Authors: Justine Felix Rutherford
Everything had to be dusted, scrubbed, and sun-dried. The inside of the house was scrubbed and cleaned including the floor. We had no carpeting. Perhaps the labor wasn’t as heavy as it now seems to me. We
only
had to drag out the wooden and iron beds and the cabinets. These cabinets had to be dragged outside only after everything had been removed from them. Even the feather and straw ticks from the beds were taken outside, dusted, and fluffed. The iron stove from the living room had to be carried outside to a building for the summer. The day was a flurry of activity with hot soapsuds and drying sun.
The first thing Mom did was to take her hammer and screwdriver and take apart all the slats and springs from the wooden and iron beds, The yard would get covered with feather ticks and straw ticks, and a maze of wood and striped ticking scattered in confused tangles all over the yard. Curtain and washed clothing hung on the line to dry.
The cleaning would begin inside with buckets of hot water from the water tank and buckets of cold water for rinsing. Mom put in handfuls of her homemade soap made from hog lard and ash lye. This made a yellow stringy substance and was the very center of the cleaning day. The soap had its own distinct smell. It was not the smell of Dreft or Tide. It was a yellow, chemical, slightly rancid smell from the hog lard. Sometimes I get whiffs of it even today.
There was this ancient routine every fall and spring. Since this was spring, Mom would be cleaning for summer. Every bedstead and spring, every nook and cranny had to be gone over with a turkey feather dipped in turpentine to kill the bedbugs. They were a small, flat, red bug that came out at night and raised havoc. Mom gave that job to me. I carried my can with the turkey feather dipping it into the turpentine, going in and out of every nook and cranny. The job became so boring that I wrote myself a little poem. It went: “Little blood-sucking bug so round and flat—come to the top and I’ll give you a nap.” After this task was done, Mom gave the items a sloshing of hot, soapy water.
We then had our lunch of cold corn bread and milk and began moving everything back into the house. The curtains that were stretched were dry and ready to hang. The kitchen stove had to have a new stovepipe. After a struggle of banging and knocking, the boys managed to get the stovepipe into the hole.
The dragging and huffing started all over again. The beds had to be put back together, their side pieces were knocked together with a hammer, and the slats were laid in place. The straw ticks and then the feather ticks in that order were placed on the slats. Then the beds were made-up. We eventually got everything back in place, and the house smelled so clean and fresh. But all of Mom’s house cleanings did not go as well.
I recall one day in particular. It was about three o’clock on house cleaning day when among all the usual confusion, my sister Julia came in and announced that Preacher Smith was coming for a fried chicken supper. Her words were met with silence. Then everyone started hurrying to get things back into the house. All of us kids ran back and forth with loads of clothes, books, bed chambers, and bed ticks. We finally got everything stowed away.
By four o’clock, the house was pretty well finished. We kids were out in the yard trying to run down the doomed chickens. Mom came out to help us. She selected two young roosters different from the ones we had selected. Around and around we ran after the first one. The rooster, with his big red comb pointing to the sky and taking big steps and squawking loudly, ran in and out among the other chickens. We were jumping other chickens to get to the rooster. Then old red rooster decided to come and join the fun. My brother yelled, “Watch old red. He’ll spur you in the face!” As he came sidling up to me, I grabbed a tobacco stick. I decided to give him a little tap on the head. He fell over on the ground. Mom thought he was dead. She said, ”Well, it’s too late for chicken and dumplings. Grab that young rooster!” I felt really bad since I had only meant to give him a little tap. Then old red began to kick around, got to his feet, and staggered off. He was fine. Finally we cornered the roosters. Both were carried to the chopping block where Mom, with the practiced flash of the axe, made short work of them. Mom flopped them into the scalding water, jerked the feathers off in big handfuls, then lighting some pages from
The Country Gentleman
, she singed them. Then she rushed into the kitchen to gut them, cut them up, roll them in flour, and put the pieces into the frying pan.
Mom was hurrying around, back and forth, in the kitchen. When she lifted the lid on her green beans, they were frying, and she said, “Oh, I’ve burned my beans.” Trying to make her feel better, I said, “Oh, Mom. Preacher Smith is about half blind. He won’t notice the burned beans.” Shooting me a sharp glance, she said, “Don’t talk like that!” By six o’clock she was putting on the table a great platter of golden fried chicken and adding her dishes of mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and a warm blackberry cobbler. As she moved about the table in her clean, starched, feed-sack apron, she seemed, except for slightly flushed cheeks, composed.
She invited Preacher Smith and Dad for supper, apologizing for her burned beans. Preacher Smith said, “Oh, that’s the way I liked my beans—slightly scorched.” We were all pulled up to the table. Dad asked Preacher Smith to say grace. He prayed, “Thank you for our many blessings. Bless this food to the use of our bodies.” Mom sat there with her hands folded and her head bent in prayer. For, as she used to say, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and many hands make work into play.”
Spurlock Creek was interlaced with wagon roads or haul roads as they were called. There were footpaths that wound and sprangled across the fields and into the hills. The pasture fields were covered with cow trails that were used for foot paths. The paths intersected farm fields along fence rows and along the winding creek. All up and down the dirt roads and paths were our kin folk. We were kin to nearly everybody. We all clung together like a bunch of cockleburs. Along these paths grew the wild plum, the papaw, and the persimmon, pear, and nut trees. Every day during the summer we kids spent time under these trees.
Along the creek paths grew the wild plum trees. I can still taste the sweet juicy flavor of a wild plum. In the early dewy mornings, the ground would be covered with these beautiful plums. They were pink with a soft coat of blue covered by a whitish film. When you first bit into it, it would pop. Juice would then run down both sides of your face. After we had eaten our fill, we always had plum battles. During one of our famous battles, Cousin Doc got hit with a plum that got lodged in his ear. We tried to get it out, but we kept pushing it deeper into his ear. After much discussion and consultation among ourselves, we finally dragged him to the creek and pried it out with a piece of wire we had found along the creek. I guess it didn’t hurt him since I never heard him complain about his ears.
We buried Doc (Grandville Spurlock) four years ago. There was a huge crowd at his funeral. Among his many accolades, his pastor told how Doc was always early for church. He said he was always the first to arrive. This brought back memories of us kids who always came early for church. Even then, Doc was always the first one there. I don’t think there were many religious thoughts at this time. We came early to play in the creek that ran by Sunrise Methodist Church. We were a bedraggled bunch by the time services started at 10:00 am. No one wanted to own us, and so we sat in the back. Our parents always threatened us, but they never did anything to punish us. Perhaps at times they would rather have been playing in the creek too!
The persimmon tree grew along the paths in the pasture field. At first before ripening, the persimmons were green-colored shaped like a tiny apple with brown ruffling around the top. If you tried to eat them before they ripened, they would pucker your mouth like a hex. When they were ripe, they were orange colored and shriveled. We sucked the inside pulp out of the skin and spit out the black seeds. I was interested in the little piles of black seeds under the persimmon trees. My brother Werner told me they were opossum poop. When the boys went “possum” hunting, they always visited the persimmon tree.
The pawpaw trees with their beautiful green shiny leaves grew along the cow trails. We put our milk weed babies to sleep wrapped in pawpaw leaves. The pawpaw fruit, before it ripened, grew in green clumps. It grew in size from three to six inches in length and about one and a half to two inches in diameter. Upon ripening, it turned dark on the outside and became soft. This fruit was filled with a yellow filling with black seeds. It tasted somewhat like a banana. I loved to hear the sound of a pawpaw falling. It is heavy and falls with a thud. These fruits never rolled like an apple, and they were easy to grab. I can still see Mom coming home with an apron full of pawpaws.
All of our many paths eventually led to what we called the big road. This road was built by the WPA. Truckloads of rocks were brought in, dumped on the old road, and broken and pounded up by men using sledge hammers. People used to call them the “we piddle around bunch.” The big road ran the length of the valley and then across Golf Hill. There it passed the old mound builders mounds at the bottom of the hill, and then it went to Route 2. This is a place called Clover, which is just above Greenbottom. Several side roads branched out from this road. This road was not hard- topped until 1971.
The farm I was raised on was up a hollow. It was old, very old. It had been owned by other families before us. The farm was surrounded by hills, but there was flat land at the bottom of the hills. The bottoms were divided by water running from the hills at different places. It looked like a hopscotch diagram with a pointed end at the very tip of the hollow. I think there were about sixty-five acres including the hills. My dad and mother raised seven children on and from this land.
Dad rotated the crops and used anything to make fertilizer. The fields were always covered with corn stalks, tobacco stalks, and the cane stalks from the sorghum molasses. All of these made excellent fertilizer. All the manure from the farm animals was put on the garden and on the tobacco fields. Dad was always looking for a new way to expand the farm. He said that new ground raised the best crops but that it was the most difficult to prepare.
After breakfast one morning, Dad turned to me and said, “Sis, you want to go with me this morning? We will take a walk up the hill.” I was always happy to be with my dad. Dad, who was usually silent, was very talkative on this day. He said, “Sis, this is a fine day to locate some new ground.” I agreed with him. As we walked along, he said, “Up here on the flat should be some good dirt.” When we reached a large part of the hill that was flat, he stopped and stooping over, he began to look at the dirt.
I looked over the hill and could see our church. Peeling off my jacket, I set out to explore. Up and down the valley people were moving about. There was my uncle’s farm. My cousins Jenny and Ramona were outside. They waved to me. In my mind I can still hear my dad calling to me saying, “Come see the ground.” As I ran back around the hill, there was Dad down on his knees in the ground sifting the loose loamy dirt between his fingers. Kneeling down beside him, the pungent odor of new ground wafted up toward me. I smelled dirt that had lain for many, many years beneath rotting leaves, worms, and insects. He looked up at me, and the pale blue eyes that before had a weary, tired look now were twinkling at me. Excitedly he held up the dirt in his hands. He said, “Sis, I can clear this land of the small trees and saplings, and it will grow a good crop of tobacco. Or I could grow beans and corn on this flat land and have the flat land in the hollow for tobacco. I can get out the old root jumper plow and plow this up in a few days.” Dad worked for a few days clearing out some small trees and saplings.
The root jumper plow was a necessary evil. No one wanted to use this plow, but if you needed more land, there was no other choice. The plow handles were mostly made from oak. There was a plow blade in front, and in behind the blade was a sharp cutter blade that cut the roots. The plow was rough to handle.
One evening after supper, Werner and I were playing with our old sock ball when Dad said, “You kids get to bed early. I’m “ hitten” the flat tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a nice day.” We were up early. After breakfast, Dad finished harnessing the horses. He stuck a short pole in the plow to make it easy to drag. It was a short distance to the flat. I grabbed a jug of water, and off we went. Werner and I were plodding along behind Dad and the plow. I stuck my foot ever so slightly into Werner’s foot to make him stumble. He had stumbled a couple of times before he knew what I was doing. I was mad at him because he had eaten all the sugar molasses. We very seldom had sugar to spare. We used mostly sorghum, and I was tired of sorghum. I sat the water jug down and said, “Just for that you can carry the water jug.”
When we got to the flat, Dad took the pole out of the plow, got everything situated, and placed the reins around his body. He spoke softly to the horses, and the plow slid into the dirt. We took our drinking water and put it in the shade along with our fish worm box. We thought we could catch some fish worms from the turned ground and could lie on the bank and fish in the evening after supper.
Dad had made a couple of rounds of plowing. I watched as the horses came down the row. When they hit some roots, they pulled mightily together every step. Their great shoulders were straining and their necks were outstretched. The plow was jerking from side to side as Dad labored to control the handles. The roots made a loud popping sound as they were jerked from the ground. Some were more reluctant to let loose from the dirt than others. When the horses came closer, I could see great rolls of white sweat covering their chests and shoulders like froth from the sea.
When Dad reached the end of the row, he brought the horses, as well as himself, under the shade tree to rest. He could make only about two rows before resting the horses. Dad removed his hat and took out a red bandana handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. Sweat trickled down his arms and dripped onto the ground. The wind that was blowing through the trees and through the weeds moved the thinning grey hair on Dad’s head. The wind carried the smells of sassafras roots, sourwood sprouts, and the loamy new ground. I took a deep breath and thought, “Oh, how good the wind feels – just like a breath from Heaven.”