(1000 word Book Excerpt) AUNT WANDAS REVELATION
Years later and months after we had buried Momma and Dad, I flew a C-124 to Greenville, Texas from Honolulu for the purpose of some contractual inspection and repairs. The airplane I was to return to Hickam Air Force Base would not be ready for pick up until three or four days later. Some of my crew wanted to spend the next two nights in Dallas.
After arranging for a contact point the crew could telephone for departure information, I decided to drive over to Aunt Wandas. My favorite aunt was then the only surviving sibling of Dads. Since I was near her home, I rented a car and drove to Caddo Springs.
I hadnt been there since Mommas funeral. A couple of weeks after her funeral, it was Dads turn to be buried. But Durwood phoned me at Hickam and advised me not to come. Nearly all of Northeast Texas was covered in ice from a severe sleet storm. Even if it had been possible to get to Dallas by commercial air, I couldnt be sure of getting on to Caddo Springs in time for Dads funeral.
This was to be my last visit with Aunt Wanda. As feeble as she was, my aunt still made me feel I was her favorite nephew. To her, I was always, Honey Boy.
For years, I had been vaguely aware of a secret that seemed to set one family against another. I felt that in view of Aunt Wandas years, Id be well advised to ask her to explain this secret while she was still able to recall the facts.
After supper, as we sat in the parlor drinking tea, I asked Aunt Wanda, if she knew about the secret of my sister. She shifted in her rocker, nervously, and pursed her lips as she always did when recalling something unpleasant. Then, she shrugged her painfully thin shoulders and sighed. Well, Honey Boy, it cant hurt your mother any more if you do know. At one time, that was her everlasting shame. Most of us who knew, loved your mother so much they wanted to protect her. Everyone, that is, but her own sister, your Aunt Jessie. That acid-tongued woman never overlooked a chance to hold her own sister up to ridicule. Stone-hearted Jessie, I called her and will do so to my dying day.
Your Daddy was courtin yer Momma and there wasnt a prettier couple in the county. It was just a pure pleasure to see them settin off down the road in the buggy to a singing convention or to church. They were so much in love that it just showed all around them.
Did you know that your Daddy was a Sunday School teacher at that time? I bet with all his atheist talk, you never knew that. Well, he was.
This one night, there was a singing convention over at Martins Grove. On the way back home, I suppose they pulled over to rest the buggy mare. They must have rested the mare a great deal, for they got home very late.
A few months later, your Momma had to confide to your Grandma that she was in a family way. Even then, it could have been sort of hushed up if that blatherskite sister had held her tongue. But, no-o-o. She couldnt wait to clack it all through the county. And her pretending to be such a Christian!
Your Dads church brought him up on charges before the elders. When they voted him out of the church, I thought his poor heart would break. They said that he raised his hand and said that if his church had no more charity and forgiveness than that, he was takin a solemn oath, then and there, never to enter that church again.
When the baby came, it was delivered by some ol mammy from over at the Randolph Farm. The pitiful little thing never drew a breath. Your Grandpa cobbled together a casket made from a tool chest with a little baby blanket tacked in as a liner. He dug a grave with his own hands under that hackberry tree that stands just to the west of the gate from the lane into the pasture. They never put up a marker. But your Momma never forgot her almost baby daughter.
You may have wondered why your Dad seldom, if ever, went down to the farm with your mother and you boys. Your Grandpa and Grandma never quite forgave your Dad.
Your mother was the baby in her family and the apple of your Grandfathers eye. Why, just six months or so before she and your Dad got married, Mr. Alexander bought Margery that organ that sits in their front room. Thats one thing that made Jessie jealous. She had never had such a present from your Grandpa and was envious. Oh, that Jessie! I swear she had a green persimmon for a heart! Jessie never forgave Margery for being prettier than she and better loved.
We talked on, well into the night. It was interesting to learn the secret. However, it didnt really matter for me to know I once had an older sister. Neither of my parents survived to tell me who was buried in the unmarked grave under the old Hackberry tree.
The only other hint I had ever had was when grandpa Alexander would walk by the Hackberry tree. He would look solemn and take off his hat.
Why, grandpa? He replied, Never you mind Easy, never you mind.
NAMES
These were the times of the brothers, Easy and Durwood. However, the boys were not always called by those names.
A name is just a tag placed on a baby who does not, save by accident, have any relationship to the individual character of the child. How could it? The baby, lying in its cradle, has not yet formed any personality, much less one to match the name the doting family has just dreamed up and hung on the infant by means of a baptismal certificate or birth record.
|