Rocky Ground: An Ozark Family Holds On Through Hard Times

By Margaret DuBois

The economy didn’t go through the Great Depression - people did. Margaret DuBois grew up in a period of historic deprivation. Her family had to retreat to her grandparents’ Ozark farm to survive. The farm patriarch, her grandfather, was a revival-meeting minister who had once served as a State Legislator. Their home-life differed from most similarly-situated Ozark families in its focus on spiritual duties and the love of learning. Books lined their shelves. Political bombast and pious sermon occupied their dinners. They didn’t get up pre-dawn as most farm families did.
Hard times drew out the best and worst of human character. As she watched her family cope with all manner of human failing, and unremitting rotten luck, Margaret saw that people are complex and rife with contradictions. In her family’s composure through bitter disappointments she saw a strength of character worthy of remembrance. And on that rocky ground where the DuBois family held fast, she hatched her dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312849488

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Rocky Ground: An Ozark Family Holds On Through Hard Times

Rocky Ground

An Ozark Family Holds On Through Hard Times

heroic family with boarder slanted.png

Margaret DuBois

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2015 Margaret DuBois

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2015

ISBN   978-1-312-84948-8

Please direct inquiries to:

Margaret DuBois c/o Jeff Goldsmith

6034 Bernhard Ave.

Richmond, CA 94805

or via email to:

[e-mail]

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to my group of fellow writers, Jane Freeman, Lea Lyon, Ann Manheimer, Connie Sutton, Glenys Thomson, Kathryn Winter, and Jeanne Miller, who took up the task of correcting computer-scans of my collection of typewritten manuscripts, and to Jeanne in particular, who provided editorial oversight, ran the scanning and correcting process, and rallied the troops to the effort without waiting for me to ask for the help that I needed; to Mark Greenside, whose deadlines and skillfully-led class discussions over many years helped me write these chapters; to Cherie Hotchkiss for her editorial review, and to my son Jeff Goldsmith, who handled production, created the cover art and copy, and kept me on task.  To these, and to others whose names I might have missed or whose contributions I was not aware of, I am deeply grateful.

Margaret DuBois,

Richmond California, January 2015

The Tale of Happy Jack

Looking back, I think my cousin Norman knew exactly what he was doing when he brought Happy Jack to visit us that Sunday afternoon in early September when I was eight. Norman was only six, so who would have expected him to be a super salesman? Not me, and I guess not my brother Harold, either, although Harold was 12 and pretty smart. Norman probably knew we wouldn't be able to resist Happy Jack if only we saw him, and he could name his price. He must have wheedled pretty hard to get his parents, our Uncle Homer and Aunt Florence, to agree to have Happy Jack jumping around in the car with them all the way from their farm to ours, since it was at least an hour's drive. Of course, Dora and Edith, Norman's older sisters, could have helped to hold Happy Jack, but still…

Anyway, when I saw Uncle Homer's old dusty Model-T Ford turn in at our gate, chug around the curved driveway and rattle to a stop beside our woodpile, I knew that my Sunday afternoon was made. Cousins had come to save me from Sabbath boredom! Dora and Edith and Norman—I always had great fun with them. Dora was a year older than I, and Edith only a little younger, and Norman was only six, but he held his own. I ran toward the car, with Mama and Daddy and Harold trouping close behind.

As Mama hugged Aunt Florence and the children piled out of the car, I noticed something was unusual. Dora and Edith had We've got a secret! and Surprise! Surprise! smiles. Norman was keeping his hand in his overalls pocket and the pocket was squirming and wiggling.

Cousin Dora started. We brought along a playmate— but Norman interrupted her, Dora! He's mine! I'm supposed to tell! He stepped toward Harold and me. Bet you can't guess what I've got in my pocket.

A kitten! It's a kitten! I shouted, dancing around, because I loved kittens and thought we could never have too many.

Nope.

Harold eyed the pocket. You could have caught a baby rabbit. It's a rabbit.

Nope.

Just then the pocket squirmed vigorously and the tip of a fluffy gray tail flicked into view.

It's a squirrel! A baby squirrel! Harold and I both shouted as Norman withdrew his hand from his pocket, and there, for sure, was a half-grown squirrel. It ran up Norman's arm and sat on his shoulder, looking at us quite fearlessly. It began to make a chittering squirrel noise.

My father looked around nervously and said, Hey, Norman, that's some pet, but you'd better hang onto him. We've had cats coming out our ears this summer and if one of them sees him jumping around, your pet will be a goner.

That was true, I knew. On the hill across the creek from our place was the cemetery, and townspeople sometimes, unreasonably, dumped their unwanted cats there. The cats, of course, looked across the little valley to our big gray barn and white farmhouse and said, So, there's my next home. We let them live in the barn, fed them milk, and expected them to hunt and catch mice. We always had six to a dozen barn cats. We didn't let them come in the house. Only my Grandmother's very special Persian cat, Princess, was allowed in the house.

Mama spoke up. Come inside, all of you, and the kids can take that squirrel upstairs to their bedroom to play. If they keep the door shut it should be okay, but anyway I'll find Princess and make sure she's kept outside. Florence, I've been so wishing for a good visit with you…

Upstairs in the big bedroom Harold and I shared, we all plunked down on the beds, and Norman released his squirrel. Harold and I both wanted to hold and pet him, but soon discovered that squirrels weren't much on being held and petted. This one, anyway, wanted to leap about and explore. He would settle in our hands only for a moment before he would be climbing to our shoulders, jumping to the top of our heads (Ow! That tickles!) and taking off in a flying leap to the top of the headboard or the dresser. Oh, he was as entertaining as a circus. While we watched the show we bombarded our cousins with questions, and this is the story they told us:

Uncle Homer's farm on Hamilton Creek that year had been plagued with a bumper crop of squirrels—so many, they threatened to completely ruin the corn crop. He began carrying his rifle when he went to the field and shooting squirrels every chance he got. He had been a good hunter since childhood and thought nothing of killing grown animals. One day he discovered a nest of baby squirrels in a hollow tree, and realized he must have shot the mother. He couldn't stand the thought of leaving babies to starve, so he had carefully carried them home and given them to his children to care for and raise—if they could. And they had done it! The babies had been just old enough to begin to get along without their mother's milk. Since they were hand fed and lovingly handled, they became perfectly tame. Dora and Edith had already given away their baby squirrels to friends. Only Norman had decided to keep his.

But, when they were so little, what in the world did you feed them? we asked. Surely they couldn't have cracked nuts!

Dora, the oldest, said, Well, we knew they ate corn when it's soft in the ear, and then we found out they would eat a lot of other vegetables and fruit—like muskmelons and pears … 

Hey, you should see him peel a pear! Norman said.

Peel a pear? Harold said in astonishment. I don't believe it! Animals don't peel their food, and anyway, he can't hold a knife!

You want to bet he can't peel stuff? Norman said. You got any pears? Just give him one and he'll show you!

It was early September and our pear orchard was loaded with fruit. I was dispatched to find a fallen pear and bring it to the bedroom.

Now just leave it there on the dresser, Norman said, And watch what happens when he sees it. I tell you, he won't eat pears unless he's peeled them.

The young squirrel was still running and leaping around the room, exploring every corner and every object he encountered. Soon in his forays he leaped up on the dresser. Seeing the pear, he sat down on his haunches, took the pear in both forepaws, brought it to his pointy mouth, and began to rotate it rapidly in his paws, at the same time moving his jaws up and down at a furious rate—rather like Mama's sewing machine when she sewed a long seam, I thought. Down from the turning fruit began to dangle a strand of pear skin about the width and shape of the rickrack Mama sometimes sewed on my dresses to decorate them. It was a single unbroken strand of greenish yellow peel. That little animal was like a peeling machine! Staring, we all broke out laughing, which startled the squirrel so he threw the pear down to the floor and whisked away to the top of the mirror and then, in a flying leap, to the bedstead. Oh, dear, he'd made a mess! I found some paper and gathered up the thrown pear from where it had squashed perilously close to my Sunday shoes. Ugh! But, it had been so funny to see!

Hey, he didn't eat any of that pear, he just wasted it, Harold said. Does he ever really eat them?

Oh, yes, said Edith, anxious to put in her two cents' worth, He really does eat them, but usually only a few bites before he throws them down. And sometimes he just peels them and drops them, like he got all interested in peeling and then forgot what he was aiming to do next. Mama gets really out of sorts with him because he wastes food and makes such goushy messes.

Yeah, she sure does get mad, Norman said, But now the acorns are falling and he really loves acorns, so mostly that's what we're feeding him. He leaves acorn shells all around the house, but they're not so hard to clean up.

After a time, of course, we tired of watching squirrel acrobatics and spread out our favorite card games—Old Maid, and then Authors—on the floor. All afternoon we were afraid to leave the bedroom to play outside, but watching Happy Jack—for that was the name Norman had given his squirrel—made staying inside perfectly okay.

Harold began to act uneasy as the afternoon wore on and the time for the cousins to leave for home drew near. He got up and began to rummage among the few toys we had in our only toy box.

Hey, Norman, he said, What would you trade for that squirrel? I mean, if you would trade him?

Well, now, Norman said, looking cagey, I don't know. I wouldn't let him go to just anybody. I've raised him from when he was a teeny-tiny thing. You gotta know something about taking care of squirrels, you know.

I held my breath. I knew Harold and I couldn't claim to know much about squirrels, but I knew I'd never wanted a pet more than I wanted Happy Jack. And I didn't have any boy's toys to trade.

Harold said, Aw, shucks, Norman, he's bigger now. You said yourself he's almost grown and ready to go on his own.

I chimed in, And we've got lots of acorns, and a whole orchard of pear trees!

Well... Norman said.

My marbles! Harold said, Look, I've got this really super bunch of marbles, some of the prettiest agates you ever saw. Took me all last year, trading 'round the schoolyard, to get all these agates, but I'll let you have them if you'll give me Happy Jack. Whatta you say?

Got lots of those myself already, Norman said. No, I think I better keep Happy Jack.

I could throw in the leather pouch? Harold said hopefully.

Got one of those, too. Harold dug deeper into the toy box and pulled out the sling shot he'd just made.

Hey, this is a great sling shot …

Got one, Norman said.

Well, Harold said desperately, I've got a brand new jack knife ...

Hm, said Norman, looking alert, I been wanting one of those. Let's see it.

…

That's how Happy Jack came to be ours. Of course, Mama and Daddy and Grandpa and Grandma had to okay the deal, too. Grandma was the hardest to convince, since her cat, her beautiful fluffy white Princess, would have to be evicted from the house. Grandma agreed only when Harold, backed by Daddy, promised he would build a cage for Happy Jack's permanent home, so her Princess wouldn't have to stay outside like a barn cat. Harold immediately set about planning the greatest squirrel cage the world had ever seen.

Looking back, I find it quite amazing that the grownups agreed to Harold's trade. They must have been almost as intrigued with the idea of a pet squirrel, and as amused by Happy Jack's antics, as Harold and I were.

That evening, when we sat down to our usually quiet Sunday supper, Happy Jack was there to entertain us. Although he had a whole new house to roam in, he stayed near us, watching from every high perch he could find. But he couldn't stay still a minute! He went leaping in a circuit from the top of the china cabinet, to the back of the couch, to any handy chair back, to the magazine stand, to the top of the telephone on the wall. At each stop he would chitter at us in squirrel small talk. Table conversations, we decided, would never be the same.

Remarkably, he never plunked down on the dining table in the midst of our food. Perhaps our cousins had somehow trained him to stay away from tables with food, or perhaps he had little interest in the hot, cooked food humans ate. At any rate, he never attempted to eat with us, although he always stayed nearby.

After a day or two it became uncomfortably evident that, until Harold could get his squirrel palace built, our whole house had turned into a cage. Our windows and doors were well screened, but we still had to go in and out at the screen doors, and every time a door was opened there was a chance that Happy Jack would escape to the outdoors, or that Princess would get inside. Princess was the biggest problem. She had always stayed almost entirely in the house. Now she spent all her time outside the kitchen door, staring balefully in at the frisking squirrel who had replaced her as the favored pet, and struggling to get through the door every time it was opened. Going in and out of that door became an acrobatic problem. We had to have one foot free to turn aside Princess, and at the same time move quickly through to shut the door. It was particularly hard for Grandma, who was obese, and slow moving, and wore her dresses long. No wonder she had been hard to convince we needed a pet squirrel!

And Mama, poor Mama! She was in the midst of canning pears and the last of the tomatoes, and she had to add to her workload all the cleanup Happy Jack caused. He littered her clean floors with acorn shells, and peelings, and squished pears. He stashed his acorns in the pockets of every jacket and coat hanging in the closets. (He had a special fondness for pockets, no doubt believing them to be the same as squirrel nests in trees. At night his favorite sleeping place was the pocket of an old black wool overcoat of my grandfather's.) In spite of all the messes, Mama rarely complained about Happy Jack. Ex-school teacher that she was, she had always encouraged Harold in his nature projects: tadpoles, turtles, butterfly collection, bird's egg collection. So now it was squirrels. So be it.

Meanwhile, in that first week Harold and Daddy made little progress at building Happy Jack's cage. Harold and I were in school, which didn't let out until four o'clock. By the time we'd come home on the school bus, changed clothes and snacked, it was time to start evening chores. Then it was supper, homework, and off to bed. On Saturdays Harold had to help Daddy with the end-of-summer farm jobs, and as for Sundays—Grandpa fiercely enforced the Fourth Commandment.

On the first Sunday of Happy Jack's stay, Harold bolted from the table at the end of Sunday dinner saying, Come on, Daddy, we've got to get started on that cage.

Cage? Grandpa said, Harold, are you forgetting this is the Sabbath?

No, but Happy Jack's really got to have a cage. It's an emergency.

Grandpa reached for the Bible, which was always at his right hand on the corner of the dining table, opened it, and began to read, intoning the words:

Exodus, 20th chapter, starting with verse eight. 'Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it!

He closed the book and set it aside with an air of finality.

Harold persisted. But …but …we milk the cows …

Yes, Harold. God gives the cows milk every day, so milk we must. But I do not think squirrel cages are part of God's plan. With that, he rose from the table and walked down the hall to his bedroom.

Harold looked at Daddy, and Daddy shook his head. Sorry, pal. I haven't forgotten the row last summer about our Sunday kite flying. Not much I can do. But I'll push hard to help you with the cage this week. We need it.

Harold went glumly to our bedroom and his book. Mama and I cleared the table and washed and dried the dishes. I wondered if dishwashing was part of God's plan.

So, for the second week, we were all caged with Happy Jack, with Princess as the cage keeper, glaring at us through the kitchen screen door.

Daddy insisted that Harold simplify his cage plans. Something less of a squirrel castle, he said, but strong enough to be cat and dog proof, as well as squirrel proof, and doable with the materials at hand. Harold agreed, and a simple square cage began to arise in the corner of the unused granary where he and Daddy carpentered in whatever spare time they could find. By the next Saturday evening Harold could proudly invite Mama, after supper, to come see all the progress on Happy Jack's cage. She followed him to the granary room in the barn, I trailing after.

See, it's almost finished! he told her. All but the top, and I need a piece of really heavy-duty screening for that, and we're out of screening. We've used up all the bits and pieces we could find. Daddy says he'll get me some more at the hardware store Monday. Then all I have to do is nail it down, and we can put Happy Jack into his new home!

Well, it can't be too soon! Mama said. I swear to goodness, I'm nearly worn out with fending off that Princess. But you've done a fine job, Harold. Looks like that cage will last Happy Jack for years.

I was looking dolefully at the cage. It was bigger than the chicken coops our broody hens used with their baby chicks, but still …

What if he doesn't like it? I said. He's used to running up and down stairs, and into all the rooms. He's used to a big house. And where will he sleep at night? He won't have Grandpa's old overcoat anymore.

Harold's face fell. You're right. I've got to figure out how to make him some special thing to sleep in.

Mama said quickly, Never mind, Harold. I can sew him a pocket out of some dark warm cloth and you can hang it across a top corner of the cage. He'll probably like that anyway, we really can't delay. I'm worn out with watching the doors, and Grandma's getting upset about her poor Princess.

Aw, who cares about Princess? I said. She's gotta be the snootiest cat in the whole world. You can't even hold her, she jumps right down and runs off. She doesn't do anything interesting, just lies around looking beautiful.

She's one of those aloof cats, yes, Mama said, But to Grandma she's wonderful because she was a gift from your Uncle Paul. Probably the most special birthday gift Grandma's ever had. So, best never to say anything against Princess.

With that, we went back to the house through the gathering darkness. It was time for Saturday night baths.

Sunday: The usual rush to get the morning milking done and ourselves washed up and into our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and off to the church on time. Arriving home from the services between 12:00 and 1:00, we were, as always, tired and hungry and ready for Sunday dinner. Which, of course, wasn't ready for us because Mama had been in church, not in the kitchen. She threw on an apron and began to bustle about, ordering me to change clothes and then set the table. The men of the family, having nothing to do until the evening milking, settled down in the front porch chairs to read and wait. Harold went looking for Happy Jack, found him in an upstairs closet (where he kept a stash of acorns in a dark corner), and brought him down to the dining room, where he began to put on his usual circuit-of-the-room aerial show.

Mama kept our Sunday dinners simple, so we didn't have long to wait for her call to wash up and come to the table. As we settled into our places, Happy Jack leaped to Harold's shoulder, and then, on being pushed away, to the top of the wall telephone, where he flirted his tail this way and that and chittered at us scoldingly.

Mama had gone to the kitchen on some last minute errand. I heard the kitchen door creak, and then her shriek of No, no! Prin-cess-s!

Turning, I saw Princess come running into the dining room, pause, and look wildly around for the source of the squirrel noise. At that moment Happy Jack took off from the telephone to the magazine table, paused there almost directly in front of Princess, then launched himself through the air toward the fireplace mantel. He never made it. Princess made the leap of her life, straight up, to intercept him. He uttered one shrill Chee-ee-ee and was still.

Harold had scrambled up from his chair and lunged toward Princess, shouting Bad cat! Bad cat! Drop him! Scat! Get! Princess gave a last shake to the furry body, dropped it, and darted from the room, Harold chasing and shouting at her. Without a word Grandma rose from the table and followed Princess. Harold turned