My Family: Chapter 51

By this time my Grandma Francis had moved up the path to another the house across the creek from us. The other family who had lived there had had  a girl and boy. The boy had been a little older then Shirley.  The house had a tree in the yard with his initials and an A.D. carved into it. For all I know it could have been mine but I never looked twice at him.

When i came home for visits, I would go over to stay the night with Grandma Francis. Sometimes she told me stories while she made quilts. She always chewed tobacco and would spit into a coffee can wherever she was.

Here’s one of the stories she told me: when she was a young girl there was old woman who lived down the hollow from her parents in Kentucky. One day, her father brought a cow from her but this cow never gave them any milk. He went back to the old woman and told her she put curse on the cow and must be a witch. She said he deserved it since he tried to cheat her and not pay her what the cow was really worth. Grandma Francis said she caught the school bus every morning with this old woman's two daughters and they were friends.

Well, one morning the daughters didn't show up for the school bus or come to school that day. And that evening when Grandma Francis got off the school bus and walked by this old woman's house, she came out the door and called Grandma Francis over. The woman asked her if she had ever seen green flour before. Grandma Francis said  no and didn't know there was such a thing as green flour. The old woman said that morning she had gone to the store where they had sold her some spoiled flour and it was green! She asked Grandma Francis if she would like to see it.

She said yes she would; who wouldn't want to see green flour? The old woman took her to the bedroom and showed her the spoiled flour. It was green alright. Grandma Francis said the room had been empty except for the green flour which was everywhere and it sparkled!

The next thing she knew was her brother Ben was waking her up. It was now dark and she had been laying on the side of the road beside a log. Her father had sent her brother to go look for her since she hadn't come home from school yet.

Grandma Francis also told me how witches could come across the mountains, turn into mist and get into your house under the door.