pages 40-42

It was springtime, the first of May and everything was at its loveliest. Spring had come to the southland. My folks use to put in an early garden around the first week in February. How I liked to plod in the furrow behind my father’s plow.
It wasn’t long until the road ran parallel with the railroad. I was riding a bit in the lead. Just ahead there was a grocery store. I rode back and told mama and she said we’d stop and buy something. I rode back up to the store, dismounted and went in. I saw no one and heard no one so I called out, “any one here?” a guttural voice came from behind the counter and a man began to roll over and make an effort to get up as I peered over the counter at him.. He was a rather large man and as he got to his feet, I could smell the strong odor of alcohol on his breath. As I turned to flee I thought “golly’ a word I was forbidden to use, “they get drunk in this country too.” My mother was just getting out of the buggy and I called out for her to drive on. The man was following me to the door and in his thick tongue was trying to say did you want to buy something? Our folks always taught us to be afraid of drunks. I remember one morning as I had left the livery stable where we kept our horses and was going down the street to the pay school I made a short cut across an alley. Out of it came a drunk man. I lit out and never stopped running until I got to school. I suppose I looked scared and the teacher wanted to know what was wrong. I told her what had happened and she said, “well, it’s best to be afraid of those fellows for when their mind is fouled up with alcohol it’s no telling what they will do.”
We were riding along enjoying the countryside when the blast of a train whistle seemed to come from out of nowhere. Before we knew it a long string of freight cars was right beside us. I began counting cars from the engine on. From the engine cab the fireman and the engineer were waving to us and we were waving back. I was so intent on counting I hardly noticed that one of the doors about midway of the freight train was open. In the door stood my father waving his handkerchief and motioning us on. There was our box car of household goods beating us to our destination. It wouldn’t be long now until they would be shunting it on a siding at Lynnhaven, a small town and famous for its Lynnhaven Oysters. It was the little town that would be one half mile from where we would live.
We were not far now from the folks where we would stay and where my father stayed when he went there to buy the eighty acres to be our home and the Baptist parsonage where we would live until our home was built. Sure enough when we arrived father had already gotten the boxcar spotted and was at the place to meet us when we drove in to where the folks that owned the place lived. Their daughter, Maggie and I soon became girl friends. Her father saddled her pony and we were soon riding around together, sometimes she on my pony and I on hers. We rode most of that afternoon from five until supper time.
The lady of the home was a small and vivacious woman while the man was medium height and heavy set. Both exceptionally fine folks. What a grand supper she served us that evening. We spent the night there also. Maggie and I were up at dawn and off over the country side. Maggie wanted to show me some of the places she liked to ride. When we returned for breakfast, they just sat down to the table. Maggie was an only child raised in a large, lovely home and on a big farm. She had had most everything lavished on her.
After breakfast the neighbors came and helped my father move our household goods into the home we were to live in for the time being. It was a pretty place of several acres and a very nice home of three bedrooms upstairs, stairway, hallway and living room, parlor , large kitchen down stairs. Lots of nice shade trees and a little bridge to drive over into the place. The house sat on a small rise or knoll. I had begun to like it from the start. There was a pasture for the cow, Boots kitten seemed quite elated over his new home and our big golden colored collie seemed to think it ok too by the way he ran and jumped and played.
Soon settled, the neighbors began calling. The Baptist church was our nearest church. The pastor called and invited us to services. He was tall, nice looking and a very sincere young fellow in his work. He always read a chapter from the Bible and would have prayer when visiting.
That following Sunday we hitched the team to the carriage or 'surrey with the fringe on top' as some called it, the nice harness and the buckles of brass on it shining like gold. We all went to church and Sunday School. It was one of the most beautiful spots I think I have ever seen. Surrounded by a small grove of trees, it made me think of the church in the wild wood. Back of it was a long building where they cooked and had their oyster suppers and socials. Back to that quite a ways was the cemetery and through the well kept cemetery was a winding path that lead on through a small clump of trees. Over a foot bridge and up the side of the electric car tracks was a small platform where on Sundays people by the dozen, tired of city life and wishing for fresh air and a different kind of relaxation, would ask the motorman to let them off at this small platform. They would wind their way down the path, among the silent graves to the church among the chatter of birds. Who could wish for more than to listen to the singing of the mockingbird, the whippoorwill calling, the gay whistle of the meadow lark, the merry brown thrush, the harsh cry of the cat bird and sweet little Jennie Wren trying to make her small voice heard above the wind sighing through the pines with their sweet scented bows accented with the dogwood’s blossoms.
As we drove in, three very nice looking young men came to assist in tying our team of horses then gallantly helped us out of the carriage introducing themselves at the same time. The minister was at the door shaking hands with the people as they went in. We three girls sat down together and Maggie sat by me in the Sunday School class. The three young men sat down behind us. My sisters were now old enough to have young men company. You see, our folks figured we should at least be about eighteen years old. One sister was and the other a little older. We were in the young people’s Sunday School class and the minister taught the class. Every seat in the church was taken that morning and it wasn’t a small church. A lovely May Sunday morning and people seemed to enjoy the singing, lustily raising their voices as though God had touched them in this little church in the wild wood. They were feeling especially good in their hearts that spring morning. Souls seemed lifted and when the preacher prayed, the crowd was hushed with heads bowed absorbing each word. After Sunday School Maggie and I slipped out for a few minutes to talk. We walked hand in hand around the church. We were destined to become the best of pals for some years. When preaching started we slipped quietly back in. Maggie and I were both just starting in our teens and were at what you might call the giggly stage, we didn’t like the idea of sitting too long in one place except where we knew we had to.
After church I was permitted to go home with Maggie for dinner and come back with her and her folks for church at night. After dinner we went up to Maggie’s room. She wanted to show me a collection of things she had and pictures of a trip she and her folks had taken. Later on she saddled her pony and we rode double, which her father said the pony wouldn’t let us do. She did try to buck up a bit on the start but soon we were off down the road. Maggie showed me where some of her uncles and cousins lived, all very nice folks and nice homes. To my surprise though we rode up to the store we had stopped at that day. She said to me “he’s my uncle too, but we never say much about him. He never married and just lives alone. We were making the rounds of some pretty country side when Maggie thought we should return. Her mother was out feeding the chickens and her father doing chores as we rode in. We dismounted and her father took the pony to the barn. We went it and fixed the table for supper, then went to her room where we combed and refixed our hair in preparation of going to church.