Children in the Closet - Chapter Three

  Chapter Three

 

       Granny took care of us now and it wasn’t nearly as pleasant as when Mother was home all the time. All three of us girls slept in the same bed together and Lonnie slept with Mother and Daddy. We would wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast and then Granny ushered us to the back door and turned us out into the yard like puppies. She always locked the hook and eye latch to prevent us from coming back in. We stayed outside until lunchtime when we were allowed to come in and eat.

          We took afternoon naps on the living room floor. Granny had lace curtains on all the windows in the living room and I loved to watch them billow in the breeze since the windows were always open due to the summertime heat. Not many people had air conditioning back then. She had hung framed prints on the walls and my favorite was the one of the angels helping two small, ragged, frightened children across a rickety bridge into what I assumed was Heaven. As I would gaze up at it, I imagined the children to be Lloydine and myself on that bridge and found great comfort knowing that God had angels to take care of us.

        Once we all woke up from our naps it was back outside until suppertime. Then we played some more until it was time to come in and get ready for bed. Occasionally we would watch a TV program in the evenings if both Mother and Daddy were home.  The Ed Sullivan Show and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin were two of my favorites.

         None of us can remember playing with a single toy in all those summer days we spent outside. We generally followed the shade, playing up close to the house under the Seven Sisters rose bushes in the mornings. We used our imaginations and dreamed up all sorts of things to do. The roses were intertwined with a huge honeysuckle vine and we would pick bouquets, tear the blossoms into tiny pieces, put them in an old tin can, add a little rain water and stir it all up with a stick to make our own perfume.   We also tried to making our own glue using flour and water and mixing it together in another old can. We stirred it until it was smooth and white and looked like glue to us. Papers were always flying into the yard so Lloydine and I would gather up some of them and try to glue the edges of them together to make a book so we could play school. The glue never held. I imagine we kept getting it too thin.

     Do you remember the first conscience sin you ever committed? I do. It was right there underneath that Seven Sister rose bush. One day I had got hold of some matches in the house and I took them with me when we were shooed outside. I had them hidden in my hand behind my back so Granny didn’t notice them.  I tried and tried to burn a stick. I managed to strike the matches but the stick would never catch on fire. Even as I struck each match, I knew in my heart that it was a sin for me to be playing with them like that. No one saw what I was doing but I eventually felt so guilty I tried to go inside and confess to Granny what I had done. However, the door was locked so I tucked the book of matches down beside the little step under the door and went back to play. I didn’t forget what I had done, though, and confessed it to Mother later that evening. She didn’t seem to pay much attention to me and I didn’t even get a spanking as I was certain I would.

      As the day progressed, we would go further and further into the back of the yard. At the very back was a huge old mulberry tree. We did love those mulberries! Lloydine and I would climb up in the lower limbs and discovered two “seats” where the branches curved in such a way as to form what we called our chairs. We spent many an hour up in that tree. Lanita was too little to climb since she was only two years old. She didn’t stay outside as much as Lloydine and I did. Granny had her come in for an extra nap in the mornings. Lonnie was just a baby so he got to stay in the house most of the time.

    The people living next door to Granny and Granddad had chickens, roosters, pigs, they even had a donkey! They also had a boxer dog and Lloydine was so scared of it, probably because of his constant barking. She loved that old donkey, though. After supper, Lloydine and I would take a single plate of scraps out to feed the chickens and the pigs. Feeding the critters was the highlight of our day.

      While we liked the neighbor’s animals, we were a little bit afraid of their boys. They were on the older side by at least a few years and they were mean to us. While we didn’t have real toys to play with -- we did have good imaginations. Lloydine had a pet dog, which was really an old glass pickle jar with a string tied around the neck of it. She would pull that thing all around the yard and play like it was real. She even named him Pee Wee. One day we were playing close to the fence between our yards and the boys started throwing rocks at us. One of the rocks hit Pee Wee and killed him, shattering the glass. Lloydine was devastated and ran to pick him up, cutting her finger. Daddy ran outside when he heard her crying and took her in the house to put a bandage on the cut.  We learned to stay more in the center of the yard after where the neighbor boys couldn’t hit us from that distance. 

     I have a particular memory of Daddy mowing the grass that summer. It was Johnson grass for the most part, with Bermuda grass in the middle of the yard. It would get so high he had to use a scythe to cut it.  Standing in grass up to his waist swinging that scythe back and forth, back and forth, he would work his way up and down the yard.  We weren’t allowed to be anywhere near where he was cutting, so my sister and I would stay just far enough back to be safe and watch him.

      Rain was no excuse for coming in the house that summer! That was the only time we were allowed to go in the little storage shed that was built next to the mulberry tree. It was open on one side and we would go in and find something to sit on and listen to the rain fall on the tin roof. It felt kind of like we were playing house. We would stay in there until we could hear our Granny calling us to come out because the rain had stopped.

     One afternoon, as we were trooping out after the rain was gone, Lanita tripped, lost her balance and fell against an old metal bedspring that had been leaning up against the side of the shed. It fell over on top of Lloydine and her head went right up through one of the spring coils. She was stuck and we could not get her head out! I ran for the back door screaming for help all the way. Granny came to the door to listened to my story, never bothering to unlock the door, much less even take a step outside to see about Lloydine. She just said she would call someone to come over and get her head out. That someone turned out to be Granny’s oldest grandson, Anthony. It took a good little while for him to get there. In the meantime, Lanita and I huddled around our sister -- who was crying hysterically --and tried to comfort her until help arrived. Granny’s backyard was certainly not a child safe area and it’s a wonder we were never seriously injured while playing there.

The second Sunday in August was when we had the Carlton/Hancock reunion in Stephenville, Texas. That was the highlight of our whole summer! Mother cooked all morning that first Saturday of the month. That afternoon we took baths and put on our pajamas. This was Lanita’s very first memory of Daddy – he gave her a bath and she remembers seeing his arms covered in thick black hair. While she could never see his face in her memory, it didn’t matter. She knows it was her Daddy.

       We got in the car with Daddy driving and Mother sitting in front holding Lonnie. We three sisters filled the back seat, with the food securely stored in cardboard boxes in the floor board of the car. Daddy stopped for gasoline at the Texaco station and when the attendant came to the window, Daddy said, “Give me five of ethyl.” I’m thinking that must have meant five gallons. We were headed to Stephenville, Texas which was about 100 miles west of Fort Worth.

      It was nearly dark when we arrived at the Stephenville Community Center. Mother had packed a stack of quilts, blankets and pillows and Daddy made beds for us in the gymnasium.  We were so excited to be there that Mother allowed us to run around for a few minutes before we settled down and went to sleep.

       The aroma of coffee filled the air as we woke up the next morning. Mother and Daddy were already awake and sitting at one of the long tables with other relatives. She noticed we were awake and came over to help us get dressed in our Sunday clothes. Mother was already wearing her favorite floral printed dress and had on her pretty blue rhinestone necklace and matching earrings. Mother always dressed so nicely. Daddy wore khaki pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I asked him why he rolled them up like that and he said because they were torn. He wore his good white shirts to work and to church but kept the old ones until they were absolutely worn out. Everyone dressed up for the reunion in those days.

        Granny and Granddad arrived later that Sunday morning and pretty soon the parking lot was full of cars and the gym was overflowing with families. We watched and waited excitedly for our cousins to arrive! Most of them were older than we were, except for Uncle Truman’s two youngest, Mae Ellen and Dale.  I looked up to Mae Ellen and tagged around behind her. We played in the gym until just before lunch was served. That’s when the photographer came and we all gathered up on the bleachers to take a group picture. I sat on the floor along with a dozen other young cousins with nine bleacher rows filled all the way up to the top behind us with as many as 16 people on each row.

        A preacher or church deacon in the family would lead in prayer and then lunch was served. There was an enormous amount of food! A solid row of tables spanned the width of the building and it’s a wonder they didn’t break under the load. That food still lives in my memory! Fried chicken, roasts, hams, large platters of sliced home-grown tomatoes, fried okra, corn on the cob, potatoes of every description, black eyed peas cooked with bacon, fried squash, stacks of sliced white bread with jars of jams and jellies. There were pickles and chow chow (diced green tomatoes, bell peppers, green chili, vinegar and spices) and pepper sauce. One table at the end was just for desserts and oh, those desserts! Pies with meringue piled high and lightly browned, cakes, cobblers, cookies of every sort and, best of all –- freezer after freezer of homemade ice cream. There were huge galvanized barrels with spigots filled with cold tea and one was full of ice water. There was no air conditioning in that old stone building, so it was hot as it always is in Texas during August.  Every drop of the tea and water was gone by late Sunday afternoon.

      After lunch, the mothers would put their children down for naps while the grownups played dominoes or 42 or just sat around and talked. Daddy would get the blankets back out and we would lie there listening to the hum of voices and before we knew it we had fallen asleep. This day never lasted long enough

        Shortly after the family reunion, Aunt Irene and Uncle PR came to see us. They lived on a farm out in West Texas. I remember that visit for two reasons, one -- Uncle PR taught me an easier way to make up the beds. It was kind of him to pay attention to me and help me simplify one of my chores. The second reason is that they took me home with them! I got to spend a whole week in the country. My cousins, Shirley and Jerry, still lived at the farm but they were nearly grown up by then. I loved being the center of attention and seeing all the exciting things there was to see on a farm. I would only get homesick at night when I would gaze off into the distance and see tiny lights from a faraway town and think, “My mother is where one of those lights are.” While I loved being there, I was ready to go home when the time came. I missed my sisters and brother and my mother and daddy.

        Another good adventure that year was visiting our Aunt Alice and Uncle Truman. It was every bit as much fun to visit them in the summer as it was at Christmas time.  I believe it was Labor Day 1956 when Daddy drove us all out to their place. Mae Ellen was all agitated over an incident that had happened just a few days earlier. Air conditioning was not all that common back then. Everyone left their windows open to let in what small breeze might be blowing. In the early evening, Mae Ellen noticed someone peeking into her bedroom window. She didn’t scream or call for help. Instead, she very quietly slipped out of her room and went to get her mother. Now our Aunt Alice was an amazing woman –-hardworking, feisty and fearless! She marched herself in there and slammed down that window, trying to catch the peeping tom’s hands under it. He barely jerked them out in time! He took off running and Aunt Alice went flying out the front door after him. Their yard had a tall cyclone fence around it and that fellow was headed straight for it! He pulled himself up and was trying to jump over it when his feet got tangled up.  He did not make a clean getaway, but cut himself up pretty badly on the sharp wire and they had to cut him down from there and take him to the emergency room!

       As Aunt Alice and Uncle Truman was recalling the story to us, even Mother and Daddy were hanging on every word. Then we were shooed out to play while the adults visited. I confess to being envious of my cousins and their family. Aunt Alice and Uncle Truman didn’t fuss with each other as Mother and Daddy did. Uncle Truman was Granny and Granddad’s only son so he was treated special.  We later learned Granny and Granddad lost their first son when he was three years old so this made Truman even more special. He was a man’s man and was usually building something. He liked to fish so they always managed to live near a lake.

     Aunt Alice and Uncle Truman had five children; two sons and three daughters. Paula, Joyce, Anthony, Mae Ellen and Dale.  Dale was five years older than I and he was really spoiled. They must have had a real soft spot for him. Sadly, the spoiling ruined him and he brought a great deal of harm to many people including myself and especially my sister, Lloydine. But at the time we only knew that Dale could have anything he wanted and we wondered how he got to be so lucky.

               At last, the summer months came to an end, and it was time for me to return to school and begin second grade.