Shady Brook and Deeper Waters: Cherry Shooters, Slingshots, Fish Muddle, Chicken Potpie, and Life Lessons

By James D. (Archie) Howell

Cherry shooters, slingshots, fish muddle, and chicken potpie were all a part of growing up in Southampton County, Virginia, for author James D. (Archie) Howell. In Shady Brook and Deeper Waters, he shares the stories and life lessons learned during his childhood and youth in this rural community during and after World War II.

Presenting a collection of essays previously published as newspaper columns, these stories bear the nostalgia of the time witnessed through the wide-eyed impatience of a child, told in Howells words, with an occasional retrospective as an adult. He recalls growing peanuts on the Marle Hill farm as the youngest of seven children, trips to Fishers Mill, his experiences at summer revivals, and his first store-bought haircut in the company of adults.

Shady Brook and Deeper Waters paints pictures of life in rural Virginia, vividly conveying the sights, smells, and tastes of Howells homestories to warm the heart and stir latent memories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475983395

James D. (Archie) Howell

James D. (Archie) Howell is a Southampton County, Virginia, native. He served in the US Navy and had a forty-two-year career in aviation as a US naval aviator and commercial pilot. His articles and opinions have appeared in the Tidewater News of Franklin, Virginia, since 2011. Howell and his wife live in Kingwood, Texas.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Smell of Sawdust

Can I go? I beg. I am ready to go. Anywhere to escape the day-to-day monotony of life on the farm. Anywhere but the house and the routine of daily existence. Anywhere beyond the visual horizon, although I don’t know what that is at this time. My siblings are in school, and playmates are in short supply.

My father, perhaps in a weak moment or maybe feeling a bit merciful, gives permission. I climb up on the strong crossbeam of the wagon. My seat, as is his, is just a short distance from the rear ends of a pair of horses. The horses are not embarrassed by their lot in life, and nature taking its course is one of the hazards of horse-drawn carriages of any sort. It is as natural as the wind that, I am grateful to note, carries away their wind.

The wagon is a barebones framework of strong oak timbers. Not the fancy box wagons seen in western movies of the day, but a work wagon without a body. No fancy seats. Under the frame are stout-spoked, wide, steel-banded wheels—not graceful, not built for speed, but strong and reliable for heavy loads. A long tongue separates the horses and is the mounting structure for a double tree with a single tree on either side for each horse. Wagon crossbeams front and rear with stanchions on both ends can carry long items like boards or logs. Today’s outing will use that ability; we are headed for the sawmill. It’s just down the road about a mile. Fisher’s Mill. It’s been there a long time.

We start out slowly, with the horses’ tails swishing at the occasional fly or irritant. The right-of-way is broad enough for the two-lane paved road with a generous grass-covered space to fences on either side. We travel on the grass, with just one or two forays to the pavement to get around culverts and ditches and the like. There’s little to no road traffic; the occasional truck passes, and the driver lifts a finger from the steering wheel in acknowledgment of my father. Most people know most people around here.

The mill sits on a large corner parcel of land on the south side of US 58 just before the bridge at Shady Brook. There’s a dirt road beside it that stretches along the east bank of the creek until it joins the Nottoway River. It then follows the Nottoway for a mile or so until it intersects the Newsoms road. As we enter the mill yard, long racks of wide boards are stacked like an X across a support for drying. On either side of the entry lane are stacks of lumber separated within the stack by thin boards, with a small space between each board on a single layer. Air circulates around and between each board, and the lumber air dries to a useful state.

Straight ahead and slightly left is the sawmill shed. It is connected to a steam boiler by a series of pipes and to electrical service by some overhead wires. Other buildings and sheds house a business office and a planing mill. The planing mill smooths and properly sizes rough-cut lumber for a variety of uses.

Mr. Hedgepeth is the sawyer, and as far as I can tell, master of all things sawmill. Mr. Hedgepeth has a physical tremor of some sort that constantly moves his head up and down and to either side. The movement doesn’t seem to interfere with his authority. The saw itself is a wide-bladed monster mounted on a spindle driven by a belt.

Mr. Hedgepeth sits close by the massive blade and gauges how many boards of what width can be cut from the log currently on the loading rails. His judgment is law. As rough-cut boards come off the main saw, they are trimmed to standard sizes; the pieces trimmed from either edge are called strips. These strips are sold for use in woodstoves for cooking or other uses, such as starting a fireplace fire. Strips are what we came for.

It is time to replenish the woodpile for the wood-fired cookstove in our house. Our wagon is loaded stanchion-high with strips, and my father and I both sit on top of the load for the return trip. We are much more comfortable and have a better view.

The horses take their task in about the same stride as when the wagon was empty. We pull into our yard and stop; my part is over, for now.

For that day, and others like it, I am grateful. The sawmill is a part of my heritage, and in my travels later in life, where there is a sawmill, I visit, smell the sawdust, and return for a moment to Fisher’s Mill.

CHAPTER 2

The Big Red Peanut Picker

At some point the decision is made by someone that peanuts would become our main cash crop. My father is a share cropper, and decisions are made away from my eyes and presence. I use our farm and the farm synonymously.

Cotton fields will no longer be a part of my experience. The flat-bottomed wooden cotton planter is sidelined in favor of the curved steel wheel of the peanut planter. Planted cotton furrows have a flat top; peanut furrow tops are rounded.

Cotton scales, pickers, and all associated labors are now realigned and devoted to peanuts.

We have a tractor now; the war has not completely stopped the availability of farm equipment. It’s an International Harvester Farmall. It stands tall and red on the paths and fields of our farm. It has attachments that can plow, plant, cultivate, and harvest faster and with less effort than before. Progress.

I suppose part of the reason for moving to peanuts is that a market has developed, and peanuts can be harvested mechanically. Peanuts are also a legume, not so devastating to the soil as cotton, and can be rotated advantageously with other crops.

At harvest time, peanut vines are dug and most dirt removed mechanically. Workers pick up the vines with peanuts attached, carry them to a tall stick, and stack them for drying. Each stick has a short cross member at the bottom to keep the vines off the ground and facilitate air movement.

Our first pea sticks are small saplings cut from the woods, about eight feet tall. The smaller end is shaved to a point by a worker using a drawing knife, and the bottom cross braces are wooden strips cut a little longer than cookstove wood.

Cross braces are nailed about two feet from the bottom end of the stick. The stick is buried like a post up to just below the cross stick. We use hundreds of these things.

One morning a bright-red behemoth arrives in our yard. It’s a peanut picker made by the Benthall Company in Suffolk. It is steel wheeled, with gears, chains, belts, and other gadgets thrown about at random. It is mostly wood painted bright red. Red is a popular color for farm equipment. The picker has a table in front that feeds the dried peanut vines into an ever-hungry maw.

Strange-looking blades chop up the vines, and the dried peanuts are somehow separated within the beast and exit through a chute at the side.

Vine parts are blown from the rear, ready to be stacked. Stacked vines are cattle feed for winter. The whole thing is powered by a long belt from our tractor.

In the fall, after the dug up (plowed) and stacked peanuts have dried (about four to six weeks), the picker is towed out to a central part of a field and set up for business.

Horse-drawn carts move about in the field and lift the shocks from the ground and drop them at the picker. Most carts handle two shocks, but four-shock carts are not unusual.

A worker removes the stick and feeds the vines into the picker at a rate that will not overpower the machine. It does have limitations. Another worker bags the peanuts as they exit at the side, and still another removes the vines from the work area at the rear.

Generally it’s a four-person operation, or maybe five to run two carts. Late in the day, at dusk, the picker is shut down, and the bagged peanuts are removed to storage.

Dust billows from this operation in great clouds visible for a mile or more. At the end of the day, most workers are covered with a heavy layer of the stuff, with only their eyes uncoated. Pea-picking time is very visible to passersby. Peanut dust lingers in the air and has a distinctive smell. It softens the coming of night.

I open a can of Virginia peanuts and still smell the dust. I can remember the feel of burlap bags and the smell of smoke from a small fire on cold mornings. I can feel the lift of the shocks to the cart. I can feel the cotton plowing lines in my hands.

I can taste the taste of home.

CHAPTER 3

Off to the Grist Mill

The truck is ready. There are several bags of shelled corn in the back. My father is ready; I am ready. I’m always ready. The road beckons;