By Tony Smith

It’s a beautiful June morning and I’m sitting out on the front porch listening to the birds sing and watching the sun as it comes over the hill and into my yard. Just across the little gravel road that’s in front of my house I can see a gray squirrel. He is in the woods and I am watching him as he goes from tree to tree. He runs about three or four feet up the side of a tree and then he will flap his long gray tail a few times. Then he will come back down the tree to the ground and on around the hill he goes. As I set here watching the squirrel, in my mind I go back to a much simpler time. The year was 1970 and Richard Nixon was the president at the time.

I can remember it like it was yesterday. Me and my family lived on a farm out in the Red Hill area of Rockcastle County. There was my dad, Charlie Smith, my mom Marie, my brother Ernie and my two little sisters Beverly and Georgie. Now like all other farm boys back then, me and Ernie we worked hard on the farm. We raised bakker, corn and hay. The corn we fed out to the milk cows, horses, hogs and chickens. The hay we fed out to cows and horses. We always got the bakker stripped out and took to the bakker warehouse at least two weeks before Christmas. That way Dad would have some money to spend for Christmas. Dad would sometimes take the bakker to the High Dollar bakker sales at Richmond and sometimes he took his bakker to London and sold it there.

We always raised big gardens. Mom said one garden was to eat out of during the summer and the other big garden was to put in the cellar for the long winter that was coming. Yes, we worked hard, all of us, but back then just about every one did. We never had no money but we always had plenty to eat. Mom and Dad always saw to that.

Wanting a squirrel hunting gun

By this time I was ten years old and the one thing that I really enjoyed getting to do was going squirrel hunting. I didn’t have a shot gun at that time and my dad wouldn’t let me use his gun. Dad would always say, Son, my gun is a 12 gauge and it kicks too hard for a boy. But my younger brother Ernie, he had a little four ten double barrel shot gun. If he had some shells for it he would sometimes let me take it hunting. I was just a boy but I was getting good at squirrel hunting.

From time to time I would ask Dad to buy me a shotgun of my own. He would always say the same thing every time, Well, I will son one of these days when I can find a good deal on one. I knew that was just Dad’s way of saying no, so every now and then I asked Mom to buy me a gun to hunt with. She would just look at me and say, Don’t tell me your troubles I got enough of my own.

A few more days went by and one morning after me and Dad and my little brother Ernie had got done with milking the cows we walked in to the kitchen and set the milk buckets up on the table. Dad looked at Mom and said, I am going over to the store to get me a plug of Days Work bakker and then I’m coming back and I am going to sharpen all the garden hoes and get them ready to work with. Dad walked out of the house, got on the old Massey Ferguson farm tractor and took off. Before me and Ernie could get out of the house Mom hollered at us, Come here, I want to show you all something.

Mom was standing at the end of the cook stove. As we walked up close to the stove, with the fingers on her left hand she pointed down at the big wood box that set behind the cook stove. She said, I want you to look at that wood box, why there’s not nary stick of stove wood in that box and I’m not going to have that. You boys is about one inch away from getting a good thrashing if you didn’t about know it. Now get down to the wood yard and get me some stove wood in here. Well, we could see that Mom meant business so we took off to the wood yard and it was not long until we had the wood box full of wood.

When I put the last arm load of wood in the big box, Mom looked at it and said, Now that’s the way I like to have it, good and full. With out even looking up at Mom I asked, Now when are you going to get me a good squirrel gun? Mom said, Why I couldn’t buy a setting hen let alone a squirrel gun. I looked at Mom and said, Well, Ernie has got his own squirrel gun and he’s not as old as I am. Then I turned around to walk out of the kitchen. I took about two or three steps and Mom hollered at me, You come back I said.

I stopped, turned around and walked back to Mom. She was just standing with her hands on her hips looking down at me. I could see a wet dish rag hanging down from her right hand and I was expecting to feel that old wet dishrag slap me right around my face any minute. But after a few seconds went by Mom walked over to the table and pulled out two kitchen chairs.

Ernie’s Squirrel Gun

With one finger on her left hand she pointed at one of the chairs and said, Now you set down right there. After I set down, Mom pulled her chair out even further from the table and she set down in it. She got a long breath of air, looked me right in the eyes and said, Well I know your brother has got his own squirrel gun and he is younger than you are but do you know how he got his gun. I said, Yeah, Uncle Ernie give it to him. I set there looking down into the floor. About that time Mom grabbed me by the chin and lifted my face up. She said, You look at me when I am talking to you.

Mom said, Tony, you know your dad’s sister Anna and her husband Ernie Walker, they have been mighty good to us over the years. When they come down here from Cincinnati they some times bring you boys good clothes to wear to school and you know Anna gets us to raise her a big patch of green beans. When she comes down to get them she always pays us more for them than any one around here would pay us. She also buys all the black berries we can pick for her now don’t she?

"Well, now Tony about nine years ago I was pregnant with your brother Ernie and I was so big I could barely get up when I set down. Ernie and Anna would come down every weekend and Anna would help me do my work. If she knowed I wanted something different to eat she would see to it that I got it.

This one week end they came down and we was all setting and having coffee. Anna looked at her old man Ernie and said, Well Ernie, are you going to ask her or do you want me to? Ernie said, I’ll do the asking. Then old Ernie looked at me and asked me in a nervous voice, Marie, when that youngin is born if it’s a boy I would like you to name it after me and if you do I’ll get him a good shotgun to hunt with just because you named him after me. Then I looked over at your dad and said, Well if it’s a boy Ernie will be his name. So it came to be that way.

One day when Ernie was four years old we was all out on the porch and we looked and seen Anna and Ernie’s truck stopped. They got out and walked to back of the truck and like always they got out enough groceries to feed an army and down through the long yard they came. After we got the groceries put up we all went back out on the porch where it was a little bit cooler.

Then Ernie Walker, he looked down at little Ernie and said, Come go up to the truck with me I got something to give to you. Ernie Walker took off walking and little Ernie was right behind him. When they got up to the truck Ernie reached in behind the seat and got out a little Stevens 410 double barrel and he give it to little Ernie. He said, Now this is your gun, take it down to the house and show it to your dad. He was so little he could not pack it so he had it by the barrels and here he come down the walk dragging the gun stock. Ernie Walker was standing up at the road watching him. He was laughing his head off. Your dad jumped up and said, Pick that gun up son, you are dragging it.

About that time Ernie Walker hollered at little Ernie, Tell your dad, it’s mine, I can drag it if I want to. Boy did little Ernie have a smile on his little face. He was one happy boy. After a few minutes went by, Ernie Walker and your dad stepped off thirty five yards and set up an old Bob White eight pound lard bucket. Then they took turns shooting the bucket. Your dad said the little 410 done good. Mom looked me in the eyes and said, So you see Tony me and your dad, we didn’t get Ernie that squirrel gun, his uncle got it for him because little Ernie was named after him. Now get up and go outside, I hear your dad coming back on the tractor.

Where there’s a will they’s a way

I went out on the porch, sat down and I thought about it. I decided that I would not say any more about a squirrel gun because it looked like I was not going to get one anyway. A week or so went by and I had not said anything about a squirrel gun. One day me and Ernie and Dad came in from the hay field to eat some dinner. We could see that Mom done had the table set so we set down and began to eat. In a minute or two, Mom came in the kitchen with the water bucket in her hand. She set it up on the end of the sink and then walked back to the table to set down and eat. She said, "That’s a fresh bucket of good cold water on the sink over there.

After we got done eating, we all went to the water bucket and with the long metal dipper we all got us a good drink of cold well water. Dad went to the couch to lay down. He always layed down for a half of a hour after he ate dinner. Me and Ernie went out on the porch and set down to rest.

In a little bit, Mom came walking out on the porch with the broom and began sweeping. Me and Ernie were just setting and talking. All at once Mom just stopped sweeping. She looked at me and said, Tony I’ve not heard you say anything about a squirrel gun in a long time, now why is that? I said to her, Well it didn’t look like I was ever going to get one so what’s the use in talking about one. It just makes me want one more when I talk about it. Mom, she just went back to her sweeping.

A few more days went by and one morning after me and Ernie had got done eating breakfast we went in to the living room. Dad and Mom were still setting at the breakfast table. I overheard Mom talking to Dad. She said, Charlie ain’t they some way we could get Tony a squirrel gun? Dad said, Why he can hunt with that little 410 of Ernie’s. Mom said, Now Charlie would you want to use someone else’s gun when you go hunting? Dad said, I don’t guess I would, but I ain’t got the money to get him a squirrel gun. Mom said to him, I don’t either, but where there’s a will they’s a way.

A visit at Papaw’s

More days went by. One Saturday came and I remember Mom saying to Dad, Now tomorrow is Sunday and I want to take the kids out to my Dad’s place and stay all day. Dad said that was okay with him, so the next morning after the milking was done and breakfast was over, Mom put me, Ernie and my two little sisters Georgie and Beverly in the old 1958 Chevy station wagon and we took off. Papaw he lived about four miles from us at that time on the Salt Petere Cave Road.

Dad stayed home. He said he was going to take him a good long nap. It was not too long until we were at Papaw’s and like always he was glad to see us. Mom’s mother had long since passed away and Papaw had got remarried to a good woman. Her name was Margaret and they had a girl named Isabelle. She was five years older than me. When we got in the house Mom set down and began talking with Papaw and Margaret. I remember Papaw asking Mom how our corn, bakker and garden was doing. Mom said, It’s all looking good but it could handle some more rain.

Papaw’s name was Bill Gibbons. He was not a tall man. He was only about five foot seven but he was a stocky built man. He always wore bibbed overalls and a cap. He had big ears that kindly stuck out at the top. Well, it was not long until Mom and Margaret was in the kitchen cooking up a good dinner. Papaw told Mom that he wanted her to bake the corn bread. I guess he liked Mom’s bread but so did a lot of people. Papaw always had plenty to eat and most of the time what you got to eat at his house was something he raised himself.

While they were cooking, me and Papaw we did a lot of talking. I asked Papaw what kind of pocket knife did he have. He looked at me and smiled. He reached down in his pocket and got out his knife. He handed it to me to look at. Then he said, Why I would not have nothing but a good German. I could see that it had yellow handles on it. As I opened up one of the blades on it Papaw said, Now that’s a German Eye and it will cut you. It’s sharp. I won’t pack a dull knife in my pocket.

I could see it was sharp so I slowly shut the knife back up and gave it to Papaw. He said, Let me see your knife. I reached into my pocket and got out my knife. As I handed it to him he said, Well I can see you got a Barlow and a Barlow is a pretty good knife I guess, but they ain’t got but two blades and I like a knife to have three or four blades in them.

After he got done looking at it he gave it back to me and we were just setting and talking. Now I had heard Mom say a time or two that Papaw had been in the Army way back when he was young and that he was in World War I. I just looked at him and asked, You was in the Army way back wasn’t you Papaw? He looked me right in the eyes and for a few seconds he didn’t say anything.

Then he spoke, Yes I was there and I would not wish that on nobody. Tony, I have eat many a sandwich with blood on it. He got up and walked out on the porch. About that time Mom came into the living room. She had heard me ask Papaw about the Army. Mom did not have a smile on her face. She looked at me and said, Don’t be asking Dad about when he was in the Army. He don’t like to talk about that. He wants to forget about that if he can. Then Mom went back into the kitchen.

In a little while me and Ernie went out on the porch where Papaw was at. I could see that he was standing at the end of the porch with his left hand up on the porch post. It looked like to me that he was just staring across the hills. He was standing so quiet and so still and he did that for what seemed like the longest time. Then all at once he looked down at the porch he was standing on and said, "Come with