I think the first time I saw a picture of a tepee, I wanted one for a play house. On our farm I looked at corn shocks, wheat shocks, or anything in the shape of a tepee, and I wished Dad would let me play inside one. But I didn’t think he’d say yes, so I didn’t ask. The blue bell bush was really a wisteria climbing a pole beside a shrub, but our whole family called it the bluebell bush. It made a sort of upside-down tepee, but I decided it made a good enough place to hide and sort things out. I’d scoot myself back into a little space and listen to my mom and sisters as they did the washing just outside the kitchen door and talked about grownup things. At other times I would retreat to my tepee on Saturday mornings when I didn’t get to go to Liberty with Dad. I thought for sure the world would end for me because it was my only chance to get an ice cream cone. Dad didn’t go to Liberty very often, so you can understand how unfair it was for me to be left behind. Then also some time after a school day, I would scoot back into my blue bell tepee when I was mad at the girl at school who broke my red crayon when she didn’t even ask me if she could use it; and she cheated at about every game we played; and she shoved other children to get in line first. When I got home from first grade, I had plenty good reason to go into hiding for awhile. I would think about how I didn’t like that girl and how nice it was going to be in heaven some day because I was pretty sure that girl wouldn’t get to go there. That thought made it a little easier even if the teacher never did catch her being bad.
I liked the blue flowers when the wisteria was blooming, but when the flowers were gone, I’d some times play with the pods full of beans. One day I did something very foolish. I put a bean up my nose. I got it out again. I don’t remember why I kept doing that, but of course, I tried one time too many and the bean got stuck. I was scared because I knew I’d get a scolding. So I went to Mom and my sisters and told them that when I was asleep last night, some one had put a bean up my nose. Hazel acted as if she was shocked and she almost shouted, “She put a bean up her nose!” Surprised me. I thought it was a believable story. Everybody knew when you are asleep you are not responsible for what happens. A trip to Dr. Creech’s solved the problem, and I did not feel tempted to put a bean up my nose again.
My mom and my sisters did the wash in the summer time on the side of the house near the clothes line and the rain barrel. I think Dad helped them move the washing machine out the kitchen door. Some times they couldn’t get the engine to start. That frustrated my sisters and my mom. I thought it was nicer when the noisy thing wasn’t making a racket, but when I got a little older I realized how much harder it was to wash all our clothes on a washboard and I understood. And as I got older still and my sisters got married or went away to school, I didn’t hide away any more. Now I was big enough to help, too. I learned how to run clothes through the wringer and how to hang them on the line. I think there were three clothes lines going from a stake near the blue bell bush to the old smoke house. I was always careful to hang the underwear on the middle line so no one could see it. I was careful even when Mom did not tell me to do this.
About the same time or maybe a little later I became a little more mature and more aware.. For example, I began to notice that almost every time when Mom did the wash, she would sing to herself…. not whole songs, just little bits of songs, like “Gathering buds, gathering buds…Jesus is gathering day after day…buds for the flowers of heaven.” Our entire family kept changing, and some time my mom would be sad. She really worried about my older brothers who had gone away to service. I never asked her, but sometimes when she seemed sad, I thought she even might be missing her own mother. In the mornings she would talk about her mom (she called her “Mammy”) and how they had to go to people’s houses to work. Much, much later I understood better how difficult making a living had been for her and her mother.
My favorite time was in the mornings when Mom would listen to a radio program called “The Cradle Tabernacle Hour”. I liked the lady who talked and sang. “Ere’ you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?” Mom would sing along and so would I. “Oh, how praying rests the weary, prayers can change the night to day. So when things seem dark and dreary, don’t forget to pray.” It just seemed as though Mom became less worried at that time.. In my memory I can still hear the words to the song. Today they are a sweet solace to me more so than I could have comprehended when I was only 7 or 8 or 9 years old.
One morning when we were doing the washing, Dad came around the house. He said, “Zettie, I think we could go ahead and get your Mammy’s rock.” My parents always referred to a tombstone as a “rock.” And I knew Dad was saying that they had saved enough money to buy a tombstone for my mom’s mother, Florence Emerson Durham. Mom looked so relieved. They talked a little longer, and before he left, he told her he would go ahead and order the stone. The whole day Mom seemed more cheerful than she had been in a long time. It was like some deep worry had been set at ease. I like remembering that day. I like that my dad had a part in reassuring my mom. I have since figured out that she had been waiting about 25 years to get her mother a grave stone. She had been saving the money from the sale of lambs and wool from the flock of sheep that her Aunt Rexie had given her when she first got married.
I never knew my grandmother although I was named after her. My siblings never knew her either. But even if we never met our grandmother, each one of us knew how Mom loved her. It seems logical since her father was never present that her mother would be doubly important. Grandma Emerson must have taught Mom very, very, very well because our mother turned out to be a strong, hard working, loving woman, an amazing source of care for a lot of years for all eleven of her children.