The Shadows of Appalachia

By Mary O. Bremier

Born in 1928, Mary Bremier has a remarkably keen eye, both for the beauty of her natural world and for the telling details of human frailty. The Shadows of Appalachia has a deft, musical voice that recalls the regional dialect as well as the songs, sayings, and prayers that shaped her Depression-era childhood. Her gentle irony lays bare the mind

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Bremier
• Release date: May 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578934662

Book preview

PART 1

Depression Years

Chapter 1

Carroll County, Virginia (1928)

On a breezy October afternoon, I was born in the same dark mahogany bed in which I was conceived. The bed stood in the largest room of the two-story bungalow on the road that dead-ended at our house and ran beyond a millpond toward Hillsville and the Appalachian Trail. That day my father and his sister, Mary Anne, helped me through a difficult passage, and according to my father, I responded with the smallest cry he’d ever heard. They named me Mary after my aunt as a reward for her bravery in assisting in an ordeal for which she’d had no training and little or no experience.

Chapter 2

The Furies Were Out

Pandora’s door flew open and the furies were out. The stock market crashed and people were jumping out of windows to their deaths. The Lindbergh baby was stolen and killed for money. My Uncle Leonard shot himself with a rifle and died on the front steps of his house, and Aunt Dove, his wife, homeless and distraught, came to live with us. Mama complained about having too many children and living in a dark house so far from the people she’d known. It seemed that loneliness, poverty, regret, and aggravation were just a normal part of life.

President Hoover was blamed for about everything that went wrong. Daddy was mad at him when the banks closed and the price of eggs went down to three cents a dozen. Gladys, my three-year-old sister, blamed him when she broke Mama’s nicest dish. Hootie made me do it, she told Mama.

Aunt Cora, my father’s favorite sister, died of diphtheria and Daddy had to borrow one of Uncle Arnold’s suits to go to her funeral. She’d lived only a couple miles away, yet none of us children got to see her—dead or alive. Daddy told us she was a good person—not like Aunt Dove. But it seemed that dying automatically improved one’s reputation so I wasn’t really sure about Aunt Cora. One of my grandmothers had died before I was born—far back enough to gain sainthood.

Sometimes Mama went into the parlor to play the piano and all of us, except my six-month-old brother Jim, gathered around her and sang. We sang about people who died of heartbreak, in wars, or out of hopelessness, like those who were jumping out of windows. Mama often sang a song about the man who hanged himself on a tree he had planted in his youth.

If my pappy had a known it

He’d been sorry that he grown it

When he planted the old apple tree.

There was one about Willie who was in love. His girlfriend flirted with the poor boy and played with his feelings. She was insincere but she grieved mightily when she discovered him drowned in the pool by the mill early one morning.

I thought Willie must have used our millpond to drown himself. He must have passed through our woods and along the road that ran from our yard down by the millpond. That was the road we shouldn’t go down because we’d get drowned if we went too far. The pond was where Mama would have drowned herself if Daddy hadn’t brought her back.

Daddy and Mama were like Willie and his sweetheart. Sometimes Mama wanted to die. She was going to drown herself, and Daddy would be sorry for accusing her of being untrue and keeping her at home in rags. It seemed that love caused the worst kind of sadness. Willie never did come back, and I was always afraid Mama wouldn’t.

The saddest of all the songs we sang was Massa’s in the Cold, Cold Ground. I was afraid whenever Mama decided to kill herself. She would get dressed up, powder her face with flour and put pokeberry juice on her cheeks. Sometimes she would put on her black Sunday hat and tell us she was leaving and we would never, never see her again. She said we’d be like all those darkies in Stephen Foster’s song weeping with mournful sounds for their dead massa when she was buried in the cold, cold ground. I didn’t understand why she had to dress up to go away and die. Then there was the time she just started running like a mad dog down toward the millpond without putting on a clean dress or a hat. My brother and sisters stood on the porch steps crying. I was screaming, Mama, don’t die. I don’t want my mama to die.

When Daddy and Mama talked loud in the night, they woke us all up fearing that Mama might run to the millpond. We wanted to know if it was regular talking or quarreling.

The hymns we sang were mostly about longing to die and going to heaven.

We soon shall sing with the angel band

In the land just over the stars...

Oh, think of the home over there

By the side of the river of light

Where saints all immortal and fair

Are robed in their garments of white.

When my parents sang those songs, I tried to imagine heaven with all that brightness and the people wearing white clothes. It was clean but not colorful. Heaven carried a feeling of sadness for me. I’d rather have had a heaven with squirrels in the trees and cows nursing their calves while grazing in a meadow. Still, going to a boring heaven was better than burning forever in hell.

Once when I was trying to see the land just over the stars, I saw the full moon rising high enough in the sky to peek into the kitchen and cast a light. My sister Helen and I jumped up and down and chanted lines we’d learned from our older siblings.

I see the moon and the moon sees me

God bless the moon and God bless me.

I’d been taught that God sees everything from his place in the sky. And there He was, checking on us through our kitchen window. But God’s face looked cold and stern and heaven seemed a distant and lonely place.

When we gathered around the piano, I felt we were a family doing things together even if there were so few happy songs. Those of us who only knew the tune hummed or la-la-laed along as if we knew the songs well. My father had a deep voice, like our large pig in the backyard when she was very happy crunching down on big ears of corn. I was relieved that Daddy seemed happier than usual, even though Hoover was still pushing us closer to the poorhouse.

Sometimes Mama talked to Aunt Mary Anne about how she felt about six children pulling at her apron strings—always needing something she couldn’t give them. She complained about doing without things most people took for granted. Once when Mama and Aunt Mary Anne were stringing beans together, I hid behind the sewing machine and heard their conversation.

I used to have visions of my mother coming up the road from the millpond, Mama whispered as she huddled in closer to Aunt Mary Anne. Her black bonnet on. The way she walked with a limp. All bent over. My mind kept playing tricks on me because I wanted to see her so bad. I can imagine her right now clear as day sitting in an alcove near the fireplace at the home place. In the room where she’d spun and woven all the blankets and pieced the quilts we’re still sleeping under. But she got sick and it was too late to say the things I wanted to say.

Aunt Mary Anne turned to face my mother and stroked her arm. Mama began to sob.

My goodness, Dollie. Aunt Mary Anne took a pinch of snuff from a small can and pressed it along her lower gums. I know you’re a good and faithful wife. I don’t believe I’d put up with what you have to. With all those suspicions. Not allowed to go nowhere. Just ain’t fair. A woman works hard as you do. So many children. Gardening and milking. You ought to be able to buy clothes and soap when you need it. It’s awful sad you couldn’t even go to see your mama.

Then Aunt Mary Anne saw me and said, Little pitchers have big ears.

I was the little pitcher she was talking about and knew I shouldn’t be listening, but I waited awhile to see if she’d finished the can of snuff because I loved playing with empty snuff cans. They were like tiny cookie jars. As she took another dip, I saw that it was still half full, so I left and ran outside.

I found my sister Helen and said, Let’s go see Uncle Arnold. He’s out by the corncrib. Uncle Arnold was my father’s favorite brother. When he smiled you could see his gold teeth. I wanted to see him smile.

We hid inside the granary where we watched Daddy and Uncle Arnold chop wood. As usual, they were talking about Hoover and the poorhouse, and Daddy sounded loud and angry and Uncle Arnold wasn’t smiling.

The price of eggs are down again. Milk’s down to five cents a quart. Daddy pulled his hat down over his forehead and leaned on the axe handle. Doesn’t pay a man to collect eggs or milk cows. Helen and I pressed our faces against the slats in the corncrib waiting to see Uncle Arnold’s smile, but he looked angry.

Dadbern, my father said. What’s a man to do, Arnold? Built the first Grade A dairy in the county. Spent money on the incubator and hatched all these chickens. Then the dadbern banks had to close. I could have been a wealthy man had’n been for those sons-of-a-guns in Washington.

Remember how you use to say you were goin’ buy this farm when you grew up. We were a couple of kids out here hoeing corn for that hateful Mrs. Shockley. You told me then it was the best farm you’d ever seen. Now you own it, Uncle Arnold said, but he didn’t smile.

Hoover and his ilk goin’ take it away sure as you’re born.

Everybody’s the same, Estel, Uncle Arnold said. I don’t know anybody that’s not hurting.

Don’t have any idea what a man can do.

You still got a lot in the farm. More than a lot a folks have. You could sell and buy another farm. Uncle Arnold said as they left the wood shed and walked up the hill toward the barn.

I was tired of sitting on ears of corn. I started to open the door of the corncrib, but Helen reminded me that Mama told us when we left the house not to let anyone see us. I guessed it was because I had on a dirty torn dress and no bloomers, so we had to wait there a long time while we watched Daddy and Uncle Arnold go up the hill to the mule barn and disappear inside.

Daddy often told stories about Uncle Arnold when they were young boys. I wanted to know him. Wanted to see him smile and muss my hair like Aunt Myrt did once. But the Depression ruined a lot of things. Uncle Arnold hadn’t smiled even once.

Chapter 3

The North Hill

From our front yard, we could see two houses near a forested hillside that Daddy called the North Hill . Sadie and Charles lived in the one beyond the millpond. Daddy said they were trash and that their daughter was a strumpet, but I never did see trash or understand what a strumpet was.

After plowing the garden one day, Daddy came into the yard and tied Ol’ Frank to the gate and Ol’ Rhoda to a post that supported the porch roof.

Daddy, I asked, who lives way over there in that brick house?

Ol’ Rhoda shook her harness and snorted as flies taunted her. Daddy patted her on the rump. Whoa, he said. Be gentle, Rhoda. Then he came up the steps to where I stood.

Daddy, I asked again, making my voice louder, who lives way over there in that brick house?

Oh, that house’s been gutted by fire. Happened years ago, but there’s a shack behind it. See over there? he said pointing On that side of the house. Old-Nigger-Joe’s lived there for years. Just an old nigger man. Doesn’t do any harm. Face as black as a skillet and got hair as white as our towheaded Helen’s. Bent over like a walking cane. Must be a hundred years old.

Was he a slave that worked in our mule barn?

Who knows. Could’ve been. He’s old enough.

The shack was partly hidden by the brick house. I could barely see it in the glare of the noon sun so I shielded my eyes for a clearer view and waited for the old man to come out. He never did, and I never saw him or got to know what a colored person looked like.

My sister Gladys, who had been listening, followed Daddy inside and when I joined them and my other siblings for lunch. Now she was asking questions. Do niggers go to heaven? Do they just die like that baby chick that got smothered when I forgot and left it under a bucket? Mama said chickens don’t go to heaven.

Daddy filled his plate again with the peas and spring potatoes. Some people say they aren’t quite human. Got no soul. But I believe they can go to heaven just like anyone else if they’re baptized right—like Jesus. Facing upward and completely immersed. But sprinkling, way those Methodists do, is worse than nothing and wouldn’t even help a white man.

Daddy pushed his plate away and leaned back, propping his chair against the wall. When I worked in the courthouse, I hated like the dickens to refuse Bernard Washington a marriage license because he was one-sixteenth nigger and the gal he was aiming to marry was white. They said she really loved Bernard. Broke her heart. He paused. His, too, I guess.

But niggers steal, my oldest sister Katharine said. Mama said Gussie took my baby ring.

Not all of them steal, Mama said. There’re good and bad in all races. But Gussie. She worked for us when we were living in town. We missed several things. She must’ve taken them. We had to let her go because we were pretty sure she did it, Mama said as she refilled the serving bowl with more peas and potatoes. "But a lot of times they’re accused because they’re colored.

When my father was Justice of the Peace, he once saved a colored man’s life, my mother continued. "He’d been accused of flirting with a young white gal. My father was protecting him. He was kept in one of our upstairs rooms. He was locked up in the room across the hall from where my sisters and I slept.

"One morning we heard a lot of noise. Practically every man in the neighborhood was coming up the road cussing and blackguarding. The man in front had a rope over his shoulder. ‘Hand over that nigger!’ They all shouted, ‘Hand over that nigger!’

Your Uncle Early said that our dad sat down in the rocker on the porch and looked out at the mob as if they were a harmless flock of birds. Then he got up, leaned over the porch rail and spoke in a soft voice about how the law would take care of the problem. And soon the mob scattered and went home.

Mama sighed, Turned out the law was against that colored man too. I knew the girl that accused him. Mildred Woodine was her name. Years after that man had spent his five years in jail and she was a married woman, she confessed she’d made the whole thing up. Said she was sorry. W’y, she ought to been ashamed of herself the rest of her life.

I was sorry for Old-Nigger-Joe because Mama said some people thought colored people didn’t have souls, and souls were very important to God. I went out on the porch again to see him. Then I came back into the house because he didn’t come out. He was like Spotted-Cat when she ran under the house and sat in the dark. I couldn’t see her, and she wouldn’t come out no matter what.

When I came back into the kitchen, Mama was talking about her parents and the place where she grew up. My mother never learned to read. She couldn’t go to school because it was too dangerous for a young girl to be out on a country road during the war with the deserters and run-away slaves hiding in the woods. Mama began clearing the table. Had a hard life, she did. Married at seventeen and had nine children. Two of them died when they were just learning to walk and talk. They said she was never the same after their deaths. But that was before I was born.

Did your father go to school? Gladys asked.

Yes, but mostly he was self-educated. He went off to fight with the Confederate Army when he wasn’t old enough. Nobody kept birth records in those days.

I got Grandpa’s war mixed up with World War I, the war Daddy and his brothers had been in. Daddy still wore his army overcoat and leggings in the wintertime, and we were told that slaves had tended mules in our barn and cooked over the big fireplace in the big room, which had been an outdoor kitchen in slave times. When Daddy talked about scalawags and carpetbaggers, I connected them to the war my grandfather was in. But when he called everyone he didn’t like a scalawag, I wasn’t sure.

Mama was proud of her father, who had worn the gray uniform of the Confederate Army, and cherished the songbook he’d given her. Once I saw tears in her eyes as she sang one of those songs.

I saw a Mississippian

Right hard my hand he held…

In broken words he told me

Of that disastrous day

When ever more forbidden

Was the wearing of the gray.

When my brother and sisters went to school Helen and I often gazed toward the North Hill to watch for their return. There was a telephone pole there, which I thought was the North Pole where Santa lived. Colored folks also went north when they ran away. We kept looking there for our brother and sisters to come home and we hoped to see Santa and the colored folks. When we saw the trees move, we were encouraged, but we never did see Santa or any run-away slaves.

Chapter 4

Home Schooling

All my brothers, sisters and I spent the winter of 1931 getting in Mama’s way and playing games my oldest sister Katharine made up. Heavy rains and snow storms during that winter made the road to school impassable, so my parents, who had been teachers, got permission from the school board to home school their children during the winter months. Katharine would have been in the fifth grade, Estel Earl in the third and Gladys the first, if they’d been in school. Helen was four, I was three, and Jim eleven months and able to run and defy anyone’s attempt to stop him. We were too young to go to school, but were receiving some of the same home schooling the older ones got.

Daddy said Katharine was sharp as a tack, smarter than Clint, Uncle Arnold’s first child. Daddy and his brother argued about who was smarter as they boasted about their oldest children. Goaded on by their fathers, Clint and Katharine competed early on. Just before his son started to school, Uncle Arnold told Daddy that Clint had already learned the alphabet. When Katharine heard this, she learned the alphabet backward and forward and entertained us by reciting it both ways while rolling her eyes around in rapid circles.

Katharine learned to make speeches, recite long poems, and direct plays with us as actors. She hung bed sheets up on a string across the room for a stage curtain and cast us for parts in her plays. Daddy taught her some parliamentary procedures that she used to make decisions. I didn’t understand the rules and resented not being able to participate fully. Once in protest, I nominated Spotted-Cat for an important role.

My older siblings made lists of things to do for the day. Estel Earl’s lists included ball games, but his efforts to make a baseball didn’t work out. At the top of Gladys’ lists was making cookies and eating them, but Mama didn’t want us in the kitchen. Most of the time, we followed Katharine’s instruction and played games she invented.

Mama chose Gladys as Jim’s babysitter. Sometimes he ran away and refused to come back. He’d lie down claiming that his legs were broken, and Gladys would have to carry him back screaming and kicking his broken legs.

Daddy taught Estel Earl what he’d learned in the Great War. He had him marching around the room in squares as he shouted directions, For-ward march, and left…and left. Shoulders back. Head up. Right, and right and left about face. He taught him Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, drilling him so long that most of us learned a good portion of it. I wondered what a score was and how a person could have four fathers.

Gladys had listened well to Daddy’s instructions. He’d told her when she went back to school not to leave fingerprints on other people’s property as they might accuse her of stealing. Gladys told us about the day the weather was good enough to go back to school for a few days. When the teacher loaned her a book, she held her hands behind her back as she read and pulled her sleeve over her hand when she had to turn the pages so there were none of her fingerprints on the teacher’s book.

At that time in my life I didn’t care about parliamentary procedures, plays, learning speeches or poems but would have given anything for a teddy bear. Sometimes I held Spotted-Cat and pretended she was a teddy bear. But one day we found Spotted-Cat in the linen closet eating her premature kittens. I was worried that Jim might be in danger when Mama said, You old sweet thing. I could eat you up. I was much relieved when she just chucked him under the chin, kissed him and tickled his tummy.

I believed we were a close and loving family. When the whole family sang about going home to die no more, I guessed when we died, we’d go to heaven together. When we said, Good night and God bless you, to our parents and Good morning, Daddy. Good morning, Mama when we woke, I felt comforted. We were learning to honor our parents as the Bible commanded when we answered yes or no, always adding ma’am or sir. To respect grown-ups, we were told to stand when an older person came into the room and keep our mouths shut when adults were talking.

We were a family doing things together even when we lined up to take medicine. Whether it was Epsom salts, castor oil, sulfur, Black Draught, turpentine or asafetida, I didn’t care which; I stood in line ready to take mine. I believed what they told us about it being for our own good and that it wasn’t worth making a fuss, since it would all be over in a short time.

We took whatever medicine we had on hand at the time. It didn’t seem to matter what the ailment was. But when it was castor oil, Helen went crazy. She’d scream, I’m not going swallow that slimy stuff and nobody’s going make me and take off like Ol’ Tom, our young black colt, when he was about to jump a fence. Helen would hide, but Mama would find her and force her to swallow the slimy stuff anyway.

When Jim began to talk early, he charmed everyone when he said, Night Mama, night Daddy and Dod bess ‘oo, and when he recited Wee Anne Had a Little Dog. His cute little baby footprints and handprints took up one whole page of our family record book. I looked for the page where my hand and footprints would have been. It was as blank as a new school tablet.

I learned that I wasn’t considered to be cute. Gladys, three years older than I, was cute. She was pretty and said witty things. She had natural curls, big blue eyes, a round face and a little turned up nose. Daddy praised her for her beauty and wit, so she complained to him when Mama punished her, hoping to get some sympathy, but it didn’t always work.

Daddy taught me there was something wrong with the way I walked. He’d say, Don’t walk pigeon-toed. Turn your feet out. I wanted to please him, so for a while I walked around holding my mouth closed like he’d told me and turning my feet way out. Running that way was no fun at all.

Mama had saved my baby curls and had once said that I had beautiful violet eyes. I felt at least there were parts of me that she liked. But sometimes I got the feeling that she didn’t like the looks of any of us who favored Daddy’s side of the family. Estel Earl looks like your father’s brother, Vivian, she’d whisper in a disapproving way. Jim favors his brother Mayo, Gladys is the spitting image of your cousin Emily Edwards or Helen has the features of your Aunt Myrt. They all said I looked like Daddy’s sister, Aunt Mary Anne. But Katharine wasn’t associated with anyone on Daddy’s side of the family. She was favored for being the first-born and very smart.

About that time, Ol’ Tom, our roguish colt that had come of age, was getting his home schooling, too. We gathered on the porch one morning to watch as Daddy was breaking him to be a workhorse. As he whipped and hollered at Ol’ Tom, Mama explained to us that a colt’s will had to be broken.

Whoa, whoa! my father stormed at him and lashed him with a whip. Then more gently, he called, Whoa, Tom, whoa. But Ol’ Tom reared and bucked as my father hit him. At first, he neighed frantically but when Daddy succeeded in putting the bit between his teeth and the saddle on his back, he whinnied. His ears laid back and his eyes showed white in anger.

A willful child is like that. Its will has to be broken, Mama said after we went inside to watch from a window. Its spirit has to be calmed so it can be guided easily.

When Mama punished me, my anger flared as I held my mouth closed as tightly as possible and resolved never to speak another word to anyone. But Helen wouldn’t let me hold onto my anger. I was ticklish so all she had to do was point a finger and threaten to tickle me and I’d run away laughing. Still I resented having my anger taken away so easily.

I was like Ol’ Tom. Neither of us liked home schooling. Ol’ Tom just wanted to be free to jump fences and I wanted to have friends and play games in a real school.

Chapter 5

The Three Blue Girls

I was four and had seen only a few people. I’d heard of other people in the world such as President Hoover, Lindbergh, Hauptman, Roosevelt, Dr. Goad and Dr. Nichols. I’d heard of Aunt Mallie who’d died before I was born. Bonnie and Mildred, her daughters, were seven and eight years old when their mama died, so Mama and Daddy had to pretend they were their parents until their father could find another woman to be their mother. I knew that we had other aunts, uncles and cousins, in Floyd and Carroll Counties, but they never came to visit. My parents knew a lot of people who lived in town where Daddy was once the county clerk and where he was selling milk. But I never knew their names.

Once I saw Old-Man-Jim, as Daddy called his father when he was mad at him. He was my grandfather and he’d told my father that I was pretty, but he didn’t talk to me. I don’t remember ever seeing him inside our house when he came to see Daddy so I never got a chance to talk to him and call him Grandpa.

One time Aunt Myrt and Uncle Lum came to visit and brought their two children, Emily and Otis. Aunt Myrt mussed my hair and said, W’y, Mairee. Ain’t you growed. You goin’ be tall as your big brother Estel Earl ‘foren you know it. That felt good—her talking to me and looking right at me. Then we all went in the parlor and sang hymns. Uncle Lum could sing bass almost as well as Daddy. Aunt Myrt had a whiney voice but you could tell she loved singing. We were having such a good time but Daddy messed all that up when he whispered to Mama, Otis’s spoiled as a rotten egg. Always begging for things.

Katharine called Otis a rotten egg in front of everyone. When she was scolded, she got angry and screamed, But it’s true. Daddy said he’s spoiled as a rotten egg. We didn’t see Aunt Myrt’s family for a long time after that. I wished they’d come back and my aunt could muss my hair and we would sing together in the parlor.

One day Mama told us about the places in Hillsville where our family had lived before I was born. One of the houses had a gabled roof and windows all along the side where the sun porch was. Mama told me the names of all the flowers she had grown there. She said that she was lonesome in that house, too and wanted to join a women’s group called the Eastern Stars because Daddy already belonged to the Masons. When Daddy and Mama argued, she reminded him of how he wouldn’t let her join the group or visit her friends when they lived in town. Now she lived in this dark house with no sun porch or flowers in the wintertime.

Daddy rode to town in a buggy every day to deliver bottles of milk, but Mama said town was as far as Timbuktu to her and that Timbuktu was so far away that nobody ever got there no matter how long they traveled.

It was a big surprise when three girls from town came into our yard with their pony. Two of them were bigger than Helen and they had a smaller sister. All of them wore blue dresses, anklets with blue designs on them and patent leather shoes.

For a while Helen and I stood on the porch grinning. Then we ran to them and they said we could pet their pony.

We’d been with the sisters for only a few minutes when Mama called from the back door, Helen. Mairee. Come inside.

Why? Helen asked as the screen door slammed behind us.

I’m your mother. Don’t ask why. When we were inside, she explained, You’re barefooted and your hair isn’t combed.

We never knew their names but we called them The-Three-Blue-Girls when we spoke of them. We didn’t know where they came from. They must have come from a place where there were brick houses with flowers growing on sun porches, where there were a lot of children with pretty dresses and anklets.

After the girls left, Helen and I talked of them and included them in our make-believe stories. From their visit, I learned how different we were from other people. I started thinking about anklets, patent leather shoes and dresses with ruffles. The Three Blue Girls must have had a lot of used-up dolls and gotten new ones every Christmas. Their mother probably wore hats with ostrich feathers on them and attended Eastern Star meetings.

Mama made us come in the house and hide when people came down the road. Sometimes my sisters and I’d pull the curtain aside and watch them. If Mama caught us, she scolded us, but sometimes I caught her staring down the road, too.

Helen and I had a lot of fun when we took baths together in the washtub in the old kitchen. We’d get out of the tub and splash around the room until all the water was on the floor. Once after our baths, Mama let us put on the new gingham dresses with matching bloomers she’d made. Daddy gave us each a nickel and told us You all can have this if you keep those dresses clean all day. Since I was clean and wearing a new dress, I thought maybe Mama would let me play with The-Three-Blue-Girls if they came. I waited and gazed far down the road hoping they’d come. Then I gave up and searched for Helen.

I tried to keep my dress clean for a long time, but I had to crawl under the house to get the walnuts Jim threw under there. My dress got dirty, but it didn’t matter anyway because Daddy forgot to check to see if we had kept them clean and besides, The-Three-Blue-Girls never came back.

Chapter 6

Mitt (May 9, 1933)

One day when we were supposed to be getting some home schooling from Katharine, we were gathered into the big room called the old kitchen because it wasn’t really part of the main house in the days when slaves cooked over the big fireplace there.

Katharine shut the doors and said we had to stay in until Daddy came and told us we could leave the room. You cain’t run around and play in the yard or go in the other rooms, she said. Daddy said you have to mind me and if you don’t, I’ll tell. I could see she meant it, so I just sat quietly like she said, but Helen ran into the yard in spite of what Katharine said.

Several days before, I’d seen some new gingham and flannel and smelled baby powder. Mama cut some blue and red checked gingham and flannel into small pieces. I stayed away from her because she didn’t like us getting in her way when she was sewing. She was smiling and humming a little tune, so I knew that she liked what she was doing and was too busy to hear a lot of questions. I guessed she was getting ready for something important, but still it came as a big surprise when we got to leave the big room and saw Mama lying in bed holding a blanket filled with a brand-new baby.

Mama uncovered one of the baby’s feet and said, Look how tiny and pink. She didn’t let us see his face or anything that day or tell us where he came from or what his name was. That day she was awfully stingy with the baby God had sent us all. But the next morning we got to see his face with his little button nose, his fuzzy eyebrows, a mouth with no teeth and tiny fingers that held tightly onto mine.

Mama often complained that she was tied down with too many children pulling on her apron strings. But she seemed happy to have the new baby. They named our new baby Milton and called him Mitt. Mama wanted to