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Hitch Your Wagon to a Star

Some of my first memories from my childhood home in North East Alabama, in a rural community in the Pisgah neighborhood, were of my father hitching "Old Red" our first horse, to a one-horse plow, to tend our garden, and five acres of rented land. This first house, essentially a one room, gray, weather-boarded house with a fireplace at one end and a stove flue at the other, had been my parent's honey-moon cottage. There was a big lake behind the house where my big brother, Melvin, now 7, and me barely two years old, would love to sneak down to the edge of the pond to see the bull frogs jump into the water and to hear them croak. All kinds of flying insects and birds, and yes, even a few "hoot owls" frequented the woods that enclosed three sides of the pond. Melvin called some of the flying insects, "snake doctors", and we would cautiously peer into the lush cattails and swamp lilies in the forground to look for the snakes the beautiful insects were sent to doctor.

Mama would catch us too near the edge and call us away from the pond. "It's dinner time," she would yell. "Go tell your daddy it's time for dinner".

Now dinner at our house would be the 12 o'clock noon meal, and daddy would be plowing with "Old Red" in front of the rustic shanty, weather beaten to a silver gray, which had been standing for years unknown, with only a smooth rock for a doorstep.

Melvin and I rushed in from the back door to see what mama had prepared for dinner and then out the front door to where dad was plowing a couple acres of cotton. We were careful not to get too close to "Old Red" with Melvin, holding me back like a mother hen, and making sure I didn't get too close, as we simultaneously announced that dinner was ready.

Dad shooed us back a little farther and said, "I'll be there in a minute, I need to finish a couple more rows before I tie "Old Red" to the hitching post and feed her lunch.

Melvin and I skip off to play a safe distance away in the apple orchard, where Melvin discovers an opposum, hanging upside down from a limb on the apple tree. We keep one eye out to check on dad's progress, and with the other, Melvin teased the opposum, but he kept me a safe distance away, warning me that the opposum might bite me. I found out a few years later that an opposum did have very sharp teeth, and it did bite me, but that story is for another time when I tell you how I got to go opposum hunting with daddy all by myself.

Daddy calls us and we scamper to the house for a good homecooked meal.

Melvin and I begin to see that mama's belly is beginning to get larger every day. We begin to be very curious and start asking questions, only to be shushed up. People didn't discuss certain things openly back in those days. Then one day Uncle Roy came over to help mama get the old-black washpot set up for clothes-washing day, and daddy got the fire lit, and drew water from the well to fill the pot. Then daddy was off to town--very surprising--and Uncle Roy and Melvin went nearby to hoe a few weeds from the garden, while Mama got some strange looking clothes out of the pot and hung them on a long clothes line to dry. What was unusual about them was that they were mostly birdseye diapers. I didn't have time to question this curiosity, until daddy came rushing back, and asked if Melvin and I would like to go home to visit with Uncle Roy for a few hours.

We jumped at the chance, and we walked with Uncle Roy, mama's brother, down the hill in front of the house, and through a small grove of trees at the bottom of the hill where two woods came together, and up the hill on the other side where Uncle Roy's house lay completely hidden from view until we were past this shady spot.

Hours later daddy came to get us, telling us he had a big surprise for us. When we entered the house, mama was lying in the bed and beside her were two baby boys, twins, named Donnie Ray and Johnny Raymond. When we got over the oohing and awhing,daddy explained that they had been named from the little men on the Benjamin Franklin Calendar that was one of the few decorations on the wall, and which was always a prized object which also told daddy when to plant each crop in the garden.

In a few weeks mama was back to her old self and the winter blahs and confining pregnancy couldn't hold her back any more than old-man winter could hold back the peach trees that were blooming in the orchard. Neither could the quick spring storm hold back the sunshine, as the sky poured down bushels of water that sent the creek to the right of our house overflowing its banks.

Mama bundled up the twins and carried one in each arm, and with Melvin and I following in the rear, we proceeded down the hill to the right of our house. Dad was busy doing something, and he called, "Where are you all going?"

Mama said, "We are going for a walk, and if the creek isn't too far out its banks, we are going to visit with our neighbor, Ann Foshee."

"Be careful!" daddy warned.

Mama could see that the dirt road we were on had huge gulley's washed out, but that didn't deter her. She wondered out loud as we got closer to the creek, and we could hear the rushing sound, if we ought not to turn back. We got to the very edge, and she looked at the long foot-log that forded the creek, and it was still wet and glistening from the rain, and the normally tame stream of water was swollen out of bounds, and almost up to the bottom of the footlog. Mama decided we could risk it. She bounded along very sure-footed to the other side, still, with a month-old twin in one arm, and a month- old twin in the other arm. Then she tried to coax Melvin across. He didn't hesitate too long, being the dare-devil seven-year old he was. Then it was my turn. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to try it. Mama kept coaxing me. She determinedly urged "Ruby, if you just won't look down at the water, and keep your eyes on me you can do it!" Somehow, I finally did it, thanks to my guarding angel who had to be watching over me, and us. If any of us had fallen into the raging waters, some, if not all of us would have been swept to our deaths.

We made it safely to our destination and visited a couple hours, and then we retraced our steps. By now the flash flooding that had accompanied the quick rain storm had subsided to a gentle trickle, and we could again enjoy the greenup of spring, and the look for the wild azaleas and dogwood trees that were blooming, and listen to the birds singing so busy about their courting in the spring.

Our paradise was about to end though. Daddy had been seeing that with four mouths to feed besides him and mama, he needed a bigger house, and more acres to tend. Just what is a poor man to do? Well, Mama had the answer.

To be continued.