Day: April 20, 2025

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Rubbernecking Duckie

Rubberneck 1Rubberneck 2Original art by Kathleen Holdaway Swain

We endured periodic visits from Mother’s bizarre  relatives, Cookie and Uncle Riley. Whether or not they were actually deranged was debatable, they definitely teetered somewhere between eccentric and maddening. Most people who had to interact with them on a regular basis held out for just plain crazy. Both held Master’s Degrees, Cookie’s in Education and Uncle Riley’s in Mathematics. Cookie was head of a large public school system in Texas. Uncle Riley worked for the government as a mathematician in the 1950’s. I won’t press that any further, except to say that somehow, they miraculously collided and produced Cousin Barbie, The Wonder Baby. On their way to an Easter visit in 1957, Cookie and Uncle Riley made a few stops.

 

I digress, but needed to set the scene for their visit. Because my mother had married a blue-collar worker, a man they considered “beneath her” and had three children, Cookie and Uncle Riley held the impression that my parents ran an orphanage and would be grateful for any gift of apparel, no matter how useless they might drag in. This particular trip, they came bearing refuse from a fire sale: ten pairs of boys black high top basketball shoes in a wide range of sizes, six identical but slightly singed, size eight, red and green sateen dresses trimmed with black velvet collars and waist bands, six dozen pairs of size two cotton satin-striped Toddler Training Pants, and three six-packs of men’s silk dress socks in a nude tone, a color I’d never seen anyone wear. In addition to these useless prizes, they’d stopped by a fruit stand and gotten a great deal on a box of fifty pounds of bruised bananas and an Easter duck for Barbie. By the time they’d reached our house many hours later, four-year-old Barbie, Easter Duck, and Bosco Dog had romped in the back seat and pretty much-made soup of the bananas. Fruit flies circled the old black 1943 Ford merrily as it rocked to a stop. Uncle Riley, the mathematician, anticipating breakdowns didn’t believe in wasting money on new car parts. He always carried a collection of parts extracted from a junker in his back yard to keep his old clunker running. He also split the back of his old jeans and laced them up with shoe strings when they got too tight, but that’s s story for another day.

 

I know Mother must have dreaded their visit, with its never-ending pandemonium, especially since for some reason, the only thing they shared with Daddy was a healthy contempt and barely concealed animosity for each other. The five of us kids were always delighted to see them, in spite of their bizarre offerings. One pair of the smoky-smelling shoes did fit my brother, but shredded in a few steps, due to its proximity to the fire. The dresses were put back for “Sunday Best,” Thank God, never to be seen again, since neither of us girls was a size eight, nor was partial to singed, scratchy dresses. Fortunately, for my parents, at the moment, they had no size two toddlers for the training pants, though they did manage to come up with a couple just a few years later. Easter Duck, however, deeply interested four-year-old Billy.

 

Sensing misfortune in his future, Mother tried to run interference for Easter Duck, fearing for his health. For some reason she was distracted by the madness of intervening between Daddy and her whacked-out relatives, getting dinner ready for the whole crowd, dealing with out-of-control kids, and finding places to bed everyone down for the night. Not surprisingly, her concerns for Easter Duck were pushed to the bottom of the list. Never having been deprived of anything she wanted, ever, Barbie had no intention of being parted with Easter Duck. Billy needed a better look, and having had plenty of experience dealing with mean kids, patiently waited for his chance. Forgetting Easter Duck, Mother and Cookie went back to their visit, leaving the two four-year-olds to play. As you might expect, before long, they heard the screaming. Barbie held poor Easter Duck by his head; Billy had him by the feet. Between them, they had stretched the poor duck’s neck way past anything God ever intended, even for a swan. Neither exhibited the Wisdom of Solomon and was determined to maintain possession, at all costs. Poor Easter Duck paid the price! Though he was rescued, sadly his neck was not elastic and did not “snap back.” He didn’t get to spend the Easter holidays with his new friends, Barbie and Billy.

 

 

Andrew and Molly Part 12

vincent_van_gogh_-_mourning_woman

Vincent Van Gogh’s Mourning Woman

Molly shrieked Andrew’s name, hoping he’d come out of hiding, till Aggie coolly took control, quickly aware of the danger to them all.  “Quiet yourself, woman!  Go for Master Wharton.  You may bring them down on us!  We must tend the one at hand and let the men seek the others.”

Terrified, Molly raced for the cabin rousing Master Wharton to the calamity.  He was dealing with a neighbor who raced for reinforcements among the other settlers.  It had only been a brief twenty years since the Jamestown Massacre and there had been trouble several times recently.  Master Wharton and a party of twenty or followed a trail into the woods.   From broken branches, it was clear someone was being dragged.  Other women joined Aggie and Molly, helping get Bartles into the cabin.

Though he’d lost blood and was in shock from scalping and  other grave injuries, he was able to confirm they’d been attacked by Indians.  With that, he slipped into unconsciousness, unable to give any word of the other men.  Aggie  covered his head wound with a poultice bandage and treated him the best she could with herbal remedies.  He lingered between life and death for days.  When he finally roused, he remembered nothing about the incident.

The men were gone through the night while the two wives tended Bartles.  Fearing attack, the other women returned to the enclosure of the settlement, promising to return the next day with supplies and medicine.  Toward morning, the party returned with Benjamin White, barely alive, suffering from broken ribs and broken legs and arms.  The Indians had no doubt intended him for slavery, but apparently when he couldn’t keep up, they’d broken his legs, kicked in his ribs and left him for dead.  He’d also been scalped and could tell them nothing. The women and the injured returned to the safety of the settlement while the injured men fought for their lives.  Amazingly, Bartles, the older, recovered while the younger man who’d languished in the woods for hours perished from a suppurating head wound and fever.

Naturally, the colonists were terrified of a return to hostilities and remained cloistered together for days.  Molly was wild with grief at Andrew’s abduction, but held a little hope he’d survived and might somehow escape to return to her, though the hope dwindled day by day.  She’d heard enough tales to be aware he might have already been slaughtered or was enslaved at the very least.  If he didn’t manage to get away soon, he’d not likely survive long.

After the initial terror, life had to go on.  Crops had to be worked, animals tended, and work donei.  The settlement could not support the influx of outsiders for long, so they returned to their homes and lives.  Molly stayed with Aggie and Bartles in their tiny cabin to help tend Bartles during the night for a time, returning to her duties during the day.  She repaired to the barn room left vacant by Benjamin’s death as soon as Aggie could spare her, not wanting to share a cabin with Master Wharton.  A bondswoman could easily to fall into trouble that would continue her servitude.

Molly moved through her days woodenly, lost in her grief.  At first, she tried to imagine scenarios where Andrew escaped and would be returning to her.  In her dreams, he held her in his arms as they counted off the days till they’d be free with their own land, just as he’d always done.  They’d have a fine farm, extend their acreage, engage servants of their own, and have many strong sons and sweet daughters to share their lives.  They’d looked forward to growing old surrounded by loving family.  She was always devastated to awake to the reality of continuing a life of servitude alone.   Through gossip, she even learned that Master Wharton could compel her to complete Andrew’s contract when she finished her own.  The possibility of six more years faced her.  In her fear, she avoided any conversation about her future situation with Master Wharton.  She prayed he’d continue to treat her kindly, but understood he’d have to acquire a new bondsman or couple.  He’d lost two workers.  Where would that leave her?  The barn room would be needed if he only engaged a man.  Should he engage a couple and a single man, he might sell the remainder of her time to another.  God only knew what a new master might demand.  There weren’t many single women in the colony.  A woman was in danger of being abused then punished should she fall pregnant.  The best she could hope was that a fair man would buy her time and offer her marriage.  The thought of her future was terrifying.