Authors: Justine Felix Rutherford
Root Jumper (10 page)
Dale said that when Rover was about seven or eight years old, he began to get ornery. If people came around he didn’t like, he would bite them. His dad had started a small store on Seven Mile. His dad told Dale they had to get rid of Rover.
Dale said that there was a man who came through trading horses and cattle. This man told Dale’s dad that he would take Rover and find a good home for him. They blindfolded Rover and put him in the truck. He was taken to Pt. Pleasant which was about fifty miles from where they lived. Dale said that they all cried because Rover was like family.
Summer came and then the following winter. They were in the house, and it was cold and snowing. They heard a sound at the door. It was Rover. He had made it home. It was also Christmas Eve. Dale said they were so happy to have him back home.
Dale said a winter and a summer went by, and Rover began to get irritable. His dad told them that Rover just had to go. They all cried again. The same fellow took him again and found a home for him outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Another summer and winter passed by, but again on a cold, snowy night they heard a scratching at the door. It was Christmas Eve, and there stood Rover. Dale said it was a happy family that welcomed Rover back home.
This went on for a year or so and Rover began to get irritable again. Dale’s dad once again said that Rover had to go. This time the same trader took him to Washington Courthouse, Ohio, and found a home for him. They all cried again knowing that they would never see Rover again. Rover was gone a couple of years, and they all thought for sure that he was really gone. Dale said that on a snowy evening they were all sitting around the stove in the store when they heard the first scratch on the door. At first they thought it was a tree limb or something, but they heard it again. They opened the door, and Rover fell inside. It was Christmas Eve! Dale said that Rover was in a bad shape. His dad picked up Rover in his arms and carried him over to the stove. His dad was crying as he laid him on his overall jacket. He cut some bologna off to feed him, but Rover was just too tired to eat. His dad said, “Rover, you will never leave again.” Rover got better. Dale said that was the first time he had ever seen his dad cry.
Dale lost his dad in a few years. His dad was only forty-nine years old. Dale said Rover lived to be old, and when he died, Rover got the royal treatment. They didn’t just put him in the dirt. They made a box, lined the box, and gently put Rover in it. He was buried beside the garden, and they made him a headstone for his grave.
Dale said that people had asked him if he thought there would be animals in heaven. He said that he told them if there weren’t any animals in heaven, there wouldn’t be any people there either. He said, “If anybody went to heaven, Rover was there. How did Rover know it was Christmas Eve?” Dale then said that a dog truly was man’s best friend.
Dale is in heaven now. I’m sure his questions have been answered as he roams heaven reunited with his dog Rover.
During the lean years of the depression, everyone wanted nice things and pretty things, but only a few could afford that luxury. A person had to be very resourceful to obtain them. There was a young man on the Ohio River Road who always wanted a suit of clothes. At the time most young men wanted a “blue serge suit” and” patent leather slippers.” His family couldn’t afford to buy him a suit. He thought and thought about how he might obtain himself a new suit of clothes. The longing for this suit was almost more than he could bear.
He knew where all the men in the neighborhood kept their moonshine whiskey. His mind was working like a “mouse trap.” He slipped around and stole moonshine from all their bottles. He then bottled it into little medicine bottles that his mother had collected. He then walked down to the Dutch Inn on Route 2 and sold the bottles of whiskey for one dollar each. He then walked down to Twentieth Street to Dudley’s Department Store and bought himself a suit for nineteen dollars.
He said his mother kept asking him where he got the money for the suit. He said I finally told her to check her little medicine bottles.
I am a senior. What does
senior
mean? Let’s see. The dictionary says “older,” “higher in rank,” “a person who is older than another,” and “doublet of sire,” –whatever that means.
When did “rank”
tell us to spend for entertainment two hours in the doctor’s office just to receive another pill? Does “older”
make it smart to sit in a chair watching television for three or four hours? Does “senior” tell us not to move to help someone in need? Does “higher in rank”
tell us not to dance in the grass?
One of my friends talks about her pills as if they are personal friends. I wonder if she has tea with Mr. Altace, lunch with Mrs. Lovaza, or dinner with Mr. Glucophage.
Do you ever wonder where these pills go? Do fifteen pills have a special route they travel to help us? Suppose we trace the pills. Does one go to the brain that tells us to sleep till noon? One pill is for blood pressure, one for diabetes, one for arthritis, one to make us happy, one to increase appetite, one to decrease appetite, one to calm us down, and one to rev us up. And there is the little white pill to make us pain free. That’s eleven pills. Where do the other four go? Maybe they just lie there ready to pounce where needed! I’m not being sarcastic. I’m a “senior” and an old retired nurse. I know all about the problems. I would just like to know the destination of those four pills.
Suppose I take a walk, maybe lose a few pounds, eat my vegetables, drink more water, do a little volunteering, try getting up at eight o’clock, or trying a little yoga. Maybe my feet will not be so numb. Perhaps I will not need those pills. Since I have “rank” I want to get everything that’s coming to me.
I think I shall go dance in the woods. My friends ask me why I dance in the woods. I explain it’s like this. No one can see me, and I can hug a tree or two.
Decoration Day was a day to show respect for the old ones of the family. The dead ones knew and waited for their flowers. If there were no flowers, the neighbors might tell of the disgrace.
My mother always walked to Union Ridge Cemetery carrying a gallon jug of water and fresh flowers. The flowers always had to be fresh. No artificial flowers went on my family’s graves! Only poor people put artificial flowers on graves. Some people made their flowers out of crepe paper coated with wax with wire covered with crepe paper for stems. These were usually white roses. I thought they were pretty. These were punched down into the dirt and scattered over the graves like “guardian angels.”
I don’t know how anyone could be poorer than we were! We usually had roses, and irises to decorate with. These plants had been growing in our yard for fifty years. Their cut blooms were put in a quart jar with fresh water and placed on graves. They were probably dead the next day.
Woe to your family if you had a sunken grave! Didn’t people realize that the dead knew they were being neglected? That was so disgraceful! People hurried to fill their graves with anything they could find.
People came from miles away to decorate their graves. They usually brought food with them. This was a time of visitation. They usually spent most of the day eating, visiting, and catching up on all the news since grave decoration only happened once a year.
In the evening after the work was done, we all went about our own thing. This particular evening we begged our brother Eb to make us some taffy. This was not hard to do since Eb always liked to cook. We always had sorghum molasses. We made it from the cane on the farm. It was mostly the only sugar we had.
Eb put the sorghum on to cook, and it didn’t take long for the brown syrup to boil. The delicious smell of the golden brew filled the kitchen. After it had cooked to the right consistency, Eb took it from the stove and added soda. After it had cooled so that he could handle it, he added flour and began to move it around. He pulled it up several times and began to form a rope. He pulled it up and handed the end to me. We quickly pulled it back and forth, back and forth, and over and over. My brother Arnold wanted his turn. Back and forth they went.
I asked if I might have some of the mixture to make something different. They usually just pulled it out, cut it in short pieces, and then put it on a plate to harden. He saved me a portion, and I put it in a bowl until I could decide what I wanted to do with it. I had always wanted a ginger bread boy. I had seen them, but I had never had one. I decided I would make a taffy lady. I poured the mixture out on the oil cloth table cover after having put some flour underneath it. I began to plan my lady. I wanted her to have arms and legs. After I had made her head and body, I started to make her arms. She was sticky, and so I had to put lots of flour on her. But I finally patted out her arms and legs. By this time everyone had gotten interested. I thought, “What can I use for hair?” I wanted to use cotton, but Werner suggested I use cocoa with a drop of water. We made brown hair, and I used raisins for eyes and a clear blue pebble for a nose. Also, a cut-out mouth from a magazine pressed on the taffy looked good. When I blew the flour off of her, I thought she was lovely.
I checked on my lady before I went to bed. She seemed a little large, but she looked fine. I went off to bed. The next morning I awakened early and hurried into the kitchen to see my lady. Low and behold, through the night she had melted from the heat and moisture! One arm had partially melted and run around the sugar bowl. Her legs were hanging over the table in pieces. Her head had melted into a puddle. I started to cry. Mom had gotten up by this time, and I said,” Mom, look at my lady.” She patted me on the head and said, “Well, let’s get this mess cleaned up so we can have breakfast.”
“
Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.”
Sam Walters Foss
It’s a strange thing about old tales, superstitions, and sayings we had here in the hills. As a child I had trouble sleeping because there were so many snake stories. There was always a snake staring at me from the dark with green eyes. There was Satan in the garden in a snakeskin. We were told that the black snakes sucked the eggs from the chicken house and also sucked the cows. There was always the blue viper that charmed you so that you couldn’t move. The copperhead always smelled like cucumbers. I was always sniffing the air for copperheads. There was also the blowing viper which could outrace the sun. Besides the snake stories, there was the lore of the fields and woods. For example, we were told that weasels killed to suck the blood of their prey and that a red squirrel would eat the privates from a grey squirrel.
We also received a long list of warnings—the “do not” list. Do not play with toads because they will wet on you, causing you to have warts. I had two warts on my finger. Someone was always saying, “You’ve been playing with toads.” This would make me furious. Someone told me I could sell the warts for a nickel. We were warned to never kill a ladybug or our house would burn down or to never kill a news bee or we would get bad news. We were to never sleep in the light of the full moon or we would go mad. We shouldn’t drop a dish cloth unless we wanted company. If a dog barked in the night, someone would die. There was always the mad dog scare in the summer. We were also warned about turtles. If one bit you, he wouldn’t let loose until the sun went down.
Of course, we had our cures for everything. There was stump water for flea bites and sores. If a cow wouldn’t give her milk down, you should sprinkle salt and pepper on her tail. If you made a tea out of sheep stool, it would break out the measles. For foot pain, put a bar of soap in your bed close to your feet . Wear a bag of asafetida around your neck to ward off measles, whooping cough, and other diseases (if the odor didn’t kill you first). Peppermint candy and water would give you strength. Two or three drops of turpentine in sugar would kill abdominal worms. These are just a few; there were many more.
My dear neighbor Rilda Martin lived out the lane from me. She used to tell me a tale and then she would say, “That’s an old ‘eddered’ saying. I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
Following are a few of our old “eddered” sayings:
He ain’t got sense enough to pour sand in a rat hole.
He’s as dumb as a box of rocks.
That’s as handy as a pocket in a shirt.
You’re as slow as the seven-year itch, seven years behind “scratchin.”
Stingy? Why, that fellow’s so tight he’d skin a flea for the tallow.
He’s as useless as teats on a boar hog.
There never was a lane that didn’t have a turn in.
He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks.
Money? Why he’s got money enough to burn a wet mule.
The only way you could become a bigger liar is you’d have to put on weight.