by Wilson Rawls
While the beans and potatoes were cooking, I figured that I’d make some flour gravy.
All this time, I was still humming that happy little tune.
It didn’t take long to find out that I knew absolutely nothing about cooking. I was setting the table when things started happening. First, it was the beans. They hadn’t been boiling very long when they started crawling out of the pot as if they were alive. In no time, I had beans all over the stove and all over the kitchen floor. Some even fell off the stove into Mama’s woodbox.
Then the potatoes went crazy. They started burning and smoking at the same time. Before I knew it, the house was full of smoke. I opened every door and window to let it out.
Rowdy got scared, ran outside, and crawled under the porch.
When I tried to pour the gravy out of the skillet into a bowl, it wouldn’t pour. It just plopped out like a pancake.
I had no trouble getting rid of my messes. Our chickens and Sloppy Ann, our hog, would eat anything.
I tried to get Rowdy to come back in the house so I’d have someone to talk to, but he wouldn’t do it. I threatened to whip him but it did no good.
When Papa came in from the field for his dinner, he said, “Boy, I’m hungry. What are we going to eat?”
“Papa,” I said, “I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook. Everything I put on the stove either boiled over or burned up. There must be more to this cooking than I thought there was.”
Papa laughed. “I was afraid of that,” he said, “but don’t let it bother you. We’ll make out all right. I’ll help you with the cooking.”
For dinner, we had cold cornbread that Mama had baked, sweet milk, honey, and butter—that was all.
We made out all right, but it wasn’t easy. Papa couldn’t cook any better than I could. I would have starved to death if it hadn’t been for Grandma. About every two or three days, I’d pay her a visit and she would fill me up.
The mail buggy made one trip from Tahlequah to Grandpa’s store each week. We never knew what day it would come. Each time the buggy came there were two letters from Mama: one for Papa and one for Grandma and Grandpa.
Papa and I would read Mama’s letters over and over.
Mama wasn’t very happy about staying in the big city. She told us how lonesome she was and how much she missed us. Daisy was getting along fine. They had operated on her leg and she had a cast on it. The doctor told Mama that he felt sure the operation had been successful. If everything went as they thought it would, Daisy wouldn’t need her old crutch any more. They wouldn’t know for sure until they took the cast off.
I thought it would be fun with no one around but Papa and me. There was no one to give me orders or tell me what to do. But the fun didn’t last very long. I began to miss Mama and Daisy. The days got longer and longer, and the nights were almost unbearable.
By the end of the third week, it seemed as if a gloomy silence had settled all around our home. Everything seemed to have changed.
Our chickens had all but stopped laying. We were getting about half as many eggs as we had been. Sally Gooden had dropped off in her milk until she was barely wetting the bucket. One day I went to get a bucket of water and almost cried when I noticed that our well was going dry.
Papa tried to explain these changes by saying it was that time of year when everything around a farm changes. Summer was almost gone and fall was coming on. It happened every year, and it wasn’t anything to worry about.
The way I was feeling I wasn’t worrying about our farm. Right then I didn’t care what happened to it. I was lonesome. I wanted Mama and Daisy to come home.
Rowdy didn’t help at all. He had stopped following me around and didn’t have any more bounce to him than an Ozark flint rock. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t go prowling any more.
As the days passed, Papa started moping around as if he didn’t have any life left in him. Some nights he would sit in his rocker on the porch, and smoke his pipe until way in the night. It got so bad that sometimes he would go all day and not say one word to me.
It was worse around Grandpa’s store. He got so grumpy he couldn’t get along with himself, much less anyone else.
In the middle of the fourth week, we got a letter from Mama that cheered us up for a few days. Mama said that the doctor had taken the cast off Daisy’s leg. The operation had been a success, and Daisy was learning to walk. She said that Daisy was walking all over the hospital.
After hearing this, Papa and I felt pretty good for a few days. Then that lonely feeling crept in on us again. It seemed to be ten times worse than it had been before.
Six, long miserable weeks went by. It got so still around our home, it gave me a scary feeling. I went out of my way to find things to do. I kept the weeds hoed out of Mama’s garden. I cleaned the barn. I swept the floor in our house so many times it was a wonder I didn’t wear out the floorboards.
I couldn’t forget the little mare. There was hardly a day went by that I didn’t think of her. It was the dreams that hurt worst of all. I would dream that I could hear her nickering but I couldn’t see her. When I would see her, I couldn’t put my hands on her. She was always just out of reach. In ghostly slow motion, I could see her running with mane and tail blowing in the breeze. Sometimes I would try so hard to catch her but I never could quite make it. Oh, I’d get close—so close that I could almost touch her with my hand, and then I’d wake up.
It hurt—oh, how it hurt.
One day about the middle of the afternoon, I took a broom and a bucket of water and walked up to Daisy’s playhouse. I gave it a good sweeping and I watered all of her flowers. I noticed that the wind and rain had unwrapped some of the tinfoil from the grapevine cross.
I was rewrapping the crossarm of the cross when I thought of the Old Man of the Mountains. With tears in my eyes, I knelt in front of the cross and asked him to help me.
“Old Man of the Mountains,” I said, “I know you’re here somewhere. Daisy says that you’re always around. She says that you see and hear everything that goes on in these hills. I hope you hear me today. Please send Mama and Daisy home. I miss them so much. I don’t think I can stand it any more. If you do this one thing for me, I promise to be good for as long as I live.”
The Old Man of the Mountains must have decided that I did need help. The very next day something wonderful happened.
Papa and I were sitting on the porch of our home in the twilight of evening. Rowdy was lying at my side. Thousands of lightning bugs had just started their flickering dance. They looked like tiny flashlights going on and off, on and off.
In one of the big red oaks, a small screech owl started his eerie twitter. Across the river at the Mose Hobb’s farm, an old milk cow was mooing and an old hound was baying in his deep voice. Down in the river bottoms, an old hooty owl started singing his hoot-owl song to the silent night.
I saw when Rowdy raised his head, pricked up his ears, and looked down the road. “Papa,” I said, “somebody’s coming.”
Papa stirred in his chair and said, “What makes you think someone’s coming? I don’t hear anything.”
“I don’t either, Papa,” I said, “but Rowdy does.”
Papa looked at Rowdy. “I believe he does hear something,” he said.
Then we heard the jingling of harnesses and the fast clopping of horses’ hoofs.
Papa got up from his chair. He said, “I wonder who it could be this late in the evening.”
It was Grandpa. In a cloud of dust, his buckboard pulled up in front of our home. Grandpa started talking as he got out of it.
“I’ve been trying to get down here ever since the mailman came,” he said, “but I couldn’t get away from the store. I never saw so many people.”
He came over and handed Papa a letter. “They’re coming in tomorrow,” he said. “On the noon train. That’s what she said in our letter.”
Papa never said a word. He turned and walked into the house. Grandpa and I followed him.
Papa opened the letter. In the glow of our coal-oil lamp, he started reading it out loud.
The letter was short. Mama said that she and Daisy would be on the noon train and wanted us to meet them. She said there were a lot of things she wanted to tell us but it would be better to wait and let us see for ourselves.
Grandpa said, “If you’re busy with your farm work, I’ll be glad to go in and pick them up.”
“No, we’ll go in,” Papa said. “I think it would do us good to get away from here for a day.”
I knew that I was going to bawl so I went to my room and lay down on the bed. With my face buried in a pillow, I said, “Thanks, Old Man of the Mountains. Thank you very much, and I’ll keep my promise.”
I didn’t sleep very well that night. I kept waking up. Papa must not have slept at all. Every time I woke up, I could hear him stirring around in the house.
The next morning, Papa was up before daylight. He had opened the door and let Rowdy in the house.
Rowdy came flying into my room and jumped right up in the middle of my bed. I tried hiding under the covers but it did no good. With his paws, Rowdy dug the quilts off me and started licking my face.
I put my arms around him and said, “Boy, you’d better be glad that Mama’s not here. She’d wear the broom out on you.”
In the kitchen, Papa was chuckling as he built a fire in the cook stove.
All the time Papa and I were doing the chores that morning, Rowdy stayed so close to me I could hardly walk. Several times I almost stepped on him. Even while we were eating breakfast, he sat where he could look right in my face. He wiggled and he twisted. He whimpered and he whined. His old tail was going in all directions.
Papa laughed and said, “What’s the matter with that old hound? He’s sure acting funny.”
“He knows we’re going someplace,” I said, “and he’s begging me to let him go with us.”
Papa said, “Why, we’ll have to take him. We couldn’t leave him here all alone. He’d die a thousand deaths. Just be sure that we have a rope with us.”
“Watch this, Papa!” I said.
Looking at Rowdy, I said, “It’s all right, boy. You can go with us.”
Rowdy was so pleased he had a running fit. He bounded into the front room, made a U-turn, and came flying back through the kitchen and out the door. He ran all the way around the house and came back in. He sat down, raised his old head, and bawled.
I thought everything in the house would come down.
Papa and I laughed and laughed.
That was the first good laugh we had had since Mama and Daisy had gone away.
While I was doing the dishes, Papa hitched our mules to the wagon. Both of us put on clean overalls and shirts. I even went out to the watering trough and washed my feet a little—but not very much.
All the way to town Papa kept our old mules a-stepping.
When we got to the depot, Papa drove around behind it and tied the team to a hitching rail. While he was taking care of the team, I took the rope and tied it to Rowdy’s collar.
A lot of people were milling around the depot. They didn’t pay much attention to Rowdy and me. Oh, some of them looked at us and nodded their heads. A few spoke, but that was all.
Papa walked over to where a group of men were talking, and joined in on their conversation.
While Papa and the men were talking, Rowdy and I took a walk along the track. That was the first time I had walked a steel rail of a railroad track. It was fun.
Not to be outdone, Rowdy got up on the rail and walked it, too.
Rowdy did all right with his rail-walking but I didn’t do too well. It’s not easy to walk a rail if you’re holding onto a rope with a hound dog tied on the end of it. Believe me, it’s pretty hard to do.
Rowdy and I were a good way down the track when I heard the train whistle in the distance. It was coming from the other direction. We hurried back to the depot.
I had never seen a train before and I was all excited about seeing my first one.
The track made a bend about five hundred yards from the depot. I glued my eyes to the bend and held my breath. I waited and watched. The rails started clicking and the ground started trembling. With its bell ringing and black smoke rolling, the engine came around the bend.
When Rowdy saw the big, black, noisy engine coming toward him, he got scared. He tried to get between my legs, but I wouldn’t let him.
I was scared, too, and I didn’t want a hound dog and a rope wound around my legs if I decided to have a runaway.
Rowdy must have gotten so scared he didn’t know what he was doing. With every hair on his back standing straight up, he growled and showed his teeth. He ran out to the end of the rope and started to bawl at the train.
Behind me, I heard someone say, “If that boy would turn that old hound loose, I think he’d tie into that train.”
All around me people started to laugh.
Just before the train got to the depot, it whistled. I all but jumped out of my britches. I had never heard anything like it in my life.
That whistle was too much for Rowdy. With his tail between his legs, he came scooting back to me and tried to get between my legs again.
“Rowdy,” I said in a quavering voice, “if you don’t sit down and behave yourself, I’m going to whip you.”
I didn’t mean what I said, but I was so scared I had to say something.
Jarring the ground with its big pounding wheels, the engine chugged by us. It pulled past the depot a little way and, with steam hissing and brakes squeaking, it stopped. A passenger coach was right in front of us.
For several seconds, a silence settled over the people waiting on the depot platform. All I could hear was the hissing breath of the engine.
The door of the coach opened and a black man with a small stool in his hand stepped out. He was wearing a dark green uniform and a round hard-top cap with a long bill.
That was the first black man I had ever seen and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He must have noticed me staring at him. As he set the stool down on the platform, he looked at me and then at Rowdy.
With a friendly smile on his face, he said, “Will that hound tree anything?”
I swallowed and said, “Yes, sir, he’ll tree anything.”
The smile spread all over the black man’s face. His white teeth flashed. He said, “That’s the kind of dog to have. When I was a boy, I had an old hound just about like him. I still remember that old dog. We had a lot of fun together.”
I liked the black man. He was so friendly and I could tell that he liked boys and dogs.
Two cowboys were the first ones off the train. They were carrying their saddles over their shoulders.
In a loud voice, someone in the crowd said, “Hey, Larry! How did the rodeo go?”
Larry laughed and said, “It went all right for me, but Old Henry here, he didn’t do so good. He got bucked off everything he got on.”
Henry said, “If you had drawn the buckers I drew, you would have been in the air so much you would have sprouted wings.”
Everyone around roared with laughter.
Then two drummers got off. Each one was carrying two suitcases. No one said a word to them.
The next person to get off was a big, stout woman. She had about a dozen kids bunched up behind her. It sounded like every one of them was bawling. The woman was jerking and shoving kids and giving orders.
Then I saw Mama and Daisy at the door of the coach.
Mama was carrying her suitcase in one hand and Daisy’s old crutch in the other. She saw me and smiled. Tears flooded her eyes.
Mama didn’t waste any time getting off the coach and coming to me. She dropped the suitcase and the crutch, threw her arms around me, and kissed me. She squeezed me so tight I could hardly get my breath. Then Mama turned me loose and, with a low choking sob, she went right into Papa’s arms. I never saw so much hugging and kissing between Mama and Papa.
Daisy was the last one to ge
t off the train. She was still standing in the door of the coach and was looking at me. She had her suitcase with her and some bundles. I had never seen such a warm, tender smile on her face. Her blue eyes were as bright as a bluebird flying into the sun. Two big tears were sliding slowly down her cheeks. The tears stopped about halfway down and held there as if by some invisible force.
I let my eyes travel from Daisy’s face down to that old crippled leg. I sucked in a mouthful of air and stared. I just couldn’t believe it. Daisy wasn’t crippled any more. I kept staring from one leg to the other. If I hadn’t known which one had been crippled, I never would have been able to guess. There was no difference in either leg.
As I stood there, looking at Daisy, I knew that I would never regret giving up my pony. It was all worth it. My little sister wasn’t a cripple any more.
Daisy must have seen that I was staring at her leg. Very slowly she raised her foot and wiggled it. Never before had my little sister been able to move her foot like that.
To let her know that I understood, and was happy for her, I smiled and nodded my head.
With no limp at all, Daisy came down the steps and over to me. She stopped about three feet from me, set her suitcase down, and piled the bundles on top of it. For a second, she just stood there, looking at me. I could see the tears glistening in her eyes. Then she just kind of jumped, and wrapped her arms around me.
I didn’t know my little sister was so strong. She was hugging me so tight her small arms felt like steel bands around my neck.
“Jay Berry,” she whispered, “I love you so very much. I won’t ever forget what you did for me.”
Then she kissed me right on the mouth.
I felt the blushing heat as it crawled up my neck and spread all over my face. “I love you, too,” I said in a low voice, “but you didn’t have to kiss me like that—not right here in front of all these people.”
Daisy smiled and said, “I don’t care what anyone thinks. You’re my brother and I’ll kiss you any time I want to.”
I wanted to argue with Daisy about that but I didn’t think it was a good time to start an argument.
Papa came over and hugged and kissed Daisy. It was the first time in my life I saw tears in his eyes.