Praise for
Child of the Woods
“In Child of the Woods, Susi Gott Séguret transports the reader into the southern Appalachian culture as only one who has lived it and loved it could do. Her prose stimulates the senses as surely as huckleberry jam on a biscuit warm from the wood-fired oven on a frosty morning.”
—Dr. Alan Haney, Dean Emeritus,
College of Natural Resources, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and author of Backyard Stories,
Following Old Trails, Jewels of Nature,
and Laughing in the Wilderness
“With a childhood curiosity and sense of wonder, Susi Gott Séguret opens our eyes to enduring truths amidst a world too often overcome with clatter and a loss of harmony with nature and community.”
—Dr. Doug Orr, President Emeritus,
Warren Wilson College and co-author of
Wayfaring Strangers
“A must-read for anyone wanting to unlock the clues of passage into what humans need to become more actualized human beings and fulfill their potential.”
—Eustace Conway,
Mountain Men, Turtle Island visionary
“[A]n incomparable reflection of growing up in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee during the early 1960s that is without peer for color, atmosphere, humor, music and the qualities that show how rich life can be.”
—Paul Peabody,
Grammy-winning First Violinist,
New York City Ballet
“From these pages emerge the wonder, the joy, the gratitude of living in a sacred place…nothing surpasses the beauty of the world God gave us.”
—Locke Harvey,
mother of four and fellow wanderer
“The clarity of Susi Gott Séguret’s imagery evokes a time I fear we won’t see again. She has captured what may be the final moments of an Appalachian lifestyle that is being replaced by the distractions and demands of modernity.”
—Wilson Roberts,
author of All that Endures and
The Serpent and the Hummingbird
“Séguret’s voice is authentic and pure, the redemptive force of her imagination seizes on cowpies and cliffsides, caves and foxes and banjo chords that lift you, for a moment, from the chaos and clutter of our current lives, into a more idyllic place.”
—Keith Flynn,
author of Colony Collapse Disorder and
editor of The Asheville Poetry Review
“I laughed, I cried, and by the end I was uplifted. I will be reading it again. It is just that kind of book.”
—Sheila Kay Adams,
NC Heritage Award winner and author of
My Old True Love
Hatherleigh Press is committed to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. Environmentally responsible and sustainable practices are embraced within the company’s mission statement.
Visit us at www.hatherleighpress.com and register online for free offers, discounts, special events, and more.
Child of the Woods
Text copyright © 2019 SG Séguret
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN: 978-1-57826-790-3
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Cover and Interior Design by Carolyn Kasper
Cover watercolor by Polly Gott
Interior sketches by SG Séguret
Printed in the United States
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
ALICE, JUSTIN, LUC and BEN,
next-generation children of the woods,
and for TIM,
who shared all of these adventures with me
Contents
Introduction
Cowpies and Birthday Cakes
Explorer
Summer of the Dead Cow
Uncle George and Aunt Dutz
I’m Not Afraid
Graveyards
Worm World
Crawlin’ and a-Creepin’
Rabbit Proliferation
Generations
The Hills are Alive
Did You Live in a Cave?
Russian Spies
Old Man Hic
Tools
Hog-Killing
Language
School
Daddy’s Banjo
Robin
College
A Waterfall Shower
Our Waterfall
Old Time Religion
Nails
Huckleberry Picking
The Neighbor Girl
The Arse House
Christmas
Our Christmas
The Outhouse
Barefoot
Scents
Piney-Woods
Trees
Toilet Training
Wolford’s Fields
Susie Shelton
Sodom
The Smokies
The Adirondacks
The Drinking Gourd
Child of the Woods
“Tarry, tarry,” says the sparrow,
“Linger with me till tomorrow;
I will give you song for sorrow,
Secrets truer than the arrow.”
“Linger, linger,” creaks the oak,
“Tender childling just awoke,
I will teach you how to joke:
Friends you’ll be with many folk.”
“Pass me not,” entreats the stream,
“I’m the bearer of your dream;
Silver signals seldom seen,
Pictures from an ancient screen.”
“Come and listen,” roars the thunder,
“I will give you sense of wonder;
Eager eyes and constant hunger,
Never may you tumble under.”
“Stand by me,” laughs Mother Sun,
“Childhood’s plays are Heaven’s fun,
Follow what you’ve just begun;
Playful Spirit, you’re the One!”
—SG Séguret
Introduction
I am lucky.
I could have been born in a city or in some slums, or in a cold, dreary mansion, or in Timbuktu. Instead, I was born in a one-room shack in the Appalachian Mountains; born to a life of music and moonshine, fireflies and hoot owls. Lucky.
Most of the stories in these pages were written a quarter of a century ago, at a time when I was adjusting to early married life, with a newborn infant claiming the best of my moments. Far from the hills of my heart, living an alternate existence in the wheat belt of France, I thought of Thomas Wolfe’s maxim, “You can’t go home again,” and wondered if it applied to me.
Happily, it hasn’t. Life is full of strange twists and turns. When my marriage of twenty years went south, I knew it was time for me to go south also. Back to the hills of my childhood, those deep blue, enveloping, ancient mountains, where the only sound is the creek rushing down the holler and the sigh of a happy dog as he tucks his nose in between his paws.
This story is a treatise to the sense of wonder that gripped me as a child, a journey into the magic of the woods, all senses on the alert. In the half a century-and-some that has elapsed since I first wandered forth alone, my awe at entering the woods has only magnified. There is nowhere I feel safer, nowhere more at home.
It is my fervent hope that, even if you are in another country, in another mountain chain, or in the midst of a desert or bleak cityscape, you can travel with me through these pages and know the magic of the woods for yourselves.
Cowpies and Birthday Cakes
When I was two, I w
as fascinated by cowpies, and devoted hours to turning them into birthday cakes. Chocolate ones, dark and steamy were the best. Some of them were still warm. That’s how my imaginary best friends, Liffany and Tithy, liked them. Some had developed a white crust with age. That’s how Daddy liked them: sugar-coated. Once in a while, you’d find a place where the cow had walked along and left little cupcakes behind, all scattered in a row. These were for special occasions and, if they were dry enough, could be stowed in Mother’s cookie crock.
Gleefully I’d break sassafras sticks to candle-size and make patterns on the smooth brown surfaces. Three candles marked my own special cake—one for each year, and one to grow on. A lot of candles went on the next cake, as many as I could fit—somewhere close to a hundred. Surely one day I would have a cake with as many candles as that. Because I would live to be very old, and by then I would know everything about the woods.
They were my kingdom, the woods. So long as I had trees for my roof, I was protected. Everything I adored and coveted, I found under a canopy of leaves: salamanders with slimy spots that slipped right out of your fingers when you tried to confine them between clasped hands for a closer look—and it was never enough just to look; you had to touch them! You didn’t know the words “temperature” and “texture” but you knew they were important to your discoveries.
Your five senses were always thirsty. Birch twigs, spicebush, sassafras all had to be tasted in turn. Birch turned into a toothbrush if you left it in your mouth long enough, or a miniature broom for fairies. Spicebush had pretty red oblong berries that looked good on birthday cakes, and sassafras, was marked by its variety of leaf shapes—three to be found on one bush. My favorite ones looked like mittens. You could find two of equal size and ask Mother to sew them together, then try to put your hand in without breaking the delicate tissue. Surely something that fragile must be finer than silk!
After a day of wandering, I would come home with the red Guernsey cow, because I loved to see the white foam rise up the edge of the milking pail. With grown-up fingers holding the top of the teat to keep the milk from going back into the bag, little fingers could coax the snowy jet to stream down and join the rest. And the warm fragrance would rise titillating into your nostrils. The next stream would jet into your mouth and you would lick it eagerly from the edge of your round lips—butter, foam, comfort, ambrosia. Then you’d climb the ladder into the hayloft and drop down fistfuls of food to your horned friend, who appreciatively turned it into cud.
The next step was to find corn for the chickens and watch them run over each other to get to it. Little downy puffballs of red and yellow and speckled grey and white came trundling after the rest of them, intent on finding out what was so important in Mama Biddy’s day, even if the corn was too big for their tiny beaks. You could pick one up and it would peck at your hand and make strange little noises that sounded like broken glass jingling.
And, just before leaving the barn, you’d check to see if the red Guernsey cow had made any more chocolate cakes that you could offer to Mother after supper.
Explorer
As a little explorer, I had total freedom. My parents both possessed a beautiful sense of trust; if they ever worried about me, they never let it show. I would wander off for hours, sometimes all day, with a knapsack and a picnic lunch. I didn’t know where I was going, but that was immaterial—I always ended up back home around milking time. Now and then I would find myself at a neighbor’s house and they would bring me back to my parents after feeding me a saltine cracker or a striped candy stick. And they’d call me “honey”. Sometimes it was worth getting lost a bit.
I suppose it was a result of my parents’ amazing trust that I was never scared. Snakes and spiders were plentiful but posed no threat because I had not learned to think of them as enemies. I would have been awed had I seen a bear. In fact, once I almost stumbled into one. He was lumbering across my path as I rounded a corner. Black and soft like a cow, he continued his lumbering into the woods without even glancing my way. He didn’t care for little girls. I was slightly disappointed and looked for him later, without result.
Cliffs were to climb on. There was no question of falling. You just didn’t. Hands and feet were nimble and, without fear lurking nearby, balance was never threatened. There was one cliff my little brother Tim and I (once Tim was old enough to crawl) considered our own. We knew its face instinctively, and it was friendly and inviting. We’d approach it from above and slide down to the ledges about fifteen feet from the summit. The tops of trees were way below us, and we wondered what it would be like to jump into their arms: “Here I am! Catch me!” Instead, we’d inch along the ledge on hands and knees. Halfway down there was a place wide enough for both of us to sit and contemplate the world below. We liked the security of knowing we couldn’t be found here, except by small animals. No grown-up would think of looking in a place so precarious. And they couldn’t reach us anyway.
Years later, I came back alone and tried to cross that ledge again. But fear had already claimed me as her companion, and I got no farther than the first two feet.
The Summer of the Dead Cow
The summer of the dead cow, Tim and I walked down the old sled road that led to one of our favorite play places. The creek was there waiting for us, with its hidden pools that concealed myriad mysteries: crayfish that would startle you out of nowhere to snap at fingers or toes; pebbles of all different shapes and colors, with which you could make drawings on larger stones, or patterns on the leafy ground; wet mossy logs to balance on; jewel weed growing down to the water’s edge. If you picked a leaf and held it underwater, you could see pearls standing out on its underbelly. Then, when you drew it out into the air again, it became an ordinary green leaf. How many other hidden treasures could you find like that?
And then there was the cave. At least we liked to think of it as a cave, although it was only a rock overhang. We were small enough to crawl back into a space that would have been inaccessible to adults, so to us it merited its title. There were places where we had burned the rock with the plumbers’ candles we carried in our pockets. This only added to the intrigue, as we imagined the stains had been put there by the fire of some long-ago person seeking shelter.
There was also the flat spot between the creek and the cave—a rarity, as all around us the rest of the land climbed steeply and was studded with trees and underbrush. Here grew wild purple phlox in springtime. Here we could build an imaginary house to live in when we grew older, and we could even choose to be older now.
But today, walking down the abandoned sled road, we were not to get that far. Something of much greater interest lay in our path ahead. We began to suspect some treasure cache when we saw that the mat of leaves covering the road had been disturbed. Then, further on we found long streaks of bare earth where the leaves had been forced aside. It looked as if something had been dragged down this route, a path which we had never known to be used. And the something was sizeable.
When ordinary everyday things stray from the norm, you feel your senses quicken. You breathe carefully, walk softly, you’re sprung, ready to jump aside should anything move too suddenly. You tip-toe over the transformed path until you round the curve. And there, you shudder with thrill as the mystery is revealed.
As you have never seen a dead cow before, you are not sure what it is at first. This mountain of flesh covered with red hair is not the same as the familiar beast you’ve seen in the pasture. It is an object, like a house or a stone, still and unyielding. It attracts and repels at the same time. But the attraction is stronger, so you inch closer until you see its glassy eyes staring nowhere, its horns pointing out in useless directions.
At least the horns identify it as a cow, but now a new mystery arises. Whose cow is it? Why did they leave it here? Are they sad? Who’s going to watch over it and keep it company?
Self-appointed to the duty, Tim and I made regular pilgrimages to the spot of the unfortunate cow. We were disappointed to learn that
the neighbor had dragged it there with his tractor, to get it out of the way when he found it dead in his field. It seemed so mundane. But that didn’t dampen our fascination with what might happen next, so we kept up our vigil.
For a surprising number of days, it remained the same, save for a slight mustiness that began to hang in the air. Then it began to bloat. Was it still a cow, we wondered, or had it changed into a whale? Who knows what becomes of the dead?
We hesitated to go too near, lest it explode. So we played in the creek, always within eyesight, true to our vigil. That is, until the smell and the flies (who knew there were so many different sorts and colors!) became unbearable and we had to stay away for a week.
When we returned we saw that the cow must have been visited by other creatures in our absence, for it had started to diminish. Bones showed in places where dogs and crows had feasted. Eventually there was nothing but the hide and the skeleton that once supported and covered a docile animal with soft eyes. As time passed, most of that was carted away too, by nature’s servants, until there remained only the skull and a few darkened tufts of hair.
Many times since then I have walked the old sled road. And I never round a certain corner without a slight catch of breath as I look for an enormous mound of decaying cow, and then a sigh of relief when I see it has long disappeared. But not without providing a summer of fascination for two small and curious children. And I smile and look more closely, to see if I can find one remaining tooth.
Uncle George and Aunt Dutz
Uncle George and Aunt Dutz (“Aunt George” and “Uncle Dutz,” my Daddy called them in fun) lived halfway between our old shack and the new house Daddy was building out of fresh-hewn pine logs. They had wonderful old wrinkled faces—crinkled, is more like it, crinkled by the sun and smiles and the pains of child-raising. Although they never had a child of their own, they took care of many. And I was among them.
Uncle George and Aunt Dutz had probably never been away from home, not even for one night. They might have ventured as far as Greeneville, Tennessee, the closest town over the border. A wagon road led there, and a team could just make it there and back before dark, with time in between to buy sugar and flour, coffee and thread. And maybe tobacco and snuff, and little striped candy sticks and crackers to feed the babies “an’ watch ’em smack ’eir mouths.”
Child of the Woods Page 1
