fiction

Two Roads Part 5

img_1668

Image pulled from internet

Though Neeley’s marriage to Eddie did not start with love, they were good people who needed each other.  Both considered themselves damaged goods.  Neeley got a home and a father for her child, Eddie, a wife and mother for his young daughter.  They both had healthy appetites for life and love which made for a solid marriage.  Neeley loved little Clara Bea from the start, knowing how abandonment felt.  Both got a better deal than they expected.  During those days, divorce was almost unheard of.  Eddie had despaired of finding a decent woman to marry after his wife abandoned him.  He’d never even thought of approaching a young woman since she’d left.  It was remarkable that Neeley was the child of a divorcee who married a divorced man at a time when most people had never even met a divorced person, much less have a close link to two.

Since there was no whisper of Neeley’s liason with Joey, it was assumed Neeley was a foolish young girl who’d fallen for an older fellow.  Though it made for interesting gossip, it was not a real scandal since he’d made an honest woman of her.  Then, as so often through life, society felt the woman fell short, not the man.

In the Deep South of that time, a great majority of people still made their living as farmers.  Large landowners with sharecroppers or tenants were on the top of the heap. Small farm owners came next. About the least a man could support his family on was forty acres.  He had to have a mule and equipment. The rental farm included a house.  He most likely had to borrow money for planting and had debt at the grocery store most of the time and just scraped by.  Should they fall on hard times and not be able to maintain their credit, their only option might be to become a sharecropper.  Sharecroppers were set up by landowners and split the crop with owner.  It was often unfair and kept farmers in debt.  Many had to sneak off in the night when debt got too high.  Sharecropping kept farmers bound to place.

Eddie owned a small farm and had very little money long before The Great Depression.  They raised most of what they needed.  Along with their garden, they had a cow, hogs, and a flock of chickens and cultivated a few acres of cotton for cash.  The occasional sale of a hog and Neeley’s butter and egg money helped out.  All they really had to buy was coal oil for their lamps, coffee, sugar, flour, baking soda, a few clothes for Eddie, and shoes.  Women’s and girl’s clothes came from feed sacks.  Flour sacks were reincarnated as underwear.  Their’s was a subsistence life, not by choice.  It was the life Neeley was raised to expect.

 

 

 

Two Roads Part 4

img_1662Image pulled from Internet
In her loneliness, Neeley was an easy mark.  Aunt Lottie kept her close to home.  Awkward about her imposing height and girth, she wasn’t surprised no one had come courting. In her feed-sack dresses and straight, chopped off hair, she’d never expected to be admired. Boys liked dainty little girls with curly hair and nice clothes.  She felt like a work horse in a field of thoroughbreds.  Saturday night, when she was allowed to attend a Holness Tent Revival with her cousins Louise and Bertha, she was embarrassed when a fellow kept staring at her.  Her cheeks burned, and she looked away whenever they made eye contact, fearing he ‘d ridicule her, given the chance.  Though she did nothing to encourage him, he found his way to her after meeting.

“Howdy, pretty girl.  Can I walk you home?”  He asked.

She answered without thinking.  “No, sir.  Aunt Lottie don’t allow me no callers.  She’d tan my hide if I asked.”

“Now, how’s she gonna know?  It’s a long, dark walk home.  Ain’t you an’ these gals together?  My buddies wants company, too.  Who’s gonna know if we walk all of you gals home together?  You shore ain’t gonna tell off on each other, are you?”  Her cousins Bertha and Louise stood giggling at her side.  Obviously, they were delighted by the offer.  “How ’bout it, girls?”

The three girls held a giggling conference, deciding to give the boys a chance.

Neeley fell hard for Joey, agreeing to meet him the next night, and the next, and the next.  He’d come to help with the harvest at his Uncle George’s farm.  To hear him tell it, Uncle George was doing poorly, not likely to make it for long.  He thought so much of Joe, he was gonna leave the place to him.  Joe was gonna be well-set up.  Him and Neeley could have a good life, if he was sure she loved him.  He couldn’t marry no girl without her loving him.  Neeley sure loved him.

Three months later, the curse had passed her by and Neeley needed a husband.  Joe was long gone.  There was no Uncle George, nor farm.  When she told her cousins, they begged Neeley not to tell of their part in her story.  They’d both escaped her fate.    Lottie would have beaten them half to death if she found out what they’d been up to.

When her condition was obvious, Aunt Lottie took after her with a broom, maybe hoping she’d beat the baby out of her.  When Uncle Jep got home and found Neeley brutalized, he threatened Lottie if he laid another hand on her and set off to see his friend and neighbor, Eddie.  Eddie had a small daughter and needed a wife.

Two Roads Part 3

It is questionable whether Aunt Lottie was really mean or just a harried woman with a houseful near to bursting when she had to take responsibility for Neeley.  It couldn’t have been an easy time for her, Uncle Jep or the grieving child.  Having Uncle Jep take Neeley’s side against her, hardened Aunt Lottie further.  She often hissed at her, “I’ll tend to you later!”

Neeley’s attempts to avoid Aunt Lottie were hopeless since she had to work along side her while enduring jabs about “yore sorry mama.”  While living with Ma,she never gave Cassie a lot of thought, but now the oppressive shadow of Aunt Lottie’s contempt for her mother was a heavy burden for a young child.  It was very confusing to mourn Ma knowing she had a mother “out there somewhere.”  Why didn’t she live with her mother?  Uncle Jep changed the subject when she asked him.

Cassie took Neeley for a few weeks or months when she had a stable home.  She’d remarried and had two boys, so Neeley did get to spend some time with her mother and two young brothers.  These times meant the world to Neeley since her attention-hungry little brothers adored her.  On her arrival, her mother showered her with love and affection before eventually succumbing to a mood swing and becoming neglectful of herself and the children.  Eventually, there would be a violent fight with her husband and the children would be dispatched to various relatives with a domestic split.  Neeley always landed back at Uncle Jep’s, the odd child out once again.

Neeley was becoming a young Amazon, over six feet tall and powerfully built.  With the hard life she faced, she’d need her strength to be able to hold her own.  Neeley never spent enough time in school to be a good student. At the age of sixteen, she realized she was pregnant.  No knight in shining armor showed up to marry her.  Soon after her baby was born, she married Eddie Malone, a twenty-six-year-old divorced man who was a friend of Uncle Jep.  Love was never mentioned, but there was the promise of a home.  She hadn’t had a home since she was nine.

 

 

Two Roads Part 2

On the last day of her old life, Ma sent nine-year-old Neeley to the store with some butter and eggs to trade for baking soda and needles. As she left the store with her penny candy and Ma’s things, she saw smoke hanging over the trees.  To her horror, when she topped the ridge, flames were leaping in the field between their house and Uncle Jep’s.  She fairly flew the last few hundred yards, calling for Ma at the top of her lungs.  Tearing into the front room, she found Ma slumped in the rocker, her arm hanging limp at her side with spittle running out the corner of her mouth.  She shook Ma, then pulled her arm with no response.  Desperate to rouse Ma for escape, she dashed her with a dipper full of water.   Ma didn’t wake up!

Threatened by the approaching fire, she realized she had to get Uncle Jep.  Racing barefoot toward his house, she skirted the actively burning areas, arriving to find him and Aunt Lottie gone.  Desperately, she headed toward the nearest neighbor’s place, only to meet neighbors rushing to help put out the fire.  Crying, she told them of Ma’s troubles.  Most went on to fight the fire, but Mr. Jones and Mr. Bilieu went to check on Ma.  Mr. Bilieu took Neeley to his house for his wife to tend her burned feet.  They got Dr Crisp out to see Ma.  He came later to check on Neeley bringing sad news.  Ma was dead.

Uncle Jep came for her. She had to deal with the agony of her burned feet along with the greater pain of losing Ma and her home.  Uncle Jep loved and welcomed her, but Aunt Lottie had the burden of her care.  The overworked mother of four was quick with the switch and criticism.  It was not an easy transition for the grieving girl going from darling grandchild to “another mouth to feed.”  The farm wife already had more work and worry than she could handle before Neeley was foisted on her.  It was not a good situation for any of them.

 

Hard Time Marrying Finale

img_1641The stocky little woman leaned on her cane as she picked her way gingerly toward the graves under the mesquites. She lay a few wildflowers on three rock-covered graves, one unmarked, one marked for Joe, and a third for their boy, Johnny.  “I’ll be here sleeping beside you soon’s I can, Joe.  I’m tired and the folks can get by easy without me now.”  She thought back on the last eight years since Joe collapsed one morning at his milking.  They’d had more than forty years and six children together.  It wasn’t enough.

Little Joe had married and stayed on to farm with Joe.  The cabin had become a seven room house over the years, filled first with their children, then Little Joe’s.  Sally had married a a farmer and lived on the next section. She was so sweet, Anya couldn’t help being partial to her.   Rose Anya had taught school till she married a storekeeper in Talphus.  Her boy Jules was a preacher.  Rose Anya had wanted her mother to come live with her in town after her pa died, but Anya couldn’t bear to leave the farm.  Betsy come along just a year after Sally and married Emma’s grandson, making them truly family.  The twins didn’t come along for five years.  One of them farmed the hundred sixty acres Joe bought a few years after they married and the other was a lawyer in Dallas.  He didn’t get home but a couple of times a year. Johnny, the one they lost came when she thought she was past child-bearing had struggled to breathe for three long days. Losing him nearly killed Joe.

Anya’s mind was fuzzy and she lived more in the past than present.  It pained her knowing all she was good for was rocking babies, stringing beans, and peeling potatoes, though Joe’s wife, Mary, tried to fool her into thinking she was useful. Whenever she could, she slipped out to talk to her Joe.

As she stood talking to Joe, Mary caught up with her.  “Mama, you had me worried to death.  I didn’t know where you’d got off to.  It’s blazing hot out here. Come out of the sun and let me git you a drink.”

“Joe’s gonna be in for supper at four.  I better git in and make him some biscuits.  He always did love my biscuits.” Anya told Mary.

“You don’t have to get started just yet.  Let’s get you a cool drink.” Mary said, leading Anya to a rocker in the shade of the porch.  “Just sit here and cool off and I’ll be right back with your drink.”

” I git so tired of her fussing.” Anya said to Mary’s big backside, watching her head for the kitchen. In no time at all she was nodding.

“Anya girl, ain’t you gonna cook me no supper?” Joe laughed as he touched her shoulder.  He looked as he did when she first knew him, well-muscled and lean with a full head of hair.

“Oh no! I ain’t even started!  You are early.” Anya told him.

“I’d say I’m right on time.  Come on along with me. You need to see what me and Johnny’s been doin’ over here.” The years fell away as Anya took his hand and stepped lively as a girl, her fine blonde hair feathered by the gentle breeze.

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 30

 

Mary Elizabeth Perkins and Roscoe Gordon Holdaway Wedding Pictu

My grandparent’s wedding picture, though this is not their story.  I am posting an extra story today as an early Christmas gift.

 

The situation Joe had most dreaded had come to a head at Anya’s most vulnerable time.  Making a run for it with two little ones and a newborn would be futile.  He’d just have to face this situation straight on.  No one was going to hurt Anya and rip his family apart after they’d struggled so hard to be together. 

Seeing Anya’s joy in Rose Anya was bittersweet, knowing what he’d have to tell her, but he could let her have this day unmarred.  Emma had left a pot of soup bubbling on the hearth.  Joe decided to do nothing but necessary chores and store up the joy of this day.  When Anya wasn’t holding Rose Anya, he was.  The little ones played happily in the warmth of family.

Joe didn’t allow himself to think of the preacher and sheriff’s impending visit.  The sheriff didn’t wait a few days, just showed up with the preacher the next morning, probably to avoid the problem of having to pursue them.  Joe greeted them gruffly.  The sheriff was a definite threat, and Joe had never known kindness, only judgment from church folk.

“I know why you are here.  I ain’t gonna let you make trouble for us.  My wife just gave birth to an early baby and she ain’t strong

“We need to talk to her.  I just need the preacher to say if she’s the same woman you married.  We won’t take much of your time.” The sheriff stood his ground.

 The preacher rocked back and forth with his hands clasped behind him.  “Lord knows we hate to bother you, but the sheriff says this has got to be done.  I’d be obliged if we could get it over with so I can get back to town.  I got a couple that wants marrying.”

Grudgingly, Joe showed them in.  “Anya, this here is the sheriff and the preacher what married us.  I know you remember him, even though you was so sick.”

Anya’s eyes widened in fear, taking the situation in.  “Why shore I do.  A woman don’t fergit her weddin’.  Welcome preacher.  I cain’t git up cause I’m nursing my baby.  She’s a mite early an’ I don’t want to jostle her.  She ain’t strong an’ needs to nurse.”

“Why shore, Ma’am.  Good to see you again.  That baby is a tiny little thing.  I wouldn’t want to unsettle her. It’s good to see things working out so good for you.”  Anya took heart from his kind words.

The sheriff took his cue.  “Ma’am, I’m sorry I had to bother you, but I needed to git the preacher to identify you.  I am glad ever’thing worked out so good.  Joe, you take care of this fine woman an’ that purty, little baby.  I got to be going.”

“Sheriff, if you can wait a few minutes, this little one needs christening.  It’s a long trip to town an’ I can git the job done as long as I’m here,” the preacher addressed the sheriff.

“Why shore.  I’ll just wait outside.” He left them alone. 

The preacher faced Joe and Anya.  “I don’t know how I done it, but I realized after y’all left that night I never gave you a certificate.   I’d like to marry you again an’ make sure ever’thing’s right before I christen that baby if that’s alright with you. I disremember the date, but you can help with that. Then we can git that little feller taken care of.  The Lord wouldn’t want me to leave a job half-done.”

A giant load was lifted off Joe’s heart.

Hard Time Marrying Part 29

Early the next morning, Rufus rattled up in the wagon with the children just as Emma’s biscuits in the Dutch Oven browned.  Sally was ecstatic about her new sister, but Little Joe wanted a puppy.  “Well, if you are a good boy, maybe we can git you one of Fred Mason’s brown and white puppies, unless you decide you want another sister.” Joe teased.

” No, no.  I want a puppy.” Little Joe insisted.

Joe brought Anya a plate of gravy and biscuits and a glass of milk.  “Now you eat all of this. You got to feed that baby.”

“I ain’t never et this much.  You must think Rose Anya is a baby pig.”  Emma and Rufus chuckled at the happy couple.

They lingered long over coffee while the children played and Anya nursed the baby. While Emma tidied up, Rufus asked if Joe had a part he needed for his windmill.  Once they were out of earshot, Rufus passed some news on to Joe.  “You remember my boy, Melvin, come up on that peddler somebody knocked in the head.  The sheriff come by late yesterday asking some questions.  A feller come to Talco saying his brother was supposed to meet him in Amarillo and never showed up.  A couple of fellers told him they’d seen had seen him with a blonde woman west of Talco.  The sheriff was asking me if I knowed of a blonde woman that showed up around here lately.  I told him I didn’t know of none that was unaccounted for.  He asked about Anya an’ I told him you wrote off for her and picked her and the kids at the train station and married her before you left town that night.  The preacher told him that was the way it happened.  He said he might want to come talk to y’all, anyhow.  I told him Emma was over helpin’ Anya birth her baby right then and he said he’d wait a few days before stopping by.  I just thought you ought to know.”

Joe felt a chill.  “I ‘preciate you letting me know.  It happened just like you said.  I don’t want him bothering Anya, none.  That there preacher can vouch I picked her and the kids up at the train and married her before I brung her home.  I still got the letter I wrote asking her to come.  It ought not to be no problem.”

 

 

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 27

About three weeks later Anya awoke to a back ache.  It got worse as the morning drew on till she suddenly wet herself.  She was mortified, though she’d gotten used the increased demands pregnancy put on her bladder.  As she corralled Sally and set about cleaning herself up, labor pains began in earnest.  Anya knew little about birth except what she’d seen from her step-mother and from life on the farm, but she knew she’d better get help.  Joe and Little Joe were working in a far-off field, so she started a fire and loaded it with pine straw so it would make an impressive smoke to signal him home.  Home in minutes, he found Anya with her pains regular and about twenty minutes apart.  Hitching up the wagon and loading the children, he kissed Anya and warned her.  “Stay in the cabin near the bed.  I’ll be back with Emma quick as I can.  Git up an’ walk if you have to, but don’t leave the cabin.”  The horse trotted across the prairie, bouncing the kids Joe had taken time to tie in the wagon bed.  Over the next two hours, Anya’s pain increased in frequency and intensity.  Just as she feared the baby would come into the world unattended, Joe showed up with Emma.  Within minutes, Emma handed a baby girl off to Joe, waiting behind her with a warmed blanket.  “This baby ain’t big as a minute, but she’s purty like her mama.”

Joe held the baby close as his eyes filled with tears.  Moments later, Emma took the child and helped Anya put her to the breast. He looked from the tiny girl to the woman he loved.  “Our first baby. I ain’t never felt so fine. Thank you, Anya.”

Anya wept, feeling her life had finally begun.

Hard Time Marrying Part 26

img_1626

Image pulled from internet

Though Anya had initially invited Joe into her bed out of gratitude, over the next months  she learned to love him passionately, looking forward to their time together in the rope bed.  Neither of them had a lot to say, but the little family thrived.  Sally had gone from toddling to running and was speaking in short sentences.  Little Joe now called them “Ma”  and “Pa,” likely forgetting the poor woman who’d born him.  Anya was the only one Sally had ever called “Ma.”

Joe and Anya traded visits with Emma and Rufus a couple of times over the summer with Emma promising to attend her baby’s birth.  Anya came to depend on her like a mother, taking comfort in her company, grateful she didn’t have to feel awkward about the timing of the upcoming birth.  Emma never brought the subject up again, just reminded Anya to have Joe fetch her when he time came.

One Saturday evening Melvin came riding over to let them know he’d be marrying Jenny in a couple of weeks.  Emma sent word they should come to the wedding.  Joe told Melvin they’d try if Anya was up to it, but as soon as he was out of earshot, reminded Anya.  “We got to lay low.  It was night and the woman was bundled up against the cold, but that preacher might see  you ain’t the woman I married.  There ought’n to be no questions about you long as that preacher don’t git to nosin’ around.  Nobody else was there for the marryin’. We’ll just say you ain’t well an’ keep to the house.”  Joe didn’t think much of preachers and was rankled that this one stood between him and Anya.

It pained Anya to shun her friend’s joy, but knew they dared not risk discovery.  She’d been lulled into a sense of general well-being with her life with Joe and pregnancy hormones.  She had begun to look forward to the little one, hoping it would be a girl who looked like her own baby sister.  Joe lay spooned against her at night, often stroking her belly in his sleep as he nuzzled her shoulder.  Anya wouldn’t have changed anything about her life.

Joe looked around the small cabin the next morning.  “We’re gonna be spllin’ out of this cabin son.  Next spring, I’m gonna put in a few acres of grain for a cash crop so we can add on a room an’ maybe get you a cook-stove.  A woman that cooks like you  ought’a have her a stove.  Joe scooped Sally up and tickled her as she darted by in pursuit of her kitten.”  Life was good.

 

.