“Mary Lee-e-e-e-e.  Mary Lee, get in here right now.”

       I heard Mama, but I sure wasn’t in any hurry to go in the house.  I figured there was a good chance of a whipping, or at least a strong talking to, which was worse.  Hiding behind the big lilac bush in the front yard, I waited ‘til I heard the back door slam.  Peeping thru the fragrant blooms, I saw Mama going toward the coal shed.  That was another one of my favorite hiding places.

      “Did you think you could hide from me?”

       I jerked around real fast, and there was Mama.  I hadn’t seen her leave by the side yard and come around to the front. 

      “No, ma’am, I was just sitting here admiring the flowers.”

      “Well, now that you’re through admiring, let’s go talk about what you’ve done to your brother.  He’s in the kitchen right now waiting for us.”

       Mama took my hand and we walked just a little faster than I would have liked up the path to the back door.  Mama grabbed the handle on the screen door with one hand and held onto me with the other.   Alfreda, our orange cat, and her three kittens scattered to the other end of the porch, sensing that Mama was in no mood for foolishness.  Alfreda used to be named Alfred, ‘til one morning we woke up to kittens sleeping in Mama’s wringer washer on the back porch.

       Claude Junior was sitting at the kitchen table, sniffling and snubbing.  His arms were a curious mixture of red and yellow skin, and his face a pale blue.  Claude Junior was three years younger than me, and would do almost anything I told him to.  I told him we could play cowboys and Indians in the smokehouse, and told him it was OK to paint his face with the leftover paint from the front porch ceiling and he could use the yellow paint from the kitchen to decorate his arms.   Mama had tried to get the blue paint off his face with cold cream, but that didn’t work too well.  His arms were almost raw where she had scrubbed them with Octagon soap and a rag, leaving rough red skin and yellow streaks. 

      “Young lady, what do you have to say for yourself?  Did it ever occur to you that your little brother has young, tender skin?  This stuff could have poisoned him and I don’t know yet that it didn’t”.

       I tried not to laugh, ‘cause Claude Junior did look funny.  I knew if I did laugh though, Mama would really get mad.  Right now she was just teetering on the edge and I might get by with just being sent to my room.  I could do that, and it wouldn’t be too bad, ‘cause I could read or color, or watch the crows out the window.  The worse thing would be if she made me go get a switch, ‘cause then I knew I’d get my legs striped.   I always tried to get one with a lot of leaves that wouldn’t sting too bad, but Mama usually pulled the leaves off and that left a little keen switch that really hurt.  She would only hit me a couple of times on my legs, but I would cry more from embarrassment than pain.

       “We were going to go down to Mr. Hawkins and get Claude Junior’s hair cut, but now we can’t go ‘til next week sometime.  Claude Junior can’t be out in the sun too long after I’ve had to scrub his skin, and it’s at least two miles to walk down there.”

       Mr. Hawkins lived down on the river road.  He made his living by cutting hair and everybody took their kids to him.  Mama said for us to be real nice to him and not stare at him.  Mr. Hawkins had something wrong with his legs and he sat in a red Radio Flyer wagon all the time and would pull himself through his house by grabbing onto furniture or door frames.  I thought what fun it would be to ride in a wagon all day!   He would set out on his porch and wave at everybody who came down the road.  It was always a treat to go anywhere, but to get to walk down the river road was extra special and to miss a chance to go was a big punishment.  I had to think about that for awhile, according to Mama.

       Mama, Daddy, Claude Junior and me lived in Carter’s Valley, just a little way from the Holston River.  Mama lived in fear that Claude Junior would find his way to the river and drown.  She worried about stuff like that all the time, but Daddy told her he’d lived there all his life and hadn’t drowned yet.  We had a great big yard and lots of old buildings to play in, and a whole field behind the house where we could tease the cows that stayed there. 
We had a few neighbors, but even the closest ones were almost half a mile away.  Mama wouldn’t let me walk on the road unless she could stand in the yard and watch me ‘til I got where I was going, so most of the time I had to go through a field to get to somebody’s house.  I had to take Claude Junior with me sometimes, especially when I went across the road to Evelyn Brooks’ house.   She had a bunch of sisters and brothers so I could leave Claude Junior with them while Evelyn and I played somewhere else.  The big gully down below her front yard was a fantastic place to play.  There was one great big tree growing on the bank of the gully and it had a thick grapevine.  We could grab that grapevine and swing from one side of the gully to the other, and that was a wonderful game, until I fell.  I hit my head on a rock in the bottom of the gully and cut a huge gash right above my right eyebrow.  Evelyn started squalling that her mother was going to kill her for letting me get hurt, and I was squalling just as loud cause my head ached and I hated to see blood, especially since it was mine.  We finally got back up to the house and Mrs. Brooks cleaned me up and put some kind of salve on my head.  It looked kind of good when it started healing, and I thought I looked like a pirate.  A scar was just as good as an eye patch.  It wasn’t too long after that the Brooks’ moved.  I sure do miss Evelyn.

       Every other Tuesday Mama would take us to Jim Kyle Brown’s.  He raised a lot of chickens and sold eggs.   Jim Kyle also had a big collie dog named Ed.  Ed didn’t like anybody but Jim Kyle and everyone else got barked at and chased out of the yard.  Mama was scared of Ed and always had to call for someone to rescue us before any egg business could be transacted.  Last Tuesday was the beginning of the end.

      “Jim Kyle, JIM KYLE!” 

       Mama, Claude Junior and me were stranded on the fence across the road.  Edna Ruth, Jim Kyle’s wife, came to the front door to see who Ed had treed this time.  Mama was almost in tears, and Jim Kyle called for Ed and took him to the barn.  We got the eggs, and Jim Kyle and Edna Ruth were apologizing all over the place, telling Mama there was no charge today, and to please come back.  Well, Mama told Daddy about Ed when he came home. 
“Nancy, that’s the last time.  I’m going to take care of that dog, but it won’t hurt him.  A week from Tuesday, you and the kids go back for eggs.  It will be OK.”

       Tuesday week, Mama, Claude Junior and me went back to Jim Kyle’s for eggs. We had just got within sight of the yard and here came Ed, standing on the bank, barking his head off.  Jim Kyle was coming around the house.  Mama marched right up to Ed, opened her purse, and took out a gun, but I noticed right off that it was one of my cap pistols I had got last year for Christmas during my ‘wanting to be Dale Evans’ period.  Jim Kyle shouted “Nancy, don’t!”
Well, Mama fired that gun, Ed barked, turned and ran….except he ran right up behind Jim Kyle and bit him in the rear end.  Hard enough to bring blood.  Mama went up and knocked on the door and hollered at Edna Ruth to come see about Jim Kyle and to bring her eggs.  Mama said after that we’d be buying eggs at Piggly Wiggly, fresh or not.
“Mary Lee!  Mary Le-e-e-e-e-e!  Go get Claude Junior and you all come in to supper.”

       I searched and searched for Claude Junior, calling him and looking in all our hiding places.   I was afraid to go toward the river ‘cause I knew Mama would be right.  Claude Junior would be floating in the water, and somehow, it would be my fault.  I went to the field behind the house, calling for Claude Junior at the top of my lungs.  I heard a whimper, and the closer I got to the fence, the better I could hear.  There was Claude Junior, soaking wet, and crying. 

      “What’s the matter with you?  Why’re you wet?”

      “I found a calf and followed it to the river.  Its’ mama didn’t like me and chased me and I fell in”, he sniveled.  “I was afraid to come home ‘cause Mama would be mad since I got my clothes wet, and she would whip me ‘cause I got in the river.”

      “You wait here, and I’ll run back to the house and get you some dry clothes”.
    Well, I did feel sorry for him.  I figured he’d have to save me sooner or later and it was always good to have a favor in reserve.

       I sneaked around to the front door and back to the closet where we kept the dirty clothes.  I grabbed some shorts and a shirt and ran back out before Mama could catch me.  He put on the shorts and I helped him with the shirt and we gathered up the wet clothes. 

      “Claude Junior!  What in the world are you doing wearing those shorts?  That’s a pair of Mary Lee’s old ones”, Mama said as she watched us come in for supper.

      That probably wiped out any favor I had.

      We had just started to eat supper when Daddy’s cousin Marvin knocked on the back door.  “A mad cat bit Mother this morning”, Marvin told us.  “She had been to the barn and it attacked her.  We had to take her to the hospital, but she’s home now and Juanita is staying with her.”

       That was another one of Mama’s fears. She was always telling us not to pet any strange animals or bring any strays home ‘cause we could get rabies.  I didn’t know what rabies was, but I could understand ‘mad’.  I just didn’t know why a cat would be mad unless somebody hurt it or took its food and  I didn’t know what Aunt Belle had done to make it mad, but I guessed she was sorry.  Marvin said Aunt Belle would have to take a bunch of shots in her stomach to keep from getting sick, and I couldn’t imagine anything as horrible as that!  I hope Alfreda never gets mad.

      “Mary Lee!  Mary L-e-e-e-e-e!”  Find your brother and get ready to go to the store”.

       Mama, Claude Junior and me always went to the store on Monday.  The local store was just a small one room building called Reba’s where we could get a few things.  We’d have to get the fancier stuff at Piggly Wiggly in town.  Reba was an odd name for a store that didn’t have anyone working there named ‘Reba’.  Mama always said it was somebody’s girlfriends’ name, but she never did say who.  Mr. Pratt, who owned the store, was not the friendliest person around and just sat behind the counter glaring at everybody.  His fingers were stained brownish yellow where he held his cigarettes, and he smoked all day long.  Daddy said Mr. Pratt was too lazy to breathe if he could get somebody else to do it for him.  I liked to watch him flip through the charge accounts.  He would write out a ticket and give the customer a copy and put a copy in a little wire clip on a big board.  I wanted to go behind the counter and flip the boards, but I knew better than even ask. 

       We saw Edna Ruth at the store Monday and she was telling Mama about Jim Kyle.

       There had been several stray cats around their place and Jim Kyle had decided to trap them.  He put them in a pillowcase and was going to take them over to Stanley Valley and let them out in a field somewhere.  Well, according to Edna Ruth, the cats started fighting in this pillowcase, got loose in the front seat of Jim Kyle’s truck and caused him to run out of the road, over the bank and into his tobacco patch.  The cats escaped when he opened the door to get out of the truck, and Jim Kyle walked back to the house to get iodine for his scratches and a tractor to pull the truck out of the tobacco patch.  I noticed Mama with a slight smile.  I guess she figured it was a good payback since Ed had tormented her for years.

      I’m really looking forward to Sunday this week.  I heard the preacher say we were going to have Decoration Day and dinner on the ground.  Last year at decorating time was right after Mr. Crawford died.  His grave was still open, waiting for the funeral service on Monday afternoon.  The preacher said since dinner and decorating had already been planned, we’d go ahead with it.  Claude Junior and me were sitting on the blanket with Mama and Daddy, eating fried chicken and potato salad, just waiting for the others to finish so we could go play in the cemetery.  Mama had always told us to be respectful of the dead and not to play on any graves, so we kind of stayed on the borders.  Everything was going fine until Claude Junior saw Mr. Crawford’s open grave.  He took off running toward the grave, and was jumping back and forth across the open pit.   Mama saw him just as he fell in.  She screamed, and Daddy and some of the other men had to pull Claude Junior up from the hole.  He was scared silly!  Mama promised to ‘take care of you when I get you home’, and was so embarrassed that it was her son who had caused such a commotion.  “You’re going to get it when we get home”, I teased him.  Claude Junior spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the blanket.  I got to help Mama put out the flowers we’d brought in the jars.  Great Grandpa’s grave looked a lot prettier when we left that day.

      Last night Mama and me set on the porch looking at the stars.  She pointed out the Big Dipper and told me stories of people who had gone on to heaven.  I told her I knew it was a nice place but I wasn’t in any hurry to get there.  She just laughed and told me she wasn’t either.  Claude Junior had been in trouble most of the day yesterday, and he had to go to bed early again, so he didn’t get to sit on the porch with us.  I sneaked into his room when I got back in the house and told him he wasn’t going to heaven since he was so mean.  He was crying and sniveling again, telling me he was sorry.  I told him he’d better be telling Mama he was sorry instead of me.  He’d locked us out of the house yesterday morning, and we could see him through the kitchen window.  He was sitting right up on the kitchen table eating sugar out of the bowl.  Mama was standing there knocking on the window telling him to let us back in and he just acted like he couldn’t hear us.   I thought we were out there for forty hours, but Mama said it was more like thirty minutes.  Claude Junior had a bad habit of locking people in or out.  It hasn’t been too long since he shut me up in the dugout when I went after sweet potatoes.  It was dark in there and I was scared to death a spider would get me, or even worse, a reeraw.  Grandma Smith always said reeraws lived up in the mountains and would eat children.  I never did want to see one.

      “Mary Lee!  Mary Le-e-e-e-e-e!  It’s time to get up.  Today is another day.”