Child of the Mountains

by Marilyn Sue Shank

  Mama took both my hands. “Now, Lydia, don’t you go a-fretting your pretty head about that none. Do you recollect the story about the thief on the cross asking Jesus to take him to Heaven just afore he died? What did Jesus tell him?”

  I had rememorized a lot of Bible verses. Gran saw to that. “Jesus said, ‘Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.’ ”

  “That’s right, Lydia. I believe your daddy was like that thief, a-waiting until the last minute to do the right thing. I imagine he done hisself some fast praying and getting right with the Almighty when that dirt was a-pouring down on top of him. You’re going to see your daddy beyond the Pearly Gates someday. He’s going to tell you he’s sorry and that he loves you. He’ll mean what he says, too.” She smiled at me. Then she picked up her sewing and started up rocking again. Real soft-like, Mama sung:

  “My heart was distressed ’neath Jehovah’s dread frown,

  And low in the pit where my sins dragged me down,

  I cried to the Lord from the deep miry clay,

  Who tenderly brought me out to golden day.

  He brought me out of the miry clay.

  He set my feet on the Rock to stay.

  He puts a song in my soul today,

  A song of praise, hallelujah!”

  I leaned my head on Mama’s shoulder. With Daddy gone, I thought we wouldn’t have us no more troubles. The hitting and yelling stopped, but more troubles snuck up on us as quick as fleas to a dog.

  4

  It’s about not judging people.

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1953

  I felt a troubling today. Me and Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae went to their church at the coal camp. It looks a lot like that Samaritan Holiness Church back in Paradise—the one me and my closest kin attended ever Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday night. They’s both pure white on the outside. They’s both got a steeple. They’s both got wood pews lined up on either side and a coal stove for keeping the church warm in winter. They’s both got a cross on the front wall and a place for the preacher to stand up higher than everbody else. A wood sign hangs near the cross and has numbers that can be changed to show attendance and offering. There’s a fancy wood box called a pulpit that has a slanted wood top for the big Bible to rest open on during the preaching. The preacher stands behind it and uses it for reading the Word of God. At the front of both of them churches is a altar rail behind a padded step. That’s so’s people can kneel down to lift up their hearts to God and get saved when the preacher finishes sermonizing.

  The only real difference is that the coal camp church has something that looks like a big bathtub behind the pulpit. You have to walk up some stairs to get to it and then down a few stairs to go into the water. They use it for baptizing.

  In Paradise, we walk down to the Kanawha River when folks want to get baptized. We sing hymns and always this one as we join up at the river:

  Shall we gather at the river,

  Where bright angel feet have trod,

  With its crystal tide forever

  Flowing by the throne of God?

  At the smiling of the river,

  Mirror of the Savior’s face,

  Saints, whom death will never sever,

  Lift their songs of saving grace.

  Yes, we’ll gather at the river,

  The beautiful, the beautiful river,

  Gather with the saints at the river

  That flows by the throne of God.

  Gran explained to me and BJ that getting baptized was like taking a bath that would make you feel cleaner than any other. It showed you was trusting God to wash away your sins. After BJ got saved and decided to be baptized, he called it getting dunked. I figure God got a good laugh out of that one.

  Gran said, “Them Methodists and Episcopalians only get a sprinkle of holiness on account of only getting a sprinkle of water poured on their heads when they get baptized.”

  But later Mama told me, “I don’t think God cares how much water gets used. He probably cares a lot more about what’s in your heart.” She also said it was probably best not to tell Gran she said that.

  But the biggest difference is the preachers. When Pastor John talks about God he smiles and looks real hopeful. Pastor John says God loved us enough to send his only son to die for us. I figure that must be a whole lot of love. It sure did pain my mama to lose her only son. Pastor John says we’s supposed to love each other just like God loves us and not to judge one another. When we sing about God, we all feel like kinfolk.

  Seems like the folks here in Confidence have done already judged me afore they even talk to me. Some of them women comed up to Aunt Ethel Mae after my first church service. An old lady with blue hair and crinkled-up hands and face spoke to her. “Dear,” she said, “you sure is a saint a-taking in your sister-in-law’s daughter after what she done to her own flesh and blood.” Then she shook her head and clicked her tongue as she looked down at me.

  Aunt Ethel Mae pinched up her face real tight like she done drunk herself some lemonade without a speck of sugar. I expect she thought that made her look like a saint. “Well, we all have to do what we can for our Lord and Savior, don’t we?” she said.

  The old lady pinched up her face, too. She nodded and patted my aunt’s arm. “That’s all the good Lord asks of any of us.”

  I bet Anne of Green Gables would have fierce words for that old lady, something like, “You know a whole bunch more about what the Devil asks of people than the good Lord.” That’s what Anne would have said. But I didn’t say nary a word. I just looked down at the hole in my shoe and thought about how I best cut a piece of cardboard to put in it.

  Reverend Sanders, Uncle William’s preacher, ain’t no better. He seems to think we don’t hear too good. He screams and yells while he pounds on the pulpit. It gets real scary when he waves the Bible around like a sword. His face gets all red and sometimes I think he looks like Satan hisself. Sweat pours out of him like he’s on fire in the bad place. Today when he started up a-talking about how sinful we be, I wanted to run and hide like I used to when Daddy comed home all liquored up.

  The preacher opened his eyes real wide, like he was a-trying to see inside of us. “You can’t hide from God!” he shouted. “God knows your every thought.” I commenced thinking about God knowing that it’s my fault Mama’s in jail. My face got real hot and my eyes started to tear up. The preacher saw them tears and lunged toward me like a snake to a baby rabbit. He pointed right at me.

  “That’s right, little sister!” he screamed. “Know the awful truth of your sin. Confess it to God and be saved!”

  I could feel all the eyes of them people boring holes clean through me. Some of them said, “Praise God!” and “Hallelujah.” Reverend Sanders got real quiet for the first time. He seemed hopeful that I would spit out some words. But I just sat there, biting my lip and cracking my knuckles and staring down at the floor. Finally, he started up yelling about God again to everbody.

  Reverend Sanders don’t know nothing nohow about me. I done got saved and baptized at Pastor John’s church. I wish the Rapture of the Saints would of come right then and God would of took me clean out of that place. God would pull Mama right through that jail cell like it was water. Her and me would fly up to Heaven together, holding hands and smiling at each other. We’d meet BJ and Gran and even Daddy in the air, just like the song says.

  I like to think about Pastor John and them folks at the church in Paradise. But it makes me sort of sad, too, not just for missing them, but on account of recollecting about BJ. One Sunday, it was me what figured out that BJ was sick.

  Pastor John—he up and commenced to preach about Jesus talking to crowds of folks. They was all a-pushing and a-shoving, trying to get real close to Jesus. The young’uns tried to move to the front, but the grown-ups shoved them to the back. Pastor John said they acted like a lot of folks today. They think young’uns should be seen and not heard. But he said Jesus didn’t never think that way at all. Jesus told all them peop
le, “Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not. For of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” That’s another Bible verse Gran made me rememorize.

  I looked over at BJ and Mama. Mama sat listening to Pastor John, a-smiling and a-nodding. I heard her say a real soft “Amen.” Then I looked back down at BJ, sleeping in her lap. I seen he was wringing wet from sweating like it was the middle of summer. But it was November. I wiped BJ’s brow with the sleeve of my sweater. After that I leaned over to kiss him. I knowed right then and there that something weren’t right.

  “Mama,” I whispered. “BJ’s sweating bullets.”

  Mama felt his brow just as everbody got up to sing “Just as I Am.” Gran felt him, too. She leaned her head over to the side, like she was a-trying to puzzle it out. But she didn’t say nothing. That scared me real bad. Gran always has something to say about everthing.

  “And when I kissed him,” I whispered some more, “it was like kissing a ham. He tasted all salty.”

  As it turned out, that meant something awful.

  5

  It’s about Thanksgiving.

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1953

  Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I had me a plan to call Mama at that there prison in Ohio. I sure am glad the coal company don’t pay folks in scrip no more or they wouldn’t have real money to give me when I done chores for them. And I sure wouldn’t be able to use scrip in a pay phone.

  Uncle William says he’s right proud to be a member of the union that helped get rid of scrip. He showed me some pieces that he keeps as souvenirs of the time he felt more like a slave than a wage earner. A miner got paid in scrip for how much coal he dug out of the mine each month. Each mine had its number cut out of the middle of the scrip coins. That way, there weren’t no mixing them up with real money.

  The coal company said they was a-paying miners in scrip on account of it being too hard to keep all that real money on hand for payroll. But Uncle William said they really done it so’s they could cheat people. You could only use it at the company store and they could charge whatever they wanted for stuff the miners needed. Iffen a miner didn’t mine enough coal to buy food for his family that month, he had to ask for store credit. I think Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae went through real hard times when they had to use scrip. I figure that’s why Uncle William likes to sing this song about mining sixteen tons of coal just getting a man deeper in debt when he works on his car. He sings real loud when he gets to this part:

  Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go;

  I owe my soul to the company store.

  Uncle William says he thinks the company store with their high prices will go out of business soon. I sure hope somebody else puts in a store close by. Some folks around here ain’t got a car.

  I been saving my money from raking leaves for the neighbors. I even got twenty cents once for watching the foreman’s little daughter when him and his wife went to a movie. After I bought my spiral notebook, I had me thirty-seven cents left to call my mama. She asked a policeman to write the phone number down for me after they took her out of the courtroom. I was glad Aunt Ethel Mae didn’t see him give it to me, or she would have tooken it. She won’t even let me write to Mama. “Now, Lydia, it’s just going to make you feel worse,” she told me one time. “The best thing is just to put it all out of your mind. We don’t want you getting all stirred up over what happened. Ain’t that right, William?”

  Uncle William had his nose buried in the Charleston Gazette. I sat beside him on the couch. I saw him roll his eyes, but he didn’t say nothing. I thought it was a good thing that Aunt Ethel Mae didn’t see him do that. She just went right on running her mouth, so he didn’t have no time to say nothing anyways.

  I got this big ache inside from missing Mama. I just wanted to hear her voice on Thanksgiving. My heart felt like it would beat right out of my chest when I thought about it. Mama would be so surprised and happy. I knowed I had to wait till just the right time to sneak out of the house to use the pay phone outside the company store.

  I helped Aunt Ethel Mae with the turkey and fixings all morning. Me and Mama and Gran and BJ used to fry up chicken on Thanksgiving. Mama would fix some of her yams, green beans, and potato salad. Gran made pie that tasted like a pumpkin cloud. She told me the secret was to whip up egg whites and fold them in real gentle-like.

  We didn’t have as much stuff to eat as Aunt Ethel Mae and me cooked up, but we sure had us a lot more fun putting it together. After we got done cooking, we’d hold hands around the table and thank the Lord for the good things that made us glad and the bad things that made us strong.

  But it wasn’t like that this time. Uncle William kept a-harping at Aunt Ethel Mae while he listened to football on the radio. “When you going to get that meal on the table, woman? A man could starve, you know.”

  Me and Aunt Ethel Mae worked as fast as we could. Aunt Ethel Mae got all teary-eyed in the kitchen. “I don’t know what that man wants from me,” she whispered. “I think I should of went out and bought us three of them new-fangled TV dinners from the big grocery store in Charleston. Maybe that would suit him better.”

  I patted her on the shoulder. But I kept on thinking maybe she should be patting me instead. I was a-swallowing tears of sadness from missing my closest kin. It felt good to let some of them tears come out when I cut up the big store-bought onions for the dressing and green beans.

  When we sat us down to eat, Aunt Ethel Mae said the same grace she always says afore we eat. “God is great, God is good. And we thank him for our food. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Uncle William said. “Pass me them taters, Lydia.”

  I passed him the taters, and the gravy, and the turkey, and the dressing, and the green beans, and the butter, and the yams, and the corn, and the peas, and the biscuits, and the strawberry preserves.

  When we all had our plates loaded up and they started to eat, I bowed my head and prayed my own prayer in my head:

  Dear Jesus,

  It don’t seem like I got much to be glad about. I guess I should be thankful that Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae be good enough to take me in, even iffen they don’t know much about having young’uns around. And I’m glad my mama is still here in this world with me and that I know she loves me. And thank you for taking good care of BJ and Gran and Daddy up in Heaven. Please tell them hello and that I miss them something fierce.

  And, Jesus, you must want me to get real strong, ’cause there sure is a lot of bad stuff right now. You said in the Good Book that you ain’t never going to leave me or forsake me. Please stay close and help me get strong enough to find a way to get my mama out of jail.

  Amen.

  I was afeared that Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae might ask me why I was a-sitting there with my eyes closed instead of eating. But when I looked up, I saw they’s too busy stuffing their faces to pay me any mind. I ate a few bites and then moved the food around on my plate some with my fork. The few bites I ate felt like rocks in my stomach.

  When they got done eating, I jumped up to clear the table so they wouldn’t see all the food left on my plate. Aunt Ethel Mae cut up store-bought pecan and pumpkin pies and set them in front of Uncle William. He took a heaping slice of both. Aunt Ethel Mae took a slice of pumpkin. I was glad she also had pecan pie. I didn’t want nobody’s pumpkin pie but my gran’s. I forced down a few bites and jumped up to clear off the table again.

  Uncle William let out a loud belch. “That there cooking was mighty fine, Ethel Mae,” he told us. “You, too, Lydia.”

  My jaw just about dropped open. Aunt Ethel Mae’s face lit up like a firecracker on the Fourth of July. “I’m glad you liked it, William,” she said, grinning over at him.

  I saw my chance. “Why don’t the two of you go sit on the couch and listen to the radio,” I said. “I’ll clean up the kitchen.”

  Aunt Ethel Mae didn’t look at me. Her eyes stayed on Uncle William. “Are you sure you can manage, Lydia?”

  “I’m
sure. You two go on ahead.” I didn’t have to tell Uncle William. He already headed toward the couch. Ain’t no way he’d do women’s work. Aunt Ethel Mae followed him like a puppy. Iffen she had a tail, she would have been a-wagging it off.

  I remembered something else to be thankful for as I headed toward the kitchen. I looked up to Heaven and whispered, “Thank you, Jesus, that Uncle William has running water in his house.” Then I set about doing all them dishes and pots and pans.

  When I finally got everthing washed and dried and put away, I peeked in the living room. Uncle William had his head leaned back, snoring with his mouth drooping open like he was a-catching hisself some flies. Aunt Ethel Mae fell asleep with her head on his lap. The man on the radio still shouted football scores.

  I already had my money and the phone number of the jailhouse in my apron pocket. I slipped out the back door. It’s been real dry and warm lately, not like wintertime. Most of the leaves still clung on to the trees, all brown and dried up. I felt awful glad the sun warmed up the earth. I outgrowed my winter coat last year, and I been afeared to ask Uncle William for another one. My sweater was a-plenty today.

  I got to the phone and looked around. I didn’t see nobody. The store was closed. Just like I figured, everbody stayed home a-feasting with their families.

  I read the directions on the phone: Remove receiver and deposit five cents. I picked up the receiver and put in a nickel. A lady come on and said, “Happy Thanksgiving. How may I help you?”

  She sounded right nice, but I didn’t want to tell her I needed to call a jailhouse. “I’d like to call my mama in Ohio, please.” I gived her the number.

  “All right, darling,” she told me. “That will be fifty-five cents for the first three minutes.”

  I thought I would be able to talk to Mama for a long time. I couldn’t talk to her at all. “But I only have thirty-seven cents,” I said.