pages 258-259

Pages 258-259

                Old Alice, our cook, the pan of hot gingerbread she made once a week.  How good on cold winter evenings fresh from the oven, mother by the open window in summer where the honeysuckle grew on a trellis perfuming the whole house, here she sat to take care of books and accounts of father’s business and the lacy patterns on the ground from the sun shining above the apple tree, mother’s garden of beautiful flowers all covered with dewdrops at dawn, making the rose petals look as though they were encrusted with tiny diamonds. In my thoughts a meadow lark sang a sweet good morning to me and over the gate the morning glories in multiple color, where the gold finch and Jenny Wren each summer built their nest and raised their young.  The lovely hummingbirds seemed to prefer the honeysuckle for their nesting place, they were so concealed there from prying eyes.

                As a child I thrilled and laughed with the joys of life and listened with rapt interest to the singing of the mockingbird, his trilling sweet voice echoed time and again in my ears from the old cherry tree, and where the lilacs, sweet williams and the lovely roses still bloomed, filling the garden each summer with their fragrant perfume, where passers by would stop to gaze awhile, then sniff the sweet laden air before driving on.  The overgrown grass so soft to my feet and wet with the morning dew.   The warm spring breezes that wafted the scent of the apple blossoms through the open windows causing the whole house to be filled with the aroma and the fluffy little yellow hen with the top knot that would hop up on the porch rail to sing each time she heard us playing the piano, the gnarled old oaks I climbed as I climbed higher and higher until I was grasping the last branches reaching to the sky.  Here I would sing and swing and sway with the wind.  Nothing was ever quite so thrilling for I have been a lover of doing things a little dangerous or out of the ordinary all of my life. 

                There too was our big old southern home with those very large bedrooms, hallways, living room and parlor, extra large kitchen, our old wash woman doing the washing in the shade of an apple tree by the kitchen door because it was cooler there.  How I loved to watch the foamy suds as she rubbed, and then the long lines of snowy white clothes, fluttering in the breeze.

                Here I was brought back to realization for I, too, had a wash on the line, ready to be taken in, putting the past behind me, I went out in our treeless, grassless, flowerless yard to take in the long line of wash I had done that morning to fold, sprinkle and put away.  The sprinkled ones would be ironed the next day for another wrestle with flat irons and sagewood fire.

                But one doesn’t forget this high altitude country overnight, the clean fresh air you breath, among these everlasting hills in healthful sun drenched country and when the full moon brings out the silver in the sage and cast its rays like a beacon on yonder snow capped peaks.  For now and again one would come upon a well trodden path worn by the hooves of cattle heading away over a hillside to a clearing, a valley of deep lush grass like a meadow when spring would finally make its debut, with grass and flowers for the wonders of Gods’ world began to grow with the warmth of spring and to beautify with a dress of shimmering green, like a background for a magnificent display of multi-colored flowers of varied hues as only God could send forth to these eternal hills and lonely valleys, spring and summer year after year, where golden silent hours could be spent with time to sit and quietly reminisce, just dreaming which everyone at times loves to indulge in, and where with God’s light touch everything becomes a masterpiece of his handy work, like the grasses and flowers, the leafing of the trees that come forth without the effort of planting or cultivating and the wonders of God’s wild creatures like the dainty fawn with her flecked twins and under short white tails, hopping away into the brush without a moments notice, characteristic of the nervous trait nature instilled in them for their protection, while some distance away from danger would turn for a glimpse for a fleeting  view of things that caused them to take flight all in a moment of time, among some big fir or pine trees that whispered and sighed as the wind passed through in their swaying, slow majestic unison, always cool, inviting and steeped in a ghostly silence with the faint whistling of a bird, somewhere among their dense foliage.

                My thoughts now were turning to other things.  Chores had to be done and a meal prepared.  Jim had been working at odds and ends, things needing to be caught up.  The sun was setting fast now in a golden haze of red skies as we sat down to eat and returned thanks and partook of our food.  We both seemed to eat hearty,  Jim complimented me on the supper of hot biscuits, meat and milk gravy, fruit and burnt sugar cake with hot tea.

                Later while we were relaxing we heard someone knock on the door.  Our neighbor up above us south had come to spend an hour or so visiting.  He was a little older than Jim.  He and his father lived alone in a small one room house on their claim.  They had come to this country by wagon from the west coast, homesteading perhaps long enough until they could sell to someone wanting a place or to a joining neighbor for they did little with their land, but liked to hunt, trap and fish and each winter would trap a good many fur bearing animals.  When dried and cured, would ship to fur houses who bought them.  He said that gave them quite a bit of spending money. 

                When one of our horses died that was quite old, we thought we’d try our luck.  We set traps all around the dead animal.  The coyotes came each night to dine, but never a one did we trap.  He said we hadn’t fixed our traps right.  In the first place the traps must smell like old ones by rubbing something on them, then partially bury them in the ground and sprinkling dry dust over each with something other than your hands.  And do not walk too close or too much around your traps.  Their sense of scent is very keen and can readily smell a gun, or new steel, or the odor from a man’s hands and feet.  He said one perhaps could go all over  their place unarmed and see maybe one, two or sometimes three coyotes, but whenever you go out with a gun you very seldom see any.  They have been endowed with this keenness to protect them from their would be killers.