Appalachian Daughter

by Mary Salyers

  (Diary of Mary Louise Campbell)

  Summer 1950

  “Here, Jeannie,” Betty Lou ordered, “hang these wet dish towels on the back porch.” Maggie dried her hands. “Thanks, Aunt Lillian for helping.”

  “I thought it wasn’t fair for Corie Mae to make you wash all the dishes.”

  “Let’s go see what stories Uncle Thomas is telling,” Betty Lou said. “I hope we haven’t missed a good one.” She and Jeannie rushed toward Grandma’s front porch where the rest of the family had gathered.

  “Are you going to take some time off work while Uncle WC is here this week, Aunt Lillian?” Maggie pushed a chair to the table.

  “We’re going to go to the Smokies for a few days. Mrs. Jenkins said I could take the whole week.”

  “It must be hard to see him only a couple of times a year.”

  “I’m hoping maybe next year I can stay with him in Detroit for a while.”

  “That’d be great, Aunt Lillian, but I’ll miss you.” Maggie wondered if Aunt Lillian knew about Thomas’s other woman. If she did, she’d never let on. I’m certainly not going to bring it up. They each took a chair from the dining room to the porch.

  “You kids take those stinking things to the back yard. They make too much noise,” Grandma scolded Junior and Johnny Ray, who were playing shootout with the new cap guns Uncle Thomas had brought them.

  “But don’t be running, Johnny Ray.” Corie Mae turned toward Thomas. “He forgets all the time and first thing you know he’s ready to fall over.”

  “He ain’t growed much this year, has he? I swan Junior’s as tall as he is.” Thomas watched the boys go around the corner of the house.

  “The doctor says he’ll grow more slow now. His blood just don’t flow right. I worry about him all the time. Seems like he’s always getting a cold or something.”

  “That’s too bad, Sis. But that Junior’s sure growing fast,” Thomas said. “He brought over a book last night and read it to me. He ain’t even started school yet, has he?”

  “He’ll be in first grade,” Betty Lou bragged. “Last year while Johnny Ray stayed home sick, Junior did more of the homework the teacher sent home than Johnny Ray did.”

  “Junior’s not the only one who’s done good this year,” Aunt Lillian said. “Maggie got first prize for shorthand and second place for typing at the Business Education Convention.”

  “And don’t forget Betty Lou,” Grandma chimed in. “She played piano for the elementary music program. And she had the most beautifulest dress you ever seen.”

  “I guess I’ll have to take the whole Martin family out to the drug store for ice cream cones,” Thomas said. “Maybe we can do that before we set off the fire crackers tonight.”

  Maggie looked at her mother, who busied herself with shifting sleeping Jay to a more comfortable position in her lap. She studied Corie Mae’s frown. What would we have to do to make her brag about us?

  Thomas lit a cigarette and passed the pack around to see if anyone else wanted to smoke. He blew smoke out his nostrils. “Papa, do you think we’re starting to get in World War III?”

  “What you talking about?” Grandma spit ambeer into her can.

  “Ain’t you heard, Mama? President Truman ordered troops to Korea. They’s already fighting there.”

  “Me and Thomas was saying we probably should dig up our old uniforms in case we get called up,” WC rubbed his tummy. “But I know I couldn’t fit in mine no more.”

  “What’s this fighting about?” Maggie’s brow wrinkled in worry.

  “The North Korean army invaded South Korea, and President Truman thinks we should stop it.”

  “Why would North Korea do that?” Jeannie asked. Where’s North Korea, anyway?”

  “After World War II, Korea was divided in two parts.” Thomas blew smoke toward the ceiling. “The Russians occupied the north, and the U. S. occupied the south They thought after a while the two parts would get back together as one country, but the Russians set up a communist government in the north. We set up a democratic government in the south. So now the North Koreans think they can take over the South and make it all one communist country.”

  “I knowed it had something to do with them communists,” Grandpa nodded his head energetically. “They’s gonna take over the whole world if we don’t stop them.”

  “Looks like Harry Truman’s going to try to stop them,” WC said. “We heard on the radio while we drove down here that lots of U. S. soldiers was already fighting in Korea. I expect they’ll start drafting lots more soldiers right soon.”

  “Will you have to go back to the army?” Jeannie asked Uncle Thomas.

  “I don’t know, Honey. I think they’ll take younger men than me and WC, but I guess if they call us up, we’ll have to go.”

  “I sure hope you don’t have to go. War scares me.” Betty Lou folded her arms across her chest.

  “War’s a pretty scary thing. But I guess somebody’s got to go.”

  “Do you reckon they’ll start rationing again?” Grandma asked. “I still got some of them ration books in my bureau. Wonder if I could still use them?”

  Jeannie turned to Grandma. “What’s rationing?”

  “During the war they was certain things you couldn’t buy unless you had the stamps in the ration books.” Aunt Lillian explained.

  “Like what?”

  “Shoes, sugar, meat, gasoline, all sorts of stuff like that.” Grandma said. “When you went to the store, you had to take your ration books, and the store clerk’d take out stamps before you could buy things.”

  “You mean before you could buy shoes you had to have a stamp?”

  “That’s right.” Corie Mae patted Jay’s back. “Ever’ year before school started, we’d take all the kids to town to buy shoes. We had a stamp book for ever’ one of you.”

  “I remember doing that,” Maggie said.

  “Bang! I got you. You’re dead!” Johnny Ray yelled.

  “No, you missed.” Junior came running around the side of the house.

  Johnny Ray stumbled around the corner and collapsed on the steps, pale as a bed sheet and gasping for breath. Corie Mae jumped up, put Jay into Ray’s lap, and rushed to Johnny Ray. “I told you not to run.” She sat down on the steps and took him in her lap. “Breathe slow, now. Come on, I’ll count for you. Breathe in ..one ...two ...three ...four. Breathe out ..one ...two ...three ...four. In ..one ...two ...three ...four. Out ..one ...two ...three ...four.” Gradually he relaxed, his breathing became easier, and the color came back to his face. He crawled out of Corie Mae’s lap and picked up his gun.

  “Now, you just sit here awhile longer,” Corie Mae put her hand on his shoulder.

  “But, Mama, I’m okay now.” He twisted away from her. “I won’t run no more. I promise.” He stepped onto the porch and held out his gun. “Uncle Thomas, my caps is all used up.”

  “We’ll have to fix that.” Thomas took down the box of caps he’d put on top of the porch post earlier. He broke off a roll and inserted it into the chamber. “There you go. Now, go kill a bear.”

  “Come on, Junior. Let’s go around back.”

  The two boys began walking away.

  “Remember not to run,” Corie Mae called.

  “You’ve got to let the kid have some fun, Corie Mae,” Thomas said.

  “But it could kill him if he makes his heart work too hard.”

  “Life ain’t worth living if you can’t have no fun.”

  Maggie looked at Thomas. I wonder what he means by that?

  * * *

  About midmorning one day the next week, the church bell tolled for a long time. Corie Mae straightened from stooping in the garden and listened. “Somebody’s died.” She called to the kids, “Bring what beans you’ve got picked. We’ll go fix dinner right quick so Ray and the boys can go help dig the grave.”

  “How’d you know they need to dig a grave?” Johnny Ray asked from the shade where he played with little Jay.

 
; “They always ring the bell like that so everybody can come and help when they’s a grave to be dug,” Jeannie rolled her eyes.

  “I just asked! You don’t have to treat me like I’m stupid.”

  Maggie set her bucket of beans in the wagon and placed Jay beside it. “Get in Johnny Ray.”

  While Corie Mae went to the root cellar to get a can of applesauce and some canned sausage, Maggie stirred up some biscuits, and Betty Lou broke a couple dozen eggs for scrambling. Jeannie set the table. “Our last can of sausage,” Corie Mae announced when she came through the back door, “but I guess this is as good a time as any to use it.”

  Just as they expected, Ray soon came riding in on one of his work horses, leading the other. And Kenny and JD showed up as well. After eating a quick meal, they loaded the trunk of JD’s car with shovels, picks, and mattocks. Johnny Ray complained because Stuart got to go and he had to stay home.

  After doing the dishes, Maggie walked to the highway to check the mail as she did each day. Johnny Ray begged to go with her so Maggie pulled him in the wagon. “Maggie, it’s so hot; let’s stop in the shade,” Johnny Ray pleaded. They paused in the shade of the beech tree at the top of the hill. Maggie had hoped for a letter from Bud. He had gone to Chattanooga for the summer to work in his uncle’s store, and Corie Mae had agreed for Bud and Maggie to write each other.

  “Scoot over so I can sit beside you.” Maggie squeezed into the wagon.

  “I don’t see why I couldn’t go to the graveyard with the boys,” Johnny Ray pouted.

  “You’d get tired having to sit there all afternoon in this hot sun.”

  Johnny Ray got out of the wagon and picked up a stick. “I sure had a good time when Uncle Thomas come home. He always makes us have so much fun. I wish he could live here all the time. Why does he have to live in Michigan? Why can’t he live here?”

  “Because there’re better jobs in Michigan. He and Uncle WC make more money working in the automobile factory than they could make doing farm work.”

  “Is Bible School next week? I like Bible School.”

  “Yes, I like Bible School, too. It’s the only time all summer I get to see Mary Ann other than Sundays. Since the church has bought a bus, it’ll pick us up at our house, and we won’t have to walk.”

  “You mean the bus will come up the holler to our house?”

  “Sure will.”

  “When school starts will the school bus come up to our house too?”

  “No, we’ll still have to walk to the highway to catch the school bus.” Maggie stood. “We better get home. Mama needs me to help can beans.”

  As they passed the Johnson farm, Maggie noticed Audie Lee standing among the trees. More often now, she saw him at various places. “Hi Audie Lee,” she called and waved. He halfway raised his hand before hiding his face and turning away.

  “I wish I could ask him for that pretty necklace.”

  “Maybe if we had something he’d like, we could swap it for the necklace. What do you have that you could give him?”

  “Don’t know. What do you think he’d like?”

  “We’ll have to think about it. Maybe we can find something.”

  Knowing Ray and the boys would be hungry when they got home from working in the cemetery, Corie Mae cooked a large kettle of beans and potatoes for supper. JD and Kenny had eaten meals with either Grandma and Grandpa or with Maggie’s family since Aunt Opal had taken another job caring for an elderly woman in Maple Grove. Maggie hadn’t seen so much of JD since he started working at the filling station. It was like old times to have him around so much. All eleven of them gathered around the supper table crowding the kitchen to the limit.

  “Who died?” Johnny Ray asked as soon as Ray said “Amen.”

  “Grandma Morrison,” Kenny said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “She lived with her daughter Amanda Jones, you know, in that house that’s got that big red barn right next to the Joyner’s farm?”

  “But she’s not my grandma.”

  “No, but everybody called her that cause she was so old.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Almost a hundred,” Corie Mae said. “Now quit asking so many questions and eat your supper.”

  “These are good beans, Aunt Corie Mae, I was hungry.” Kenny served himself another helping.

  “Did many folks come to help dig the grave?” Jeannie asked.

  “Yeah, they’s a right smart number showed up.”

  “Clyde Spangler was the funniest one that showed up.” Kenny began laughing so hard he choked and had to leave the table for a few minutes to quit coughing. Maggie noticed that both JD and her father had big grins, and though Stuart had put his head down, she could see his shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

  “What’s so funny about him?”

  “Well,” JD explained,” he’s as drunk as a skunk. We kept pulling him back from the grave so he wouldn’t fall in. He couldn’t hardly even stand up.”

  “Then,” Kenny said, “the men from the funeral home had trouble with their truck. They’d brought out the tent to cover the grave and that artificial grass they always put over the dirt pile. But the truck was missing and backfiring and throwing a lot a smoke out the tail pipe.”

  When Kenny stopped to eat a bite, JD took up the story. “Larry Shaddon and Jim Barker had the hood up trying to figure out the problem. Then old Clyde staggered over to take a look. After standing there swaying back and forth and watching, he said, ‘I betcha ten dollars I can pee on the spark plugs and kill the motor.’”

  “What on earth?” Corie Mae said and everyone started laughing.

  JD swallowed. “So Larry said, ‘You’re too drunk to stand up on the ground. Ain’t no way you could stand up on the fender.’ So Old Clyde said, ‘I betcha ten dollars.’ And then Larry said, ‘You ain’t got no ten dollars.’ And Clyde wobbled a few steps backwards and forwards, reached in his pants pocket and pulled out this big roll of money. Looked like maybe a hundred dollars.”

  Johnny Ray gasped. “How’d he get that much money?”

  Kenny said, “Larry asked him, ‘Where’d you get that wad of money?’ And he said, ‘Well, you see, I got this money tree in my back yard. I just whack it with this stick and the money all falls down.’” JD and Stuart laughed.

  “You reckon that’s true?” Junior asked.

  “So what’d he do then?” Jeannie had stopped eating to listen.

  Kenny could hardly talk for laughing. “He got on the running board and tried to step up on the fender, but he fell off. So he staggered over to the wheelbarrow somebody’d brought out and rolled it over to the truck. He finally managed to stand up in the wheelbarrow, but that didn’t make him tall enough. Jim Barker said, ‘If you’re determined to do this, I guess we’ll have to help you.’ So Larry got on one side and Jim got on the other and steadied him till he was standing on the fender looking down into the motor that was sputtering like a John Deer tractor.” Then Kenny collapsed in laughter so he couldn’t continue.

  “So he was weaving back and forth while he tried to unbutton his pants.” JD chuckled. “I thought he was going to fall off for sure. Finally he began peeing right on the spark plugs.” Everyone was laughing except Corie Mae

  “Then what happened?”

  Stuart finally stopped laughing enough to help with the story. “This was the funniest part. When that pee hit those hot spark plugs, it sent a bolt of ‘lectricity up that stream of water and knocked poor old Clyde backwards. He hit the ground so hard it knocked him out. He just laid there all spraddled out like a dead man ”

  All three boys were keeling over with laughter. Jeannie, eyes big as doughnuts, was unsure about whether to laugh or not. Betty Lou hid her laughter behind her hand.

  “Did it kill him?” Junior asked.

  “At first we didn’t know. We all ran over and stood there looking down at him. He had wet his pants, and then we smelled a bad smell.” Stuart held his nose.

  �
��Jim said, ‘Phewee, he’s messed hisself!’ And then Larry reached down and felt for his pulse and said he could feel his heart beating. About that time he took a breath, so JD poured some water on him, and he opened his eyes.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s a bit funny.” Corie Mae stood and began clearing the table.

  “What finally happened to him?” Maggie got up to help her mother.

  JD stood and pushed his chair in. “Larry and Jim picked him up, sort of tossed him into the back of the old truck like a sack of potatoes. Said they’d take him home.” He patted Corie Mae on the back. “Thanks for the supper, Aunt Corie Mae. You’re cooking’s a heap better ‘n Mama’s.” JD passed Maggie on his way out the door. “I’ve got to go to work. I promised Joe I’d take the last half of his shift tonight. He’s got a date.” Then in a softer voice, “Did you get a letter today?” Maggie shook her head.

  “Tomorrow’s another day.” He pushed the screen door open and went out.

  * * *

  Each summer the Baptist church held a two-week Vacation Bible School/revival. Reverend Lewis would invite a guest evangelist to assist with the Bible School in the mornings and preach for the revival meetings in the evenings. These two weeks were Maggie’s favorite part of summer. She could spend several hours each morning with her friends in Bible School. In the evenings big crowds filled the building and usually guest singers provided special music. People came from miles around to hear the singing and the preaching.

  For Bible School each day the children formed two lines that wound down the steps and across the parking lot. As Mrs. Lewis played some lively music, the children marched into the church and took seats by age groups for the opening assembly, where they recited pledges to the flags and the Bible, sang songs, and usually had a little talk from the visiting evangelist. One morning Reverend Dodge, the visiting minister from Morristown, talked to them about how people cannot always make a correct judgment about something or someone based only on appearance.