Appalachian Daughter

by Mary Salyers

  “I think you and Ray should go too, Corie Mae. I can stay here with the kids. Opal’s staying out at Honey Valley taking care of James Scott’s mother, but Kenny and the girls’ll all help. We can hold things together while you’re gone.” Aunt Lillian looked first at Corie Mae and then at Ray.

  Ray smiled at Aunt Lillian and looked across the table at his wife. “You should go, Corie Mae, but I should stay here to take care of things.”

  “But, Ray, you ain’t seen any of your folks in Kentucky for years. This would give you a chance to visit them.” Aunt Lillian lowered her voice. “Besides, Corie Mae needs you.”

  Ray didn’t say anything, but looked down at his hands folded together on the table.

  “Go, Daddy.” Maggie put her hand on top of Ray’s. “With Aunt Lillian here to keep an eye on things, us girls and Kenny can do all of Grandpa’s chores and take care of our animals. The world won’t come to an end if you’re away for a few days.”

  “It’s okay for you to go, Ray.” Corie Mae reached across the table. “I’d like you to come with me.” When Ray took her hands and gave a slight nod of assent, she said, “Of course, I’ll have to take Jay since he’s still nursing.”

  “That’s right, Corie Mae.” Aunt Lillian laughed. “I can milk cows, slop hogs, cook and clean, but I sure ain’t got no milk in these.” She placed her hands on her small breasts.

  Everyone laughed, and Corie Mae shushed them. “The kids are sleeping.”

  So they decided that Corie Mae and Ray would go to the funeral with Grandma and Grandpa. As Aunt Lillian and JD rose to leave, Corie Mae hugged her sister-in-law. “This is so good of you, Lillian. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t mention it. You’d do the same for me.”

  * * *

  “Wave good-bye to Mama and Daddy.” Maggie held four-year-old Junior on her hip as JD drove away taking the folks to Kentucky.

  Junior whimpered, “If Jay gets to go, why can’t I go too?”

  Maggie hugged him tighter, realizing her mother had never left him before. Aunt Lillian clapped her hands several times. “Okay, kids, we’ve got stuff to do. Let’s go sit around the kitchen table and make our plans.” She turned to Maggie. “How many canning jars do you have?”

  “Mama told Daddy yesterday we needed to buy some when the rolling store comes.”

  “This is Thursday, so the rolling store comes today. We need a list.” Aunt Lillian motioned to Maggie. “Can you find me some paper and pencil?”

  Maggie stood to look for pencil and paper. “We’ve got four dozen eggs to trade in.”

  “Good. I have some money too, so we can get sugar, jars and lids, and anything else we need.” Aunt Lillian turned to Kenny. “You and Stuart take the little red wagon and go up to Grandma’s house and bring back all the canning jars she has. She keeps her empties in the smoke house.”

  When Kenny and Stuart came back with the jars, she sent them to gather the tomatoes from Grandma’s garden. Maggie and Johnny Ray went to pick apples while Betty Lou and Jeannie drew water to heat for washing the canning jars.

  Every day Aunt Lillian had them up early and working hard. By mid-afternoon on Saturday, they had canned all the tomatoes, including those from Grandma’s garden, canned a bushel of apples, and made a dozen pints of apple butter, in addition to doing all the chores and caring for the animals. Even the rain, falling steadily all day Friday, hadn’t kept them from getting the job done. When the children had stowed the last jar on the shelves in the root cellar and taken Grandma’s filled jars to her kitchen, Aunt Lillian called everyone together.

  “Okay, kids, you’ve worked really hard. I’m very proud of you all, and I know your mama will be, too.”

  “Let’s not tell her and just have her come to look in the root cellar and see all the new jars. She’ll be real surprised.”

  “That’s a good idea, Johnny Ray. After all your hard work, now it’s party time.” They gathered around Aunt Lillian all talking at once. “When the chores is all done and ever’body’s cleaned up, we’ll go to Kenny’s house and have a party.”

  Because of the sharp curve in the road and the trees, No one could see Kenny’s house from the Martin’s front porch, even though it was only a hundred yards away. Uncle Thomas and his father had constructed the house with timber cut from the property–a one story with a large kitchen, a front room, and three bedrooms.

  When Maggie’s uncles took jobs in Detroit, Uncle WC had offered to pay room and board if Aunt Opal would agree for Aunt Lillian to live there. With this extra money, Aunt Opal had bought much nicer furniture than Maggie’s family could afford. She did not like the children to come to her house because they might get her new sofa dirty or track mud on her throw rugs. “Aunt Opal’d have a fit if she could see all of us here on her fancy furniture,” Jeannie whispered to Maggie, who grinned and responded, “What she don’t know can’t hurt her.”

  After they played several games, Aunt Lillian doled out Milky Way bars as prizes. She led them into the kitchen where they had a feast of pimento cheese sandwiches, made with sliced white bread and fresh tomatoes from the garden, washed down with bottles of cold Coca Cola.

  “How’d you get all this?” Stuart wiped the back of his hand across his mouth after a big swig of pop.

  “You know when the rolling store was here?” Kenny’s eyes twinkled. “After Aunt Lillian bought all the sugar and stuff on her list, she give me another list, and I got all this and brought it over here while you all carried the other stuff to your house.”

  “You mean you knowed all about this party, and you didn’t say a word?”

  Kenny just grinned.

  * * *

  Later Saturday night Maggie sat at the kitchen table brushing the tangles from her freshly shampooed hair while she read her Sunday School lesson. “I think all the little ones is asleep.” Aunt Lillian came into the room and sat across the table from Maggie.

  “Thank you, Aunt Lillian, for helping us while Mama and Daddy went to the funeral.” Maggie smiled at Aunt Lillian. “I think the girls and I could’ve managed to do the chores and take care of the little ones, but we couldn’t have done all that canning. Besides that, you helped us have a really good time. I don’t think Stuart and Johnny Ray have said a single cross word since Mama and Daddy left.” Maggie paused. “Well, maybe once or twice.”

  Aunt Lillian laughed. “I’ve had a good time, too.” She watched Maggie brushing her hair for a few minutes. “Would you like me to help you with those tangles in the back?” Aunt Lillian gently brushed out the tangles. “Your hair is really healthy. It’s so shiny, and where the sun has bleached it, it has a reddish cast.”

  “I hate my hair. I wish Mama would let me cut it. I’ll be the only girl in high school with pigtails.”

  “If you’d like, I’ll cut it for you. Have you thought how you’d like to wear it?”

  They talked about several ways to style Maggie’s hair and laughed together at some of the more ridiculous possibilities. When she went to bed, Maggie couldn’t stop her busy mind from thinking about starting high school, wishing for new clothes and a haircut, and contemplating the new insights into Aunt Lillian. Amazingly, she had lived next door for years, and yet it seemed Maggie had met her for the first time. I truly feel I have made a new friend.

  * * *

  About time for supper the next day, JD drove up with the folks. Chaos reigned as all the children crowded around the car, talking at once. Aunt Lillian suggested that everyone come in and eat supper. JD took the suitcase out of the trunk and handed it to Maggie. “Got lots to tell you when we get a chance to talk. I don’t have to work tomorrow. Maybe we can think of something to do.”

  “The Intermediate B.Y.P.U. is having a weenie roast tomorrow night at Reverend Lewis’s. Maybe we could go to that.” Maggie spoke softly so others didn’t hear.

  “See if Aunt Corie Mae’ll let you go, and me and Kenny will pick you up. What time does it start?”

  “At churc
h they said ‘a little before dark.’”

  “Tell Aunt Corie Mae we need to leave about six o’clock, and we’ll go to town and hang out at the drug store awhile before it starts.” Maggie and JD joined the others on the porch.

  “You’ns just make yourselfs at home while me and the girls finish putting supper on the table,” Aunt Lillian said. “By the time you get comfortable and wash up, we’ll be ready to eat.”

  During the meal, Corie Mae told about the funeral. “By the time we got there Thursday night, the undertaker had laid out Aunt Helen in the front room at her house. All the family was there. You wouldn’t believe all the food the neighbors had brought in.”

  “I like to split my sides open laughing at that Elmer,” Grandpa said. “He’s Helen’s oldest boy, ye know. Got to telling stories about all the meanness he done when he was growing up. It was so funny to hear him tell it. I got to thinking how bad it was that we was laughing our fool heads off, and there was poor Helen all laid out right in the next room.”

  “Was the funeral at the church?” Betty Lou asked.

  “Yes, and the church house was packed. They was three preachers, and ever one of them preached a long sermon,” Corie Mae said. “I was so glad they told ever’body they better get saved so they could go to heaven like Aunt Helen.”

  Then Grandma spoke up. “I really felt sorry for poor Lottie. She’d stayed there day and night for weeks nursing her mama. It wore her plumb out, and she really took it hard. When the family come up to the casket for the last time, she fainted, and they had to lay her on a bench and fan her to bring her to.”

  “What’d you all do after the funeral?” Jeannie looked at her mother.

  “Me and Ray visited with his sisters. I wish all you kids could of been there. I would like to have Ray’s family meet all his kids. They was all real sorry they didn’t none of them get to come down for Elsie Mae’s funeral last year.

  Corie Mae seemed more excited and talkative than Maggie had seen her for a long time. Even though she said the long car ride had tired her out, the circles under her eyes were not as dark as usual. Eager to hear all the family news, Maggie looked across the table at Grandma and Grandpa. “And what did you two do while Mama and Daddy was at Aunt Dar’s?”

  Grandpa cleared his throat and pushed his empty plate away. “We visited with Helen’s kids and grandchildren and...”

  Corie Mae interrupted. “Papa, you had JD take you to church on Saturday night.” She turned toward the children. “It’s the first time he’s been to a Pentecostal church in a mighty long time. I guess he had a really good Holy Ghost anointing.”

  As everyone prepared to leave, Maggie saw Ray had cornered Aunt Lillian in the kitchen to thank her for helping out. “If there’s ever a time when you need help, you just let us know. Corie Mae looked so good in the dresses you let her borrow. I wish I had the money to get her teeth fixed. I swan she’d be as pretty as the first time I saw her if she didn’t have them rotted teeth.”

  Aunt Lillian gathered her things. “Well, Ray, just keep working hard. Someday things’ll be different.” She patted him on the arm as she walked past him.

  When the supper dishes were finished, Corie Mae asked if they had finished all the chores. “Yes, Mama, but we have a big surprise for you.” Johnny Ray had hovered close to Corie Mae all evening.

  “What’s that?”

  Junior piped up. “Just go look in the root cellar.”

  “Don’t tell. It’s a secret.” Johnny Ray scowled at Junior and then turned to Corie Mae. “But you’ll be surprised when you see what’s there.”

  Corie Mae took the hands of the two boys. “Then let’s go see.”

  * * *

  Maggie, frustrated when her mother seemed reluctant to allow her to go with JD and Kenny to the wiener roast for the kids at church, argued her case. “But, Mama, just think. JD and Kenny don’t go to church much. Maybe if they went to this youth outing and had a good time, they’d go to church more. At least they want to go to this, but if I don’t go, they probably won’t neither.”

  “I don’t think it’s right for boys and girls to be playing around out in the fields after dark. You never know what might happen.”

  “But it’s going to be at Reverend and Mrs. Lewis’s house, and they’re both going to be there. It’s not like we wouldn’t be chaperoned. Seems like you don’t want me to do anything except stay here and work.”

  Corie Mae, pressing her lips together and closing her eyes, didn’t reply for a long time. “I still don’t like it.” But after another moment of silence, she sighed. “Oh, all right, just don’t stay out late.” She even agreed that Maggie could make a batch of cookies to take.

  Only the second time Maggie had gotten to ride in JD’s car, she sat in the front seat, feeling she had been freed from jail–with her arm out the window, the wind flowing through her fingers. “You said you had something to tell me about your trip to Kentucky.”

  JD nodded. “Oh, yeah. I wanted to tell you about taking Grandpa to this little church way out on the side of the mountain where they had a snake-handling service.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Did Grandpa pick up one?” Maggie’s eyes widened, and she held her hand up as if she thought JD would pull out a snake to show her.

  “Actually he did. At first, though, he just danced up and down the aisle and said stuff that didn’t make no sense. I asked him later what he was saying, and he said he didn’t know. It was the Holy Ghost using his voice.” JD looked over at her and grinned. “He said it was the most wonderful feeling. Lots of others was speaking in tongues too.”

  Kenny leaned forward to rest his arms on the back of the front seat. “Well, did they just plunk them down and say ‘Come and get them’ or what?”

  JD grinned bigger and shook his head. “When we first got there, not many people had come. So we went in and sat down close to the back. After a while, a big feller come in carrying a couple wooden boxes with signs on them ‘They shall take up serpents.’ Grandpa said, ‘That’s preacher so and so from over at Newport,’ and he went up front to talk to him.”

  “I think I’d have left right then!” Maggie rolled her eyes.

  “After Grandpa talked with that preacher for a few minutes, a couple of fellers come in carrying guitars. Another man brought in a set of drums and passed several tambourines to some people. By this time a pretty good crowd had come. Then two more men come in carrying snake boxes. When the musicians started playing, everyone began singing and clapping. They kept on singing one song after another for maybe a half hour.”

  “What kind of songs did they sing? Did you know them?” Maggie had her arm out the window again.

  “The only one I knew was ‘Old Time Religion,’ but everybody else seemed to know them.”

  Maggie noticed they passed the funeral home as they drove down Main Street and then stopped at the drug store.

  “Hey, there’s Bud Summers.” JD nodded toward a boy sitting on the steps of the drug store with a couple of girls.

  “Who’s the girls?” Kenny opened the back door.

  “That’s Wanda Smith and Juanita Jones. They’re in my class at school.” They strolled over to JD’s friends.

  “What you all up to?” asked Bud.

  “We’re fixing to go to a weenie roast out at Preacher Lewis’s house.” JD introduced his friends to Maggie and Kenny. “What you all up to?”

  “We’re trying to think of somebody with a car who could take us to the movie.” Wanda smiled at JD and batted her eyes. JD looked at Maggie and raised his eyebrows.

  “Don’t look at me. I can’t go to the movies. I’ve got no money.” Embarrassed, Maggie pushed around some gravel on the sidewalk with the toe of her shoe.

  “Me neither.” Kenny put his hands into his empty pockets.

  “I got enough to get your tickets,” JD said.

  “But won’t we be late getting home if we drive all the way to the theater? It’s almost twenty miles.” Maggie twisted her hands t
ogether. “Besides, Mama thinks we’re going to the weenie roast. She’ll kill me.”

  “What’s the latest you can get home?” Bud smiled at Maggie.

  “About a hour after dark.”

  “Okay.” Bud looked at his watch. “If Maggie’s willing, and we leave right now, I think we can make that deadline.”

  Maggie felt on the spot. She had seen a few films at school but had never gone to a movie theater. Not sure what her father thought about going to the movies, she had no doubt her mother thought it an abomination to the Lord. Torn between wanting to go and being afraid of what her mother would do if she found out, she debated with herself. She might never let me go out with JD again. On the other hand, I’d really love to see a real movie, and I don’t want JD’s friends to think I’m a party-pooper.

  She gave JD a help-me-out look, but JD shook his head. “It’s up to you.”

  After an additional moment of hesitation, she shrugged. “What are we standing here for? Let’s get started.”

  “Good sport!” Bud grinned at her, and she noticed his cute dimples.

  Maggie watched as JD held the door for Wanda to slide under the steering wheel so she could sit next to him. Bud held the door for Juanita to sit in the back between him and Kenny. Maggie took the only vacant seat in the front next to Wanda. She listened to the talk going back and forth about school starting soon–football practice, new teachers, and most interesting of all, a rumor that girls would not be allowed to wear jeans. Juanita was especially indignant about that. Maggie thought it would make no difference for her. Mama won’t let me wear jeans anyway.

  Wanda asked Maggie what courses she would be taking when school started. “You’ll like Miss Erickson, the business teacher. She takes such an interest in all her students, and they always win awards at the County Business Education Fair.” Maggie, warmed by Wanda’s friendliness, began to feel more comfortable and volunteered a comment or two of her own.