I Remember

My first memory was of arms grabbing wildly for me. I remember Mommy was holding me on her hip. She kind of stuck her hip out and I sat on it like riding a horse. She held on to me with one arm and the other was free to do whatever she was doing at the time. I remember she bent over and put her free hand on a person's face that was lying down on a low bed. It was an old woman. When Mommy's hand touched her face she screamed and reached both her arms toward me. That was my nightmare. I seemed to not be able to get that out of my head. I can remember waking up at night with that image in my head for the longest time. When I was older and could talk, I told my Mommy about what scared me so bad. She said I was walking at the time and an old lady who lived near by was dying and she had gone over to sit up with her, which was the custom in those days. She didn't give it a thought that I would be aware of what was going on but the old lady died or so they thought. Since Mommy had some knowledge of what to do at those times, she bent over to close her eyes. When she put her hand on the lady's face to close her eyes, the lady screamed and reached her arms up toward Mommy and me. Mommy said she lived three more days before she finally died but I was hysterical for a long time. I think soon after that my little brother Bill was born. After Bill came to live with us I didn't dream that bad dream so much. Mommy must have been pregnant when that lady died.

Johnie was my older brother. He was named after Daddy's brother John and Mommy's brother Henry. Everyone had two names back then and sometimes more. There was a song called John Henry the Steel Driving Man and Daddy would sing that a lot to Johnie. It would make him so mad. Johnie was always following Daddy around if he could.

Bill was named after Daddy's brother Bill and Mommy's brother Adam. I have a clear memory of Bill taking his first steps. We were eating supper and Mommy cleared the table. She stood Bill on one end of the table and he walked across the table to Daddy. We all clapped and Johnie and I clapped for a long time. For a while after that it seemed Bill walked on the table at every meal. Bill got better at walking. He could walk all over without falling down. I tell you he was the busiest little fellow and to this day he hasn't changed a bit.

Our little house was just that, little. There were only two rooms, a kitchen and an all-purpose room you could call it I guess. We slept in that room and spent our evenings there. If we had company we visited there also. Mommy sewed and quilted, while we played games and read. Sometimes we cooked over the open fireplace in the cold weather and ate there too. There was one window and an outside door in each room.

Bill seldom got the run of the house because he was fast for a little guy. Mommy would put a chair across the door between the kitchen and the front room to stop him. She would lay the kitchen chair down on its side and it blocked the doorway pretty good. I remember Johnie and I were in the yard playing and some how little little busy body Bill got around the chair and into the kitchen. The outside door was open and Bill just ran right out the door. It was high off the ground and there were three big flat rocks for steps and he hit them all. Johnie and I were screaming our heads off. Mommy jumped out the door and never touched a step. She bent down over Bill, I thought she was biting him but she was blowing in his mouth. After a little while he began to cry. Boy my Mommy knew a lot of things. They said she breathed life into him. I remember thinking at the time; I'm not ever going to walk out of that door.

There were things I remember so clearly even though I was very young. We were always gathering things for the winter. At that time you could pick wild berries and greens. There were plum and apple trees growing right out along the road or the edge of the woods. There were persimmons and papaws. There were all kinds of nut trees, walnuts, hazelnuts, hickory, and chestnuts. There were huge beech trees and there were nuts on them. We gathered them all. Mommy and Daddy raised a big garden and worked very hard putting things up for the winter.

Picking berries were always the hottest and hardest gathering that we did. Not only was it hard work we usually got chiggers too. We all went on those trips. Daddy took the sled and all the buckets we could find. The mule pulled the sled and us kids. It seemed as if the good things were always on a hill or some place that was hard to reach. They put the sled under a tree and Bill and I stayed in the sled. Johnie ran around pretending to help. We were there all day that day. You could look down the hill and in the valley was the store and the house the storekeeper lived in. I guess he was rich because he had a saw mill up the hollow behind the store. He owned some houses he rented to people also.

We lived in one of those houses as did Mommy's friends Betsy, Deb and their kids. Some times they visited us and we visited with them. It was getting late that day and we were getting ready to go home when Daddy said, "Look Charity, what are they doing at the store," so we all watched. Men were running around with sticks poking around under stacks of lumber, which was in the store yard. You could see it plain as anything. Deb bent over and poked his stick into the lumber pile and Kane the storeowner had a gun. He put the gun right against Deb's head and shot him. It was awful. We all cried and Daddy said, "We better go help." Mommy said, "No, we don't know what was going on. We'll take the berries home and work them up. Then we'll go see what we can do." So that's what we did.

I talked to Mommy about it after I was older. She said Kane had a teenaged daughter who always did the milking, and the summer before the cows had got out. Deb worked at the saw mill for Kane, so Kane sent him down to help her get the cows into the barn. Deb had a shotgun with him, which was normal in those days. Almost everyone carried a gun of some kind. He sat the gun in the barn while they got the cows up, and the little girl knocked the gun over and it went off and killed her. Mommy always thought that was why Kane killed Deb. Kane said he was killing rats, but only one shot was fired and everyone saw him put the gun against Deb's head. So Kane was taken away to prison and his family sold the store, saw mill, and all the houses.

I remember Deb's funeral, everyone cried so hard. Mommy took food and clothes to Betsy and the kids. Betsy moved away right after the funeral.

It wasn't long after Deb was killed that school started. Johnie went to school but I wasn't old enough. Every now and then Mommy would let me go visit school. I thought that was just about the best thing that could possibly happen and would beg to go everyday. The older girls would play with me, comb my hair and teach me to write and make numbers. They gave me all kinds of things like paper, broken crayons and little short pencils. Those were treasures to me.

School and learning was very important to my mother. She wanted us children to learn everything we could. Everyday I went to school I had to tell her what all happened. If I learned a word or how to draw or write a number she would brag about it to anyone who would listen. We got a grit paper every week and we had a Bible. Mommy sewed for the schoolteacher who gave her magazines and schoolbooks with the backs tore off and pages torn or missing. We wore those books and magazines out.

I begged so hard to go to school that Mommy said I could go some days but the day I failed to learn something I couldn't go until I was six. When you are four years old six seemed like a long time away. I was sure to learn something everyday.

The people who bought the house we lived in from Kane's family wanted us to move but Daddy talked to them and they let us stay until school was out.

One day Johnie and I were walking home from school and we met the midwife. Everyone knew her. She said, "I just come from your house and I left you a little baby boy. He is so little you can hardly see him." I was so happy and Johnie asked her where she found him. She said, "Right here," and she patted her saddlebags real hard. I remember thinking; I hope there isn't another baby in there because she'll hurt it. She said, "I just look in there and sometimes there's a baby and I take it to someone I know wants a baby. Your mommy has brought me a couple of babies so I owed her." She said she would be back tomorrow and rode off on her horse.

We ran home as fast as we could. He was such a little tiny baby and Mommy wouldn't let us hold him. She kept him on a feather pillow with a pretty soft blanket over him and wrapped up real good. They named him Hiram Thomas after my mother's Uncle Tom and Daddy's grandpa Hiram. Daddy said the baby wasn't any bigger than two toots, so he was called Toots. For a long time when anyone except Mommy held toots they would hold pillow and all. I didn't fuss to go with Johnie to school nearly as much after the baby came.

I can remember crawling up on the bed and just lying there beside the pillow that held my own little baby and watching him for hours. When anyone asked about the baby they would refer to him as my baby. I was so proud of him. Mommy wouldn't let the boys get on the bed with him and I saw to it that they didn't. I watched him like a hawk. I would scream my head off if anyone even acted like they were going to touch him. I can't describe how I felt about that little fellow. I knew I loved him better than anyone.

That year at Christmas I went to school with Johnie. The day they had the play I sang a song. I remember it so well. Daddy taught me the words. Daddy made banjos out of cans that hams came in. He used copper wire and some kind of wood. Back then times were really hard but we had a new president and he was trying to do things for the CCCS. It was called Civilian Conservation Corps. It was kind of like an army but they didn't fight, they built parks and ponds and planted trees and sewed grass. They worked all over doing good things for the country and were paid for it. They got free clothes, a place to stay, and good food to eat. Most of them sent their money home to their families.

The older men with families worked at building roads. There were no gravel roads in that part of the country and a lot of places just had footpaths. They call that operation the W.P.A., and that stood for, Work Projects Administration. Everyone who worked for the W.P.A. got paid and sometimes they would get heavy coats and shoes and whatever clothes they needed for their jobs because they were always out in the weather. Sometimes they got hams in tin cans and bags of beans and sugar, and a lot of other things. Daddy made our banjos out of those ham cans. Johnie, Bill and I would pick those homemade banjos to pieces. We sang too. I think it would be such a great thing if we could have had a movie of us kids playing them ham can banjos and just singing our little heads off. Mommy and Daddy sang right along with us and acted like we were just the best singers you ever heard.

Mommy made all our clothes. Back then the churches had rummage sales. Our preacher was from Michigan and had friends there who sent big boxes of clothing on the train to our church. Some of the men would take their wagons and bring them to the church. The women would help put them out and run the sales. They would get to pick out what they wanted for free. Mommy always helped. She would pick out the biggest things with the best material. I'll always remember those big riding skirts. She would rip them up and make us clothes out of them.

Almost every year we had a flood or sometime two in the mountains. Everyone was used to it and I remember just before school was out we had one that wasn't really expected right then. I had gone to school with Johnie that day. It had rained the day before and I remember Mommy and Daddy talking about whether or not we should go to school. It wasn't raining right then so we went to school. The schoolhouse as on the other side of the creek. We had to cross a swinging bridge. If there wasn't a flood you could walk across the creek if you didn't care about getting your feet wet. That day the water was up and after we were at school it began to rain again and by lunch mothers and dads had begun to come to get their kids. The water was out of the banks and almost touching the swinging bridge. Men brought their horses and mules. They would take us from dry ground to the bridge and some one would be waiting to take us from the bridge to dry ground to the other side. That was scary but exciting and we would have something to talk about for quite some time. School was out shortly after the flood and Daddy had found a place for us to move to but it was a lot farther from school and Mommy worried about us walking so far in the wintertime.

Daddy had taken us to see where we were moving and we loved it but when the moving day came it was sad for us kids. I guess it was hard for Mommy and Daddy to move all the animals and other stuff but Daddy got his brother-in-law and nephews to help us. Mommy took us kids to her friend Betsy. She kept us until the moving was done. Betsy had found a new husband and he was very nice. But they had moved in with an old man who was very sick and had no family to care for him. He gave his house and everything he owned to Betsy and Carter if they would look after him the rest of his life. I was scared of him for no reason. He wasn't mean or anything and I don't know why I was scared. We weren't there long just a couple of days but while we were there the old man had a bad spell and he hemorrhaged real bad. That was part of his sickness. It sure was hard on us kids to see that. Blood came out of his mouth and nose and just got all over the bed. I cried so hard. I was afraid I would catch what he had. I stood in the doorway and tried to keep Johnie and Bill from going in. Betsy made her older girl, Ora Mae, take us into another room. We were so glad when Mommy and Daddy came to get us. The old man died soon after that but I never wanted to go back to Betsy's and cried when they took us to visit. The boys weren't bothered by it at all.

When Daddy and Mommy came to get us they brought the sled, the old mule, and the pony also. Carter and Daddy had done some trading. Daddy got some tools and other things and Mommy and Daddy were going to make the coffin for the old man when he died. Back then people didn't have much money so they traded a lot and they gave their word and shook hands on a trade. Now it takes several pounds of paper and a lawyer or two to make a trade.

We didn't have to keep toots on the pillow anymore but I guess he got used to it because if he didn't have it he would have a crying fit. We all had feather pillows. We had geese and an old mean gander that hated me and chased me a lot. Mommy helped our neighbor pick geese and they paid her with an old goose, a dozen geese eggs and that old mean gander. When the eggs hatched out she had a dozen geese. She would pick the geese when they were ready to shed and saved the feathers. She would take her little short pealing chair outside and take the goose's head in the bend of her leg and pick that goose in a minute. The geese looked funny for a few days but soon the feathers would grow back and they were just fine again. My mommy was so smart. She knew a lot of things and we all had soft feather pillows.

Mommy had brought a tub with covers in it and she put toots and his pillow in that and I rode in the sled with him. Johnie and Bill rode the pony and Mommy and Daddy walked along beside the sled. We headed out to our new home and it was a good happy time.

Coming for to Carry me Home

I remember watching my mother and father as they selected just the right stones from the branch in back of the house for the walk. It was spring and they carried the rocks in a sled to the yard. I can see them placing the stones as we laughed and it seemed we were all children, not working but playing some sort of a game.

We waited eagerly for the rain after the walk was laid and when it had rained enough to soak the earth. Mommy, Daddy, my brothers, and I walked on the stones until they were embedded in the ground.

Daddy whistled and sang a lot. People called him whistling Jim. Mommy's name was Charity, and Daddy would sing, "Swing Low Sweet Charity," to her. I don't remember how old I was when I finally discovered the word was really Chariot.

There was a ridge near by were the nut trees grew. Daddy would put sideboards on the sled while Mommy gathered the coffee sacks. Because the hill was so steep we had to travel around the hill to get to the top but it was a real treat once the top was reached.

You could see forever on that ridge. We played a game we called Cover up. You put your hand out as far as you could reach, then count the places you had covered. It was like lying you hand on a map. As small as my hand was I covered the South Fork of Goose Creek, the saw mill and Joe Buck's house and barn, all in one cover up.

While we were playing and we let the baby wander near the chestnut tree. Mommy had put my older brother and me in charge of the two younger boys. At that time they were four and two years old. Johnie was eight and I was six. I ran to get the baby. We all feared Mommy's wrath. She was the stronger of our parents. She made most of the decisions and if punishment was needed she took care of that too.