My Children Are More Precious Than Gold

by Risner, Fay

  Too awestruck to speak, the boys nodded they understood.

  “All righty.” Genon settled down in her rocker again. Relaxing back in the rocker, she folded her hands in her lap. “Here's the chant. ‘Haunt Dawson, be gone with ya. Ya are dead! This barn is fer the liven. Go back to the beyond and stay there. Go away! Go away now!’ Ya boys got all that?”

  “Yep, Miss Mitts,” Lue confirmed. “Now what do we owe ya?”

  “Nothen yet. This ain't fer sure to work on all haunts. Jest on certain ones so best come back and let me know what happens, ifen yer able. Hee, hee.” Genon winked mischievously at Lue.

  At chore time when Pap wasn't looking, the boys slipped around the barn to prepared it for the visit of a haunt. They dispersed the bones on the window sills and on the barn floor in front of the door.

  That night after everyone had gone to bed, the boys crept quietly downstairs and outside. Inhaling a deep breath of the fresh night air, Lue smelled the strong, syrupy fragrance of the gold and white honeysuckle blossoms on the vine clinging to the yard fence. He looked up at the star laden sky. Early in the evening, he’d sat with Pap, and the other children on the edge of the porch, watching those stars. They passed Pap's spy glass around, taking turns trying to find the largest, and brightest star or the one that twinkled the best.

  Now there was no time for that. Lue and his brothers were on a mission to scare off Haunt Dawson. Except for the usual night sounds, it seemed to be a quiet night as Lue lead the haunt catching party to the barn. He unlatched the door, and they melted into the dark barn.

  “It's too dark in here to see where we're goen,” Don complained. “We needed the lantern.”

  “Nope, we don't. We don't want any lights,” Lue whispered. “We know this barn blindfolded. Jest scatter out and find places to hide.”

  “I'd rather stay with y'all,” Don stated, thinking there was safety in numbers.

  “Me too,” agreed Tom quickly.

  “I'm fer that, too. Remember, boys, Lue's the one who’s armed with the haunt powder, not us,” reminded Sid, always the sensible one.

  “All right, scaredy cats, jest follow me and keep along side the barn wall until we get to that empty stall next to the horses. We kin all hide in there,” Lue decided.

  He groped his way along the rough, log wall, feeling the rough splintered wood under his touch. In the lead, he felt taunt, dainty strands of a spider web wrap around his face. He stopped to wipe the web away then moved his fingers along the smooth edge at the top of the stall door, feeling for the wooden latch. Lue touched something warm and soft. Quickly, he jerked his hand back when he heard a grumbling protest, then he realized it was only Pecker and his flock roosting on top of the stall. The chickens must have thought it was too hot to roost in the chicken coop.

  Slowly, Lue opened the door, trying not to disturb the chickens. The boys edged passed him into the darkness. The clean straw bedding crunched underfoot.

  In the next stall, the horses stomped restlessly, aroused by the boys rustling the bedding. An occasional low growl came from the chickens, uneasy in their slumber, as the door moved back and forth with them roosted on it.

  Plunk! Sid felt a warm pressure on the top of his head. He ran his fingers through his hair, touching a substance that was soft and fowl smelling.

  “Oh boy! What smells?” Rasped Lue.

  “Ugh!” Sid croaked, wiping his fingers on his pants. “We've got to get out of here or em chickens are goen to have to move. It's not safe to sit under em.”

  “They would make too much racket if we try to move em,” warned Don.

  “Then I'm moven,” retorted Sid.

  Plunk! Plunk!

  “Good idea. Let's all of us move,” Lue agreed quickly, fearing he would be the next target. Staying at arm's length out of the chickens aim, he slowly opened the stall door.

  “Where to now?” Sid asked, easing out the door.

  “Let's get in the hay manger,” whispered Lue.

  The boys, staying close to each other, felt their way back along the wall, past the now moonlit door. They stopped at the manger's edge and crawled into what remained of the sweet smelling clover hay that Daisy left at chore time. Snuggling down, they peeked over the top of the deep manger to watch for the haunt to appear.

  Stifling yawns, Don and Tom leaned back to relax their nodding heads and dozed off. Lue and Sid, too tense to sleep, listened and waited. A quick and short, muffled rustle sounded some place in the manger when a mouse scurried through the hay. Crickets kept up a constant, irritating chirp.

  Down on the end of the manger, a tom cat emitted a low, mournful meow to stake out his territory, warning a stray tom cat to leave. Illuminated by the full moon beaming through the barn window, the two pairs of unblinking, yellow eyes glared at each other. Soft threats began to rumble in the crouching toms' throats like a volcano about to erupt. Their tails swished slowly back and forth across the hay as further warning of an impending battle.

  Meanwhile as nocturnal creatures often tend to do, a skunk was on his nightly prowl. The Bishop barn was a good place to find mice, a nest of eggs, or if he was really lucky a chicken dinner.

  The small black and white form scampered quickly across the moon lit barnyard, scaled up the bottom door, and silently dropped to the barn floor. He paused to listen for danger and sniff the air. The odor of chicken came to him from nearby. With his nose to the floor, he slowly trailed the scent, stopping at the stall door. He looked up, wondering if he could climb that high, hold on and grab a hen. Just then the haughty toms, tired of arguing, erupted into a blood curdling, squalling free for all. That startled the boys as the cats turned end over end down the manger toward them.

  “What's goen on?” Tom cried, bolting upright.

  “Is Haunt Dawson here?” Don asked, aroused from his slumber.

  “No, it's a tom cat fight. They're comen this way. Get out of the manger quick!” Ordered Lue.

  The boys scrambled over the manger just as the cats tumbled passed them. The trespasser broke loose, jumped to the floor. Screeching menacingly, he crouched between the boys and the barn door. The Bishop's tom cat pounced in front of the intruder, yowling his warning to leave. Deciding he'd had enough, the intruder turned and sped across the barn passed the startled skunk. He darted up the stall door, knocking two hens off balance, and they fluttered to the floor. Aroused from their stupor, all the chicken began to cackle. Nervously, the horses paced back and forth in their stall, whinnying loudly.

  To make sure he won the battle, the Bishop's tom cat took off in hot pursuit. He whizzed by the skunk, scattering the chickens, just as the skunk was about to pounce on one of the unsuspecting, droopy hens that had fell in front of him. The irritated skunk decided he had been interrupted enough. He knew how to quiet things down around him. He turned his back and lifted his tail, spraying at the departing cats.

  “Oh no! A skunk’s in here,” coughed Sid.

  “Let's get out of here,” said Lue, gagging.

  They raced for the door, only to stop short. Above the half door appeared the glow of light they had waited for and in the glow was the dark outline of a man.

  “He's here! The haunt is here!” Lue cried in a panic.

  “Lue, ya've got the potion. Throw it on him,” Sid ordered, always the voice of reason.

  Oh, the potion. All right, but ya boys have to say the chant. I cain’t think what it is right now,” Lue said, fumbling nervously to untie the bag's knotted draw string. He poured his hand full of white ash like powder and threw it in the haunt's direction.

  In unison, the boys chanted. “Haunt Dawson, be gone with ye.”

  “Boys!” The form yelled before he had a coughing spell.

  “Yer -- yer dead! This barn is for the liven,” the boys screeched together, scrambling backwards, holding on to each other to keep from falling down.

  Dark fingers gripped the top of the door which creaked open to allow the glowing figure to enter. “Boys, boys! Wha
t are ya yellen so fer?” The voice shouted. “Settle down. It's Pap.”

  “Hush! Listen! It's Pap, not the haunt,” Lue gasped in relief.

  “Oh, oh. I knew this was a dumb idea,” softly grumbled Sid.

  “Ya boys like spenden time with a skunk, y'all go right ahead. I'm getten out of here.” Pap coughed as he raised his lantern to see behind him and retreated outside into the fresh air.

  His sons followed on his heels until Jacob turned and raised the lantern to survey them. “Hold up. Don't come any closer to me until yer cleaned up,” he demanded.

  “Jacob, what's goen on out there?” Nannie called from the porch.

  “Nannie, hunt some towels and a bar of lye soap. These boys have decided to take a bath down at the creak.”

  “Mercy sakes, this time of night? That means I’m goen to have to wash towels again before bath day or there won’t be enough to go around,” Nannie grumbled, going back into the house.

  “Oh, Pap, that creak is cold,” complained Lue.

  “Yer not comen back in the house smellen like that. What were ya boys up to anyways? There was enough noise comen from that there barn to wake the dead, not to mention those of us who were in our beds where ever one of y'all ought to be,” Jacob scolded, surveying the bowed heads. “Oh, never mind. I'll leave the lantern so ya can see so get to the creak and take that bath. Make sure ya use plenty of lye soap. We'll talk about this in the mornen.” Jacob sniffed then pulled up his shirt tail and smelled. “By the way, what was that awful smellen stuff ya threw on me?”

  “Genon Mitt's haunt scaren powder,” Lue sheepishly informed his father.

  “By golly, that stinky stuff ought to do the trick,” Jacob commented dryly. “Providen y'all get the right haunt. I don't know who to give my piece of mind to first. Doak for starting this, or Genon for encouraging y'all, or ya boys for being so gullible. Nannie, ya better fetch a towel fer me, too,” he growled as he took the towels she handed him.

  Chapter 6

  Geese -- Baked Or Stewed

  On a day in early May, Bess and Lillie were headed the two miles home from an overnight visit at Grandma and Grandpa Bowers. The girls walked along the narrow, rocky, clay cow path that trailed among the tall broomsede weeds bordering Little River.

  Holding onto the handles of a bushel basket of cornmeal that Grandpa Bowers ground at his mill, the girls were taking the meal home for Nannie to use to bake bread. When they were short of coffee or sugar, cornmeal could be used to trade at the store for what Nannie needed, because there was very little money to spend. The price of coffee at that time was fifteen cents, sugar was four cents and the price of a dozen of eggs was fourteen cents.

  Bess and Lillie liked to visit their grandparents so the day before they willingly shelled enough corn to fill the bushel basket and carried it the two miles to the grist mill. The children enjoyed going down to the grist mill with Grandpa Bower to watch the corn ground into meal under two large stones rolling together by power of a water mill. A big wooden box connected to a dammed up area in the river filled with water then flowed over a big wheel that turned the stones.

  Payment was usually one gallon of meal for grinding the bushel basket full, but Grandma insisted that Grandpa didn’t want payment. She liked to help her daughter in whatever way she could, because she knew that it was hard to put food on the table for all those children.

  Thing was Jacob’s pride usually got in the way if the girls came home with too much so Grandma had to be careful not to send more than Jacob might object to. Grandma Bower need not have worried. Nannie thought more about taking care of her children then she did Jacob’s pride. If Jacob wasn’t around when the children arrived home from her parents bearing gifts, she quietly put away whatever was given and used it without Jacob realizing where it came from.

  Two folded flour sacks made of cotton material with red and white checks and a bouquet of small blue roses scattered among the check lay on top of the meal. Grandma saved all her extra sacks from flour, sugar, salt, tobacco, coffee, feed, seed and fertilizer to send Nannie to use to make dresses and shirts for the children. Sometimes Nannie made dishtowels or aprons for her and the girls. With the smaller scraps, she sewed doll clothes for Christmas presents or used them in a quilt top.

  When the basket grew heavy, the girls stopped to rest. Bess kicked an embedded, glittering, quarts rock loose with the toe of her handmade, cowhide leather shoe. She cleared her brown bangs out of her eyes as she bent to pick up the rock. She gave it a toss over the weeds and watched it disappear beyond the river bank. For a moment, the girls stood still, listening for the plunk the rock made when it hit the swiftly moving currant.

  “Ya know ya ought not to kick rocks with yer new shoes, Bess. They won't last ya through the year that way.” Standing with her hands on her hips, Lillie's long, brown pigtails waved back and forth over her shoulders as she shook her head in disapproval.

  Pap like most men in those days was a jack of all trades. One of the things he did was make everyone in the family their one pair of shoes when they wore out or outgrew the pain they had. The problem was Jacob made the girls’ shoes with the same low tops as the boys which made the girls unhappy, but they had no choice if they wanted a pair of shoes to wear.

  He’d take cow and horse hides to a tanning yard not too far from the farm to be tanned. The hides were immersed in water and oak bark in a big tank and kept pressed down until the hair loosened. Then the hides were hung up to dry, and the hair scraped off.

  “I knowed I shouldn’t kick rocks, but I hate these ugly shoes so I don't care. Why does Pap keep maken shoes for us offen the same pattern he uses for the boys?” Bess looked down in disgust at her feet as she walked down the narrow path.

  “Ya know very well, it's cause the one pattern's all he's ------. Look out, Bess!” Ashen faced, Lillie gripped her handle of the basket tighter and pulled it and Bess backward down the path.

  “What's ailen ya?” Bess gasped, crossly.

  “Ya got to start watchen ahead of yerself better. Look!” Lillie pointed a trembling finger at where they had been.

  Stretched motionless across the cow path, a copperhead snake, his light brown skin speckled with dark brown blotches, lay camouflaged among the rocks. The snake's bronze, triangular head lifted to let his beady, black eyes focus on what had disturbed his slumber. The girls, well aware of the snake's quick, deadly striking ability, stood very still, staring at him. The slow, bobbing motion of his head kept them in suspense as the copperhead looked around for the unsuspecting mouse or bird he thought had awakened him. Not seeing anything close by that looked like a tasty meal, he slithered slowly into the weeds toward the river.

  The girls, looking at each other, sighed together in relief.

  “Think it’s safe to go now?” Whispered Bess.

  “Let's throw some rocks in the weeds after him. Maybe that will hurry the rascal on his way,” said Lillie.

  “Oh, now it's all right to throw rocks!” Grumped Bess.

  “Sure,” Lillie said with a grin. “Jest don't kick em with yer shoes first.”

  The little girls pelted the weeds with the rocks, then darted passed the place on the path where the snake had been. They didn't stop running until they reached their pasture's split rail fence.

  Bess balanced herself on the fence as she bent over to lift up on her end of the basket and then balanced it on the fence until Lillie climbed over. Pulling the basket of cornmeal off the fence, they carried it up a steep hill through grazed short grass, and broomsede. The stench of the bitter weed patches Bess and Lillie walked through caused the them to wrinkle up their noses. They felt like a sneeze coming on after they stirred up those stinky plants covered with small, white daisy-like flowers.

  Standing at the top of the pasture hill, the girls looked down on their log home and outbuildings nestled in the hollow between ridges. It seemed unusually quiet for midday, considering the number of people who lived there.

  “I don't se
e anyone about,” observed Bess.

  “The boys are probably hepen Pap in the field, but ya would think some of the girls would be playen outside,” said Lillie. They started down the hill.

  Quietly stepping through the kitchen screen door, the girls set the basket of cornmeal just inside the door. They knew something was definitely wrong when they saw Nannie standing in front of the ironing board near the cookstove. She lifted her now cooled iron and plopped it noisily on the stove to reheat. Then she removed the handle and stuck it on the heated flat iron. After observing the stiffness of her back and the square set of her broad shoulders as she picked a wadded up, dampened dress out of the wicker laundry basket, shook it with more fervor than necessary and began to iron, the girls decided to slide quietly past her. They climbed lightly up the narrow stairs to their bedroom, carefully avoiding the steps that would creak.

  Entering their bedroom, they found Cass and Veder sitting on one of the two joint-willow beds. Cass, a small pail of green beans in her lap, rethreaded a darning needle with the grocery cord Nannie had rolled into a ball, saved from the ends of sacks. Placing the ball of cord back on the bed beside her, Cass ran the needle through each of the slender, green vegetables one at a time to string them. Each piece of cord filled with green beans would be scalded in hot water for a few minutes and hung up to dry on a forked pole behind the cookstove. When Nannie wanted to prepare the dried green beans, she’d take some of them she’d stored in bags off the cord and soak them overnight in a pan of lukewarm water then boil them with salt pork.

  Veder was knitting socks from some of Nannie's recently spun wool yarn, lavender this time. That was an endless job with so many feet in the Bishop family to keep covered.