Memories Are Fireproof
This
morning before my John woke up, I walked to the closest fast food restaurant
and purchased two egg and English muffin sandwiches. On the way home, I tried
to sort through the notes to single out the individual birds calling to their
mates.
He
decided to go visiting. He seldom visited Robert (my father) and Myrtle (my mother)
because most Saturdays they passed his house on the way to and from town. They’d
always pull into his yard and park. He’d say, “Get out and come in.”
Robert
and Myrtle and the youngun’s—John Edwin, Thomas, and Ruth—hopped out and found
seats on the side of the porch. He wanted to go to their house though for a
change.
Albert
got up early, filled the kettle, and built a fire in the stove. After milking
the cow, feeding the chickens, and checking on his mules, he went inside and
fixed his breakfast. Every morning he ate two hard fried eggs and some thick
slices of bacon with fresh biscuits. He was a good cook, that is, he was good at
preparing the same meals over and again. Heaven knows, he had practice.
“I
guess I better clean myself up.”
Myrtle
was a neat, clean woman. Every time he saw her, she had on clean clothes and her
hair was fixed. She kept Edwin, Ruth, and Tom in clean clothes and it was clear
to be seen she made them wash their faces. She even made Robert clean up before
they went to town on Saturday. Even though she was almost ten years younger
than Robert, she made him a good wife.
From
what Albert could surmise, she was helping his baby brother take good care of
the old homeplace. All the brothers and sisters had agreed to let Robert buy
out Ma and Pa. Albert was next to the oldest and batching. Robert was next to the
youngest child and having a herd of children.
On
the back porch, Albert stripped off his shirt, stropped his razor, and shaved
while more water heated on the stove. Then he poured water into the washtub. stripped
off all his clothes and took a bath. Dressed in a fresh blue shirt, overalls,
and high-top shoes, he combed what hair he had. He plopped his straw hat on top
of his head. Toting his stick, he took off walking.
It
was a mile and a quarter, up hill most of the way, to Robert’s house. Some of
Albert’s farm was Leaf River bottom land. He and his oldest brother William had
the best farms. After passing William’s place, he turned up the gravel road and
walked by Dan’s and Hinds’ farms before arriving at what was now Robert’s house.
The
old home place made him feel sentimental. He didn’t like to go up there because
it made him miss Ma and Pa. He didn’t like to remember Mary, his sweetheart,
but he wanted to see the pictures.
~~~
About a month before…
Myrtle kept the old farmhouse the best she
could not because of anything Robert’s brothers and sisters expected. She did
it for herself and to provide a desirable home for the children. Coming into his
teens, Edwin brought friends home with him sometimes. Tom and Ruth would want
to do the same.
She still missed Bobby Joe. All she had of
him was a photograph nailed to the wall above the bedroom hearth. He was twenty
months old when he died of diphtheria. She looked at his picture often and
wondered what he’d be doing if he were still alive on this earth. The mantel
below him was a special place, which she kept tidy.
Also, the mantel over the fireplace in the
living room on the opposite side of the house needed to look good. Now that the
weather was warm, she wanted to cover the black sooty fireplaces with some
attractive screens.
The Sears Roebuck catalogue had some like
she wanted. She’d seen them in the neighbors’ houses, and Knights’ store
carried some. All the money needed to go for buying the essentials. She and
Robert had no money for frills.
Myrtle was an excellent manager, and Robert
didn’t care what she did as long as she didn’t ask him for money he didn’t
have. A clever woman, she could always make do with whatever was available.
On the walls of the living room were two
large square pictures. The identical frames were thirty-four inches square. Susan,
known as Sukie, and Nehemiah, nicknamed Chobe, posed for pictures, which were professionally
framed. They covered a hard surface painted tan and brown. The wide borders had
fancy designs pressed and painted on them. Instead of having square edges, the
pictures had curved sides. Each picture was lightweight wood about two inches
thick. Around the edges, frames held the glass in place.
The pictures were already starting to
fade. Robert didn’t seem to care about them, and she needed some fires screens.
Using whatever tools that were handy, she removed the frames and set the wood
aside. In the process she dropped one of the glass covers. She’d take the
pictures and roll them up. Eventually she’d find some other way to reconstruct
the frames.
But no, the pictures were stuck. Sukie’s
picture was stuck to the board, and Chobe’s was stuck to the glass. Taking the
mountings apart, she managed to tear up both pictures. Quickly she hid the
evidence. She put away the tools. Behind an outbuilding, Robert kept pieces of
glass to be used for window panes leaning against the wall. She hated for him
to leave the glass out there because she was always afraid the children would
cut themselves. She placed her three pieces of glass in the pile next to the
building. It might be possible to cut it and use if for something. Myrtle had
no choice except to build a trash fire and burn the pictures. Now she had some
pretty fireplace screens, which she wiped clean.
When the children came home from school,
they didn’t comment on the screens. They didn’t seem to miss the pictures. Instead
they went to the kitchen and filled their mouths with molasses teacakes.
When Robert returned from the field where
he’d been preparing the ground for planting, he didn’t seem to notice the absence
of the pictures or the presence of the screens. As usual, he was cursing
because he needed all the hands to help him with the chores. As they did every
day, Myrtle and the children silently went to work. Cows always waited in the
pasture for Tom, Edwin needed to see about the mules and horses, and the
chickens wanted Ruth to give them corn. Myrtle led out in the milking so she
could get back to finish cooking supper.
The next day Myrtle went exploring in the
woods near the house. She found some pretty vines and tacked them onto the
screens. Still no one seemed to notice.
~~~
Continuing the walk…
Albert
turned down the lane toward the old farmhouse he knew as home. Myrtle had the
yard looking fine. Flowers from his mother’s bulbs bloomed, and the roses over
on the east side were the way she’d left them. The only difference in the yard
was grass. Ma kept a sand yard, which she used to make the kids sweep for her. He
didn’t know how Myrtle managed, but Bermuda grass grew over most of the yard.
He
knocked on the porch floor with the stick and called, “Anybody home?”
Myrtle
came to the door. “I’m sorry. Robert took the kids with him to the field. He
wanted to get in a few hours’ work before we head to town.”
He
placed his hat on an empty chair and propped his stick against the hedge. “I
see.”
“I’ve
got fresh cobbler. Fried chicken’s waiting on the stove. Rice and gravy. Turnip
greens. Wait around a few minutes and the rest of them will be back. Sit and
rest a spell. Then we’ll have dinner.”
The
smell of the food made his mouth water. “It sure is tempting.”
She
sat down in a straight chair, placed a dishpan in her lap, and went to work snapping
beans. “I’ve got some early snap beans. They don’t take long to cook.”
Was
he imagining she wanted him to stay on the porch? He started to open the door
to the living room. He didn’t want to seem too forward, but he came to look
inside at his parents’ faces once more.
Myrtle
followed him. “Go on in.”
The
wall seemed bare, but his eyes needed to adjust. When he could see normally inside,
he looked all around the room. “Where are the pictures?”
Myrtle
had pink skin to go with her red hair. When he asked the question, he noticed
she first turned white and then broke out in red splotches.
“The
pictures?” She laughed. “Oh, they were starting to fade. I took them down and
made fire screens out of the wood they were mounted on.”
“Fire
screens? Who needs fire screens anyhow?” He was of a good mind to slap his sister-in-law,
but he’d never do that. “The very idea. You need to be more responsible. I
shouldn’t have come up here.”
Albert
slammed the door on the way out. Grabbing his hat and stick, he headed home.
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