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I figured if I got really bored I could always get a jump on my bug
collection for science class in the fall. As it turned out the
summer of 1946 was truly unforgettable for a number of reasons.
Southern Illinois in early June was already hot and sticky. As mom
drove up the long, rutted lane that led to the farm, I noticed corn
withering and shedding its greenness. Coming around the corner of
the sagging barn, which put me in mind of a bird in flight, I saw
Uncle Ned wearing his signature bibs and Aunt Ellie attired in a
blue summer dress and white sunbonnet standing on the front porch
waving to beat the band.
After everyone hugged, Mom, Uncle Ned’s niece, said, “The road dust
is so bad I’ll bet you could see us coming from the next county.”
All of us laughed except Uncle Ned, who, with a worried expression,
said, “Betty Ann, this here drought’s the worst we’ve seen in near
fifty year. Everyone in the valley is praying a little extra for
rain―”
Aunt Ellie cut in, “Where’s William?”
With a scowl from here to Lake Michigan, Annie said, “Daddy’s too
busy; he’s always too busy doing silly science experiments.”
“Well,” Aunt Ellie said, “I certainly hope your father can make it
down next trip. Annie, Joey, there are fresh molasses cookies on the
kitchen table and cold milk in the icebox. Help yourselves.”
Being the food lover I am, I exclaimed excitedly, “I
could smell those cookies the minute we started up the lane.”
The meals on the farm were really swell. Every time we sat down to
eat was like Sunday dinner back home. The ancient oak dining table
would be heavy with bowls full of home-grown vegetables: beets,
potatoes, sweet corn, green beans. Every meal included hot biscuits
dripping with butter and honey. I got an idea the Colonel stole Aunt
Ellie’s recipe for fried chicken. To this day if I think real hard I
can conjure up the taste of her blackberry cobbler with fresh cold
cream. Mm-mm-mm. The delectable aromas wafting about that tidy
though unadorned kitchen invariably set my mouth to watering.
When the air got too stifling indoors, Aunt Ellie cooked on the back
porch, which she called her summer kitchen. The clapboard house,
liberally adorned with gingerbread, sat atop a hill that overlooked
a tree rimmed meadow. Uncle Ned’s father had built the two story
wood framed structure in 1879. The wraparound porch had red spindle
railings, and with a rock chimney rising high above the roof on each
end of the dwelling, I pictured one of those steamboats Mark Twain
wrote about piloting on the Mississippi river. When I mentioned this
to Uncle Ned, he informed me the style was now called Steamboat
Gothic, popularized by the humorist from Hannibal after he’d
fashioned a home along the lines of one of the majestic river craft
in Redding, Connecticut.
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Uncle Ned told us the Mississippi was so low you
could walk out to Tower Rock situated in the middle of the river
across from Grand Tower, Illinois. He also told us the ghost of a
lovelorn lass wearing green silk and lace walks Grand Tower’s
Devil’s Backbone Park by night singing to the riverboat gambler her
father―the town’s preacher―had forbid her to see.
Because of the drought the shallow well at the house
supplied barely enough water for cooking and drinking, so first
thing each morning Uncle Ned and I would hop in his ’39 Ford pickup
truck and drive down to Long Creek, which runs through the meadow.
We used wooden pails to fill a three-hundred gallon tank. The first
load was for the livestock. After breakfast we’d make two more trips
for the garden.
On that first trip, I asked Uncle Ned how Long Creek got its name.
He said, “‘Cause it’s never short, though it gets a might narrow
come July.”
Being a curious sort, I asked, “What with the drought, why isn’t the
creek dry?”
“Joey, that’s a very good question. And the answer is this here
creek is fed by a spring that bubbles out of the ground from beneath
that big tree yonder.” I looked to where he was pointing and saw a
humongous weeping willow. Uncle Ned said it was over a hundred years
old.
The lazy scientist in me is always looking for a less laborious way
to do a task, so I said, “Seems to me there should to be an easier
way to get water to the farm.”
With a lighthearted chuckle, Uncle Ned answered, “Joey, I’ll be the
first to admit
you’re a pretty bright feller, so the minute you figure out how to
pull that off just you let me know; meanwhile let’s get this here
tank filled ‘fore the day commences to get hot.”
The first Saturday we were there I remember Aunt
Ellie, thin and gray-haired, shaking a stick finger at Uncle Ned and
yelling, “Save enough for bathing tonight, and I’d truly appreciate
it if you’d water my flowers. They’re looking plum pitiful.” Mom
told us Aunt Ellie’s flower garden was the envy of all her
neighbors.
Upon receiving his marching orders, Uncle Ned, always easy going,
said, “Yes dear.” On the way to the creek he said, “Did you hear
about the feller what claimed he always got the last word in with
his wife?” I shook my head. “Yep. The last word was always: Yes
dear.”
Uncle Ned liked a good joke, so I told him one I’d made up. “Uncle
Ned, know why the cow jumped over the moon?” He shook his head. “The
cow heard beef was going up.” Uncle Ned emitted what I think was a
laugh.
[By Henry Dewes] |
