Uncle Andy's sister, Dolly, lied to her husband, Ernie, about her age. She was fifty years old but she told him she was thirty-five and he believed her. He was in the service with no one around to tell him any different. When he was discharged from the service, they packed up and moved back to the hollow. They were only home about three months when someone let it slipped how old Dolly really was, Ernie divorced her. Dolly loved him until the day she died. Ernie got married again within a year after his divorce.
Aunt Hannah lived in an apartment in which she had torn the wall down between two existing apartments to make one large one for her family. Since it’s over a dance hall, the boys have no place to play and Aunt Hannah wants me to keep them outside all the time.
This is how I spent my days: after breakfast, Aunt Hannah would ask me to take the boys outside and keep them until lunch. Then after lunch, they would take a nap (not for very long cause Uncle Andy had a big mouth) and I‘m to take them out again until dinner. I to entertain three boys who are two, three, and four years old with nothing to play with but one swing. I never took any toys outside because I would had to carried them back up fifteen steps. This was not a fun job and I wasn’t very happy.
 |
| Poodie, Steven, Rick and Butch, Dolly's house in background |
Until I met Irene; she and I become fast friends. She was a widow with three children and her husband had just been killed in a mining accident a year earlier. She had a baby who was only eight months old and two girls; five and three. She lived a couple of houses down from Hannah and I would take the boys down to her place so the boys could play with her girls. There was a creek at the end of her row of homes but her yard had a fence around it. One day, I left the boys in the yard and told the oldest, Butch, to watch the other two. As I went into the house, I gave them strict instructions to stay in the yard. Irene was hanging curtains so I helped her; forgetting to check on the boys. When Irene’s girls came into the house, I asked where the boys were. They said they didn’t know. I ran outside, sure enough the yard was empty. Panicking, I searched the yard and surrounding areas but didn’t think to search for them down by the creek. When I couldn’t find them, I thought maybe they went home. I ran up to the apartment and asked Aunt Hannah if the boys came home. She took one look at me and said, “Lord Poodie, if you have lost my boys; I am going to kill you.” I said a quick “No, I know where they are at. Don’t worry I’m going to go and get them back.” I took off running down the steps and back to Irene’s. As I passed by an alley, I saw the boys. They were all soaking wet. I took a hold of Butch to shake and holler at him. He began to cry and said it wasn’t his fault, Rick went down to the creek. Steve and Butch had followed Rick to the creek where Steve fell in. Butch and Steve jumped in save Steve. They were black as a lump of coal from the coal dust that’s in the creek. I had to tell Aunt Hannah what happen as she could see us standing in the alley from her apartment window anyway. She had to throw their clothes they were wearing away; she couldn’t get them clean. I was a very lucky girl that day that those boys didn’t drown. At the bottom of the creek it’s like quick sand, although the creek itself isn’t high, there is at least two to three feet of coal dust on the bottom. In the creek in front of our house up Rum Creek, I once sank up to my knees in the coal dust and my girlfriend had to help me out.
No comments:
Post a Comment