Home Songs

By Mary-Ellen Singer Grisham

As we journey through life, we become a part of every place we liveand each place becomes a part of us. Some folks collect snapshots and photos into a series of albums that record the human experience of each place. In Home Songs, I capture and record the experiences of home places in words. There are people and experiences too good to be forgotten, and I have attempted to remember and write about the best of these from each period in my life. In doing so, I believe I have captured stories that are universal and timeless.

Also, at each stage of our life journey, there are feelings, insights, ideas, and beliefs that characterize that stage of development. At times, these growing understandings can best be expressed in fictional stories. These stories reveal who we are and who we are becoming.
These stories explore the difficulties, challenges, and joys of our lives and help to give universal meaning to our individual life journey.

I hope that you enjoy my life stories and that in reading mine, you remember, re-live, and enjoy your own. Perhaps there is true kinship in the emotional journeys of the heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 11, 2006
• ISBN: 9781462806621

Mary-Ellen Singer Grisham

Mary-Ellen Grisham is a Christian writer living in Godfrey, Illinois, with her husband and son. She has been widely published on the Internet, in ezines, and in daily inspirational newsletters. She is currently Editor of Eternal Ink, a Christian ezine that appears every other week. Her work has appeared in various collections, including Women Emerging Courageous, Stories for a Dad’s Heart, and 2theHeart: People Who Make a Difference, and in several church devotional publications. She has previously published two books: Earth Tones and Grace Notes.

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Copyright © 2006 by Mary-Ellen Singer Grisham.

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Contents

LULLABY LANE . . .

Down a quiet lane (Childhood Stories)

Memories (true stories and nostalgia)

Grandma’s Secret Weapon

Granny’s Gate

Cutting Pieces

I Love You, Mrs. Duke

Mrs. Willingham’s Pinks

Donald

The Secret Vine

One Time Only

A Character or Two in Every Family

Tokens of Red and Blue

Love to Last a Lifetime

A Teacher’s Gentle Lesson

Rescuing Mom

Cowboy Ken and the Blue Fairy

A Storybook Christmas

Woodland Idyll

Fictional Stories

Ras the Rebel Racoon

Aunt Bec and The Cleaning Caper

Wilma, Wilbur, and the Windy Day

Anna Marie and the Fairy Trees

A Bread by Any Other Name

A FOREST RETREAT

Stretch and grow (youthful years)

Memories (true stories and nostalgia)

Brown-Eyed Boy

A New Kind of Dolly

Pennies for Heaven

My Helper, My Friend

Moments of Memory

The Sharing Garden

Fictional Stories

The Woods Are Gone

Go Gently, My Love

Winter Roses

PINEY WOOD PLACE

Another childhood (family days)

Memories (true stories and nostalgia)

Vegetables, Flowers, and Blessings All Around

Angels Attend Thee

Heart Cakes and Critter Cards

Fantasy Nights

Bunnsie

Invading the Barber Shop

Learning Thanks

The Heavenly Side of Ghost-ly

A Little Jaunt Down Pear Tree Lane

Golden Moments at a Turning in Time:

Pritchett and Mrs. Patty

Milly’s Will

The Bulb Man

Melli’s Gift

Just in Time

In Between

Fictional Stories

Jerome and the Garden Gnomes

The Poppins Tree

In the Shadow of Love

The Christmas Angel

Elrin’s Whistle

FANTASY FULFILLMENT

Fruition and maturity (golden years)

Memories (true stories and nostalgia)

Bless This Home

Blessing

A Little Love

Cinnamon’s Sugars

Letting Go

Small Victories

Seasonal Serendipity

Going Gently

Special Blessing

The Healing Room

This Old House

Daylily Comforts

Yard Creatures

Fictional Stories

Papa’s Rose

To See the Light!

A WALK IN THE WOODS

Myth and Magic (Memorable Meanings)

Fictional Stories

Spirit of the Wolf

The Way of the Wolf

The Cougar and the Doe

Laddie and Little Flower

End-piece

Acknowledgments

Dedication

The home places give us love and security, room to grow and become, freedom to imagine and dream. Creating our own special places gives us an earthly preview of eternity. If we are blessed, our earthly home places nurture our inner child and the spontaneity, intuition, freshness, innocence, and joy of that child. Home songs embody all the emotions of our experiences and the special individuality that makes us unique. And sometimes the child dances for joy . . . and home songs become heart songs.

Remembering always, with fondness and deep appreciation, Susan Farr Fahncke and the writers of 2theHeart.

LULLABY LANE . . .

Down a quiet lane (Childhood Stories)

Memory’s Moments

for you and me—

mudpies and sand puppies

hopscotch and swings

shadowtag and hide n’ seek—

long summer days

blending into golden dusk

with star pricks and moonglow

fairy flowers and night hum

soft beds and lullabies—

a benediction from life,

dewdrops of love

Memories (true stories and nostalgia)

Grandma’s Secret Weapon

When my mother got busy, I would spend summer days staying with grandma and grandpa at their old home in St. Louis County. It was an old-fashioned corner house with plenty of land for chickens, vegetable gardens, flowers, and fruit trees. I was thrilled because I loved to play outdoors in the wonderful yard and help with chores. Gathering eggs, cleaning chickens for roasting, picking delicious berries into old cartons, and selecting flower bouquets for friends were all jobs I enjoyed doing.

I was not always the perfect guest, but Granny had her ways of keeping me in line. With her warm good humor and grandpa’s sly wit, I found myself observing their schedule, their rules, and their lifestyle. The main weapon in Granny’s arsenal of good tricks, at least for me, was the old rocker in the living room.

The chair was so old that it had a very light brown wood with an almost white sheen, and I thought it was possessed. Granny had rocked so many children that the rhythm of the rocking seemed eternal. Frequently, the chair would go on gently rocking on its own—even when no one was in the room. I don’t know whether it was the way the floor was slanting in the old house or whether certain kinds of movement in the room would set it going. I do know that I delighted in sneaking up on it from other rooms to see if it was moving soundlessly.

I would try to discuss the rocker with Granny, but she would just laugh and get off on another topic. She seemed to know something I didn’t, but she wasn’t telling. As a result, both the room and the chair had a mysterious aura for me, and I was usually good in that room when I was in there alone. When grandma and grandpa had to do grown people chores outdoors, I got left in the living room with the rocker and the radio, or the rocker and a tub of buttons, or the rocker and the old dog, Curley. You’d better be good in here, Grandma would say as she and grandpa would go out the door chuckling.

Along with my memories of tea towels covering the worn arms on fat overstuffed chairs, the smell of pipe smoke, and endless seasons of family gatherings in the old house, are the unforgettable magical rocker memories. Soundlessly, the rocker would rock and rock, creaking only under grandma’s ample frame or grandpa’s agile leanness. I was thrilled when my brother was born, so that I could initiate him in the mysteries. And grandma?—well her arsenal of good tricks was always ready for another young’un!

Granny’s Gate

I still remember pulling up in front of Grandma’s yard in the black, hump-backed Plymouth. My little brother, Ken, just three years old, was sitting up next to mom in a homemade car seat, and he was raring to go. I’d gingerly help him out of the car and hold his hand tightly as we went up the slight hill to the worn path in front of Granny’s yard. Ken was already pulling to get free, while I struggled with the tightly latched gate. The minute we were in, Ken would be running free towards the old porch.

Hi, Grandma, I’d yell and wave Mom goodbye as she pulled off to go to work.

Mary-Ellen, you close that gate good, child, Granny would holler from the porch. Don’t want Ken to get out—Curley neither! Grandma’s curly-tailed dog usually rounded the corner of the house about then to see what the racket in the front yard was, and I was always ready to give him some attention. While I patted the dog, Granny would help Ken up the porch steps, and then soon I would follow them in to the large old-fashioned living room.

After milk and bread, we would prepare for our day. Granny usually had chores, and I either helped with these or took care of Ken. The problem was that while I was a pretty good kid, there were some chores I did eagerly, and others I really tried to avoid. I liked to make my own rules, but in Grandpa’s house children were supposed to behave and be helpful.

When I could play with Ken outdoors, gather chicken eggs, pick small cartons of fruit, or help Grandma count calories from the little guide book for her diet, I was just fine. When the chores became more exacting, like stringing beans, shelling peas, picking large cartons of fruit or produce, I didn’t have much staying power. I was not so cooperative about sitting quietly in the house while Ken took a nap and Grandma and Grandpa worked outdoors in the vegetable garden. Occasionally I was caught leaping around the living room to ballet music playing on the old box radio.

Grandpa usually left the discipline to Granny because I was a girl, and she had lots of ingenuity in handling me. When I bogged down picking a small bucket of cherries, Granny would wipe her hands on the old towel and come out doors to help me finish. With her help and pleasant chatter, we would finish the chore in no time, and if I helped willingly, I would get the first warm piece of cherry cobbler.

When I lost interest half way through preparing home grown green beans or peas for lunch, Granny would bring me into the kitchen and let me watch her measure the ingredients for the daily homemade brown bread. Gradually I took over the bread making while she handled those endless vegetables.

All went well until I began to develop an attitude about Ken. When I watched him outdoors in the big fenced yard, we did well together so long as he let me pull him around to look at my favorite flowers, trees, and bushes or lounge under a favorite shade tree. Ken was very active and wanted to run and play on his own. Finally I got tired of chasing him and went indoors. I told Granny that he wouldn’t mind me and that with the fence he could just be out there on his own.

Mary-Ellen! Granny scolded. You march right back out there and watch that child. It’s a big yard and he could get into all sorts of grief out there on his own!

Back out I went, dragging my feet, but I could not see Ken anywhere. I figured that he was playing hide and seek on his own—one of our favorite games when I wasn’t being lazy. I started a slow tour of the yard, looking in every possible place, even the three-step stairwell to the semi-basement where vegetables were stored. He wasn’t in the chicken coop or behind the garage. He wasn’t behind bushes or trees. Puzzled, I returned to the front yard. Breath catching in my throat, I noticed that the front gate was slightly open. Panic seized me. I was afraid that the warm happiness and contentment in my life were just never going to be the same again. If Ken were lost or killed, there would be nothing, ever that would right the situation.

I looked up and down the road and could not see him. Granny’s house was a corner house, so I went to the edge of the old path and looked up and down the street in the other direction. Nothing.

I heard Granny’s voice at the window. Mary-Ellen, what are you doing out of the yard? Reluctantly, I told her that I could not find Ken. Very quickly, almost before I stopped speaking, she was out the door and standing at the fence near me.

Granny, I am very sorry. I’ll look in all the yards around here. Granny’s face was pale and drawn, but while I started for neighboring yards, she headed for the phone.

After checking all the yards in three directions, I was about to head the two blocks to our house to see if Ken, perceptive little rascal that he was, had found his way home to play in the backyard sandbox. A noise in the backyard of a large apartment style house directly across the street from Granny’s caught my attention as I stood in the middle of the crossroads. Not daring to hope, I ran down the street toward that backyard area.

There, to my great relief, was Ken playing with two little kids, and a lady who looked like a grandmother, was watching them. Turns out she had grandchildren visiting her and was more than pleased to get the company for them.

I ran on winged feet to let Granny know, and before she could administer severe discipline, I told her that the lady across the street wanted to talk to her. We went hand in hand, and my relief turned to joy when I heard the neighbor’s words. She had been sitting on her front porch when a salesman had come into Granny’s yard with a flyer for the door. I was probably pouting indoors about then. She noticed that he didn’t latch the gate when he left, and Ken was quick to spot the opportunity. She invited my brother over to play with her kids, and he only too willingly went.

She apologized to Granny for the trouble. I didn’t want to bring all the little ones back across the street to tell you, so I thought I’d yell at you when I saw you outside, she explained.

My great relief turned me into a willing helper for the rest of the summer. Being the character I was, I was long on doing what I wanted to do and standing up for myself, but that summer I learned the value of obedience and working together.

Years later, I had another insight from my childhood summer. When my brother, now grown, with children of his own, had an accident in his home, because of a door without a safety lock, I was surprised to see the old neighbor of Granny’s at the visitation lounge. She had read of the accident in the community paper and was living in a small duplex nearby. All those years later she still remembered Ken and her gratitude to us for a wonderful summer with her grandkids. As I held her hand and looked into her eyes, I realized another truth. Sometimes even the rules need to give way to the needs of others. There is just no substitute for loving, sharing, and caring. Most importantly, even a child won’t need to fight so hard if she lets love make up the shortfall of obedience.

Cutting Pieces

Mother’s exasperated call would propel me from swinging on the back gate, up the drive, to the black hump-backed Plymouth. With varying success, Mom would back the unwieldy car out the drive, and we would cruise down the street, around the corner, and along the block to Grandma’s corner house. With a hug and a wave, I’d be up the hill to the dirt path and in the gate.

Then, in those early days of summer vacation, my joy was unbounded. I’d pat the plump lingering snowballs and run around the bush, checking the cherry trees, sour apples, plants, and flowers. With a quick look at Grandpa’s gardens in the back and along the other side of the house, I would loop by the fat trunk of the enormous maple on the path to the front porch. With a sudden detour, I’d latch the front gate and then high-step up the stairs to the door. By then, Grandma would be holding the screen open, and my day would begin.

Some days I’d be out the back door almost immediately to gather eggs in the graying wood hen house and then help Granny dry the breakfast dishes. In his stiff straw hat, Grandpa would take the hoe to work on the garden before the sun got too hot. Then Granny and I would settle in for serious business. That summer the doctor put her on a diet, and I would study the foods and calorie amounts in the little book. I would continue cutting out the suggested meal plans, put a tiny patch of triple folded tape on the back and set up the lunch menus for the week. In typical country fashion, dinner at noon was the big meal, with homemade bread and dessert, and leftovers would be for supper.

Little did I realize at first that cutting pieces would so change my outlook and attitudes during the long summer months. I was thrilled to be in charge of Grandma’s diet and would hound her to keep her from nibbling. Then the fruits and vegetables began to ripen, and my cutting moved from menu planning to cleaning and cutting up the produce my grandparents so carefully grew.

The cherries acquainted me with new sorrows in life as I spent what seemed like hours pitting the tiny round fruit and cutting the halves into pieces for pies and cobblers. My sore hands and stained fingers would have bothered me none if the rewards of baking had been bounteous, but Grandpa would allow little or no sugar so that the homemade desserts were sour and hard to eat. Eating natural was the country way, without a lot of additives or sweeteners; and sugar, flour, and other baking essentials were rationed in those days. The woes connected with blackberries, strawberries, and those little sour apples were even more enormous in my childish mind, but I persisted in obedience.

Grandma was easy going and kind and sought to lighten my load with rich cream and spoonfuls of honey, which Grandpa bought from a man at church who had his own beehives. Honey, being natural, was an approved substance, and I learned to help Granny mellow pies and cobblers with the judicious application of honey and cream and the occasional scoop of homemade ice cream for special occasions. I was learning to cope with the real world of restrictions and discipline, even finding a little leeway now and then, a bit of sweet for every sour.

Granny went to a church quilting circle one afternoon a week, and I would help her get ready by cutting large pieces from scrap material, gunny sacks, and old clothes. I got even handier with the scissors and developed a good eye for choice pieces that would make pretty quilts. I’d stash my pieces in a soft yellowed pillow case, and Granny and I would laugh about the fat bag of pieces she would have to take to church.

One Wednesday afternoon I went with Granny to meet the ladies. Most were about Granny’s age, but there was one young woman, newly married and new to the area. She and her young husband were hard-up, as Granny put it, and knew almost no one in the town. She enjoyed being with the other women and learning to sew. I explained to her that I helped Granny cutting pieces for quilting, and she was very kind to me. Both of us learned a bit about sewing and design on those afternoons.

Later, Granny and the women quilted a baby blanket for the young couple, and our pieces could be only the softest pastels, which the good ladies worked into little bow designs for the small quilt. I felt blessed with helping in this way, and I learned to feel how important worthwhile work and ordinary, everyday companionship and sharing could be.

While the corridors of childhood memories are filled with both sunshine and shadow, I came to see the rightness of that proximity. That summer I learned that the blend of joy and sorrow, work and pleasure, sharing and sacrifice could make new patterns of growth for me. As I held my young friend’s new baby, I looked forward to the years ahead when all sorts of cutting pieces would form the patchwork of my life and loves.

I Love You, Mrs. Duke

When I was a young girl, going to bed at nine o’clock on a summer’s evening was not my idea of a good time. I would lie down at the bottom of my bed looking at the old Quiet Lane neighborhood. The dusky time was quiet. Across the street, old Mrs. Foster’s trellis roses would get harder and harder to see as the afterglow turned into purple night. Before long, the lights and shadows waving through the tall trees would complete the progress to gentle night.

Mrs. Duke’s bungalow was directly across from our old two-story brick. Her house was always dark, so I assumed she was an early to bed, early to rise kind of person. As the summer days drew on through August and school loomed ever near, I did less window gazing and more sleeping. Even with a brief survey of the street, I could see a light on in Mrs. Duke’s front room. Her door was open, and a small lamp with a ruffled shade was perched precariously on an old cabinet radio. I began to wonder why she was up so late.

One morning I talked to Mom about Mrs. Duke’s being up late at night. She told me that one of the neighbors had said that Mrs. Duke was sick. I guess she sits up late and reads or listens to music until she falls asleep in her chair, said Mom, shrugging her shoulders.

How sick is she, Mom? I wanted to know, and does she have anyone to take care of her?

Mom said that she thought she had some close relatives in the city who made the trip out to the county to see her, but that her ideas about doctors and medicine were not like ours. She said that counselors from her church came to visit but that they did not usually call in doctors.

Now I was really worried because I had always enjoyed the occasional chat with Mrs. Duke while I was outdoors playing or riding my new two-wheeler. Possessed of a kind disposition and a sense of humor, she was a good neighbor and a wise common sense person, and even in my rambunctious soul, I knew I loved Mrs. Duke. She was a champion for fair play and had gently chided my dad one time when he had been yelling at me about my bike riding. Her sweet nature was pleasing to him too.

While I was outdoors, I began riding my bike on that side of the street. With the pretense of a problem, I would prop my bike on the curb, scramble onto the sidewalk and begin to carry on a conversation with Mrs. Duke through her open front door. Chuckling, she would allow me to come up on the porch, and while she said she could not have me come indoors, we would talk through the screen door. I tried not to be a nuisance and to observe her suggestions. Every night I would check for the light in her living room before I went to sleep. I felt happy to know that she was okay. With the coming of fall, her front door was closed, but through the small window on the door, I could still see the light in her living room.

Then one night I could not see her light. I checked every night that week before falling asleep, thinking surely that the light would shine again. By Saturday, I was upset, and at breakfast once again mentioned Mrs. Duke to Mom. My mom, a sweet person too, gave me the kindest, gentlest smile and a warm hug. She told me that Mrs. Duke was no longer able to live alone and that relatives had come to take her to their home. Relieved, I watched for visitors to the house across the street.

One cold day, a man put a For Sale sign on the lawn, and I asked the man with him if he was a relative of Mrs. Duke. He seemed as if he did not want to be bothered, but at a look from the salesman, he replied. He said