Sunday
No
one did any work on Sunday. Morning and night the cow got fed,
milked and the milk put away; morning and night the chickens got
fed and at night the eggs gathered; morning, noon and night the
pigs got fed; morning and noon, breakfast and a big Sunday dinner
got cooked, served and everything cleaned up. This, however, was
never looked on as work. Work was the thing you did on weekdays:
washing, ironing, mending, sewing, cleaning, gardening, and canning.
That was work.
Clothes
ready to wear to church were waiting in Mama's closet, in Aunt
Merica's closet, in my blue chest. Everybody put on Sunday clothes
right after breakfast. Daddy put an his pressed and cleaned, suit
and the shirt with the heavily starched collar, the one that earlier
in the week had been washed and ironed, the collar turned and
the shirt touched up again. He put on his silky black Sunday socks
and his freshly polished Sunday shoes. He got down his Sunday
hat. Mama and Aunt Merica wore their Sunday dresses, their Sunday
shoes, and their Sunday hats. Mama wore her beautiful coat, the
one she and Daddy bought in Roanoke, with the fur collar and the
swinging fur trimmed panel. Joe wore his Sunday suit, which, as
the depression deepened, crawled further and further up his legs
and was harder and harder to button. I got my precious black patent
shoes, the ones with the single strap that buttoned, from their
box in the wardrobe. I wore my Sunday dress and carried my little
silver mesh snap purse with its dainty chain handle and put inside
it the penny Daddy gave me for collection.
After
Sunday School (preaching was just once each month) we went to
Aunt Lilly"s or Grandpa's for dinner. Or they all came to
our house, in which case Mama and Aunt Merica stayed home from
church and cooked. Sometimes our family went to another relative's
house or a church member's house or they came to us. Often the
preacher and his family came for dinner on his Sunday at our church.
The preacher's rambunctious son broke my doll's fork.
Once
or twice each year we had dinner on the ground at church. Mama
and Aunt Merica would make lots of fried chicken and potato salad.
They took great care to have beautiful cakes and pies and to gather
the best tomatoes to slice or eat whole. They spread a tablecloth
on the grass out in the churchyard, as did each family, and all
were careful to offer the best to anyone who stopped by to visit.
There
were Sundays when no one came and we went no where. Daddy kept
on his Sunday suit but the rest of us took off our Sunday best
and got into second best things. It was Sunday, still, however,
and we couldn't cut with scissors. It was Sunday and we couldn't
play games like checkers and certainly not cards. We grew tired
of tag and hide and go seek. The Sunday School folder with its
picture on the front and a story inside held only so much lasting
interest. It was the most boring of times.
Mama
and Aunt Merica sat out in the yard in summer and seemed to enjoy
doing nothing. Daddy wandered around the yard or the orchard and
sometimes came in with special things he found, like a cocoon
or a cluster of puffballs. Sometimes I got to walk with him through
the woods. In late afternoon we brought the watermelon out of
the cellar and ate so much that other food, left from Sunday dinner,
lost its appeal. Except for Joe, and maybe Daddy.
Any
dishes we used got left to wash the next morning. After a while
we all grew tired of doing nothing, so we went to bed. The Sundays
when we all got together, our family, Aunt Lillie"s family
and Grandpa and Grandma, we had much more fun. After playing all
afternoon, on those Sundays we were all ready to go to bed from
good tiredness and not just because there was nothing else to
do.
Dinner
at Grandpa and Grandma's House
It
had been a long wait but finally Grandma said we could call the
men. Mama was in the dining room, checking over the table. There
were places set for eight with chairs drawn up to some; the other
chairs would be brought in from the front parch where the men
had taken them, to sit and talk in their Sunday best suits until
the women folks, their Sunday best covered with crisp bib aprons,
had put the finishing touches on Sunday dinner. From the door
into the dining room from the kitchen I could see Mama counting
the cluster of goblets at "the other end of the table."
That is what I called it: the other end of the table. Sometimes
it was in front of Grandpa, sometimes in front of Grandma, sometimes
near the middle of the table. But always there were seven sweets
in pressed or cut glass goblets and preserve dishes and seven
sours in similar dishes, compotes and tiny bowls.
The
fried chicken was being dished up by Aunt Merica. It smelled so
good. I loved chicken. It reminded me of the time Aunt Merica
took me with her to dinner at the Copenhavers, the time Mary and
Ruth discovered my near endless capacity for fried chicken. After
dinner, while the big folks talked, Mary and Ruth carried me out
into the yard, sat me down on the grass and then placed a bowl
of left over chicken in front of me, between my two little sticking-out-in-front
legs. On either side of me and the bowl, they knelt, urging me
to eat more. Even now I wondered how I knew then that something
strange and maybe something that Mama would not approve was going
on between me, and them, and that wonderful bowl of golden fried
chicken.
Aunt
Lillie was managing the making of the gravy, which I hated and
refused to eat. Grandma was pulling apart the golden brown rolls
with their pure white sides. I was sorry to see that she had made
rolls. I liked the store bought bread I got at Grandma"s;
never did we have that at home. On the table, beside the rolls,
ready to be carried into the dining room, were bowls of string
beans and mashed potatoes, platters of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers,
big bowls of corn on the cob.
"Go
on back out and play," Aunt Merica said. Generally, she didn't
mind us being under foot and maybe she didn't this time; she just
knew it would be a long time before we would get to eat and playing
was the best way to keep our minds off of food.
"Let them call the men like Ma said," Aunt Lillie said.
"We're that ready."
And
so we ran out the kitchen door and across the roof covered kitchen
parch with the window from the dining room looking out on our
left side and, on the right across the path, the smoke house with
its white washed door. Inside, I knew there were hanging hams
and side meat and shoulders. On the floor were sacks of grain
and around the side were shelves with tools and things Grandpa
needed for the garden.
We
ran past the bedroom window. In the corner of the yard on the
right was the cellar with the shed above. I liked the shed. Here
was the only place at Grandpa's I could ever find anything to
read, and even that was not interesting: books about religion.
The cellar underneath was smaller than ours at home. Around the
sides were shelves where Grandma put the cans of peaches, berries,
beans, corn, pears, plums, grapes, tomatoes, okra, pickles, jams
and jellies. She always had variety but not as much as we had
at home. And not nearly the number of cans as we had, either.
Well, we didn't have okra but we had gooseberries and huckleberries
and dewberries and all kinds of apples ready for making pies,
and apple butter and sausage in crocks, and sauerkraut in a tall
jar.
We
ran round the corner of the house, past the other window to Grandpa
and Grandma"s bedroom and down beside the wall where on the
other side was the big brass bed that Ruby and I slept in when
we spent a week with Grandma and Grandpa; slept in under the beautiful
wedding ring quilt that Mama and Aunt Merica had made for Grandma.
Past
the window into this company bedroom with its horsehair sofa and
lamp with the tassels, we came to the end of the porch and we
could see them sitting there on the straight-backed, cane-bottomed
chairs, talking.. Most of the chairs had come from inside the
front door, from the entrance room where the telephone was fixed
to the wall opposite the front door and between the door to the
dining room, and the door to Grandpa and Grandma's bedroom. There
was a table there, with a plain lamp. And the cane-bottomed chairs,
the chairs that we all sat in at, nighttime when Grandma read
the Bible and Grandpa prayed. At that time, with the lamp flickering,
we all got out our chairs and each of us knelt beside his chair.
Grandpa knelt with his head well above the seat and well off to
one side. Sometimes only one knee was on the floor and the other
leg was bent with the foot resting on the floor and his elbow
resting on that knee with his hand gesturing to God. Grandma knelt
with her elbows resting on the cane seat and her chin resting
in the two thumbs of her folded hands with her fingers just covering
her nose. Joe and Ruby and I, when we knelt, could just make it
above the top of the chairs' cane bottoms. The smell of those
chairs was like nothing else in the world except other many-times-sat-on
cane chairs.
It
didn't make praying easy. If I tried to move over into fresh air
as Grandpa seemed to do, Grandma would quietly whisper, "Bow
your head, Vivian, close your eyes and keep still." Automatically,
my brow would come to touch the cane.
Better
odors were in store right now.
"It"s
ready, it"s ready!" we screamed at the men. And then,
as they got up, clattering back the chairs and picking up a couple
to take in to the dining room, to the table, we started counting.
Eight men would eat first. Then the left-over men and some of
the women would eat, with time out in between sittings for the
plates and knives and forks and glasses and cups and saucers and
dessert plates to be washed and dried and put back on the table
by Grandma and Aunt Lillie and Aunt Merica and Mama and any other
Aunt or grown up girl cousin who was there that Sunday. We had
just begun to count the women, when Daddy said, "Sis, your
Mother wants you in a hurry!"
"Count
the rest and divide by 8," I said as I started running back
the way we had come, "then we'll know how long before we
can eat."
Mother
met me at the kitchen door. "Go to the cellar and find some
pear marmalade," she said, her voice somewhat urgent. "There
are only six sweets an the table! Hurry! They are about to sit
down."
I
counted as I went. It seemed to me there would be one table of
men and then one men and women and then another of women. That
meant we would be at the fourth table. A long time. And now they
were delayed until I found that other sweet, that pear marmalade.
We
didn't have to have seven sweets and seven sours on our table
at home. There had to be the green glass spoon holder with its
vertical rows of round knobs. It had to be full of spoons. There
was the amber glass shaker with its black top that had to be kept
full of black pepper. The pressed glass salt dishes had to be
refilled with a fresh coating of salt. We always had pickles or
chow chow and a jelly or marmalade or jam, but only one or two
at a time. Daddy always had to have chow chow or cucumber slaw
or mixed pickle "to make the beans, go down."
Life
at Grandpa"s was different. He had horses and cows, chickens
and geese, pigs and sometimes a baby calf. Well, we had a cow
and once I had a pet calf and there were always pigs and chickens,
even guinea. But, Grandpa was a farmer and he was always up early,
talking to Grandma in the kitchen about the plans he had for the
day. She would plan with him about her work, the washing she had
to do, the beans that needed picking, the visit she had to make
to a poorly neighbor. Then too, he was always home for dinner.
He would come in all hot and dirty from walking behind the plow
and the horse, down there in the cabbage patch, wash in the pan
on the back porch, dry his hands and come into the kitchen where
Grandma always had a hot meal ready. After he ate, his mustache
getting wet in the milk, he would go into the sitting room, lie
down on the floor and take a nap. Daddy didn"t do that way.
Even when he was home far dinner, he would dash the car up the
hill to the back hall door, kind of stroll out, eat the hot dinner
Mother always cooked, but then he would go right back to the house
he was building and work till six. Aunt Merica milked the cow
at our house, and fed the chickens and sometimes the hogs, but
mostly Daddy did the hogs. Both Grandma and Grandpa milked, by
hand, of course, for none of us knew anything about electric milkers,
or piping the milk from the cow to a cooler tank and a holding
tank. We just knew that cows got milked by people.
One
of the most different things about Grandpa was that he lived where
he could walk to a store. He could leave the kitchen porch, go
down the path to the gate, there where the woodpile was on the
other side. cut across the barnyard between the buggy shed and
the springhouse, pass the barn and then follow the path around
the hill, with the meadow and the branch on one side and that
hill where the cow grazed and one town cousin wondered why they
didn't fall off on the other. He would walk across this plank
bridge, open the gate, and before you knew it he was at the store,
there beside the railroad station at Groseclose.
There
were other absolutely different things about Grandpa. He had a
gramophone. And when he went to the store, especially on Saturday,
he would buy one and sometimes two new records. He would buy store-bought
bread. And he would buy orange crush. Daddy never did any of that.
I
gave the pear marmalade to Mama and ran back to the front yard.
"Do
you think he got any orange crush for us today?" Joe asked.
"I don't think so," Ruby said, "I looked where
he puts it in the pantry beside the door or there beside the woodbox.
None." "Milk again," I thought. Maybe he knew
Mama wouldn't exactly approve of orange crush with Sunday dinner.
"I'm
going to sit in the chair next to the kitchen, so I can be the
first to get the rolls," Charles said. "You sat there
last time," I flared back. "How do you know? That was
two or three weeks ago. Now, how do you know?"
"I
think we ought to play Mama May I", Ruby said, and so we
grumpily fell into line, there along the front yard fence, while
Joe, who beat us all to saying, "I'm it," took position
at the foot of the front steps and started giving permissions:
Ruby, take two giant steps. Mother, may I? Yes. Mary Kathryn,
10 baby steps. Mother, may I? Yes. Vivian, 5 backward steps. So,
I turned around and stuck my foot as far back as I could and was
just ready to shift my weight and get the other foot back when
they all shouted: "Go back! Go back! You didn't say Mother
May I." Back I went, back against the fence, and there I
watched the second round advance them further and further from
me. "Look, Joe, there's a crow!" I cried. He turned
his head and I got three giant steps and Charles got one long
jump done before Joe recognized the trick and jerked his head
back to belatedly try to catch us eager cheaters.
"They're
coming out," Charles said. "Don't you wish you were
as old as Hope and Gladys?" "She has to wash dishes;
I'd just as soon wait." "He doesn't have to do anything;
just be a grown up man." "Boy." "Whatever."
"Men have all the luck." "They dig weeds in the
corn." "Mama cooks and cans the corn!"
When,
finally, it came our turn, two tables later, we washed our hands
in the pan at the back door and screamed at Charles because he
threw the water out so instead of going out in the yard like it
should, it sprayed our Sunday dresses. But, Mama said it wasn"t
bad and come on in and eat.
Aunt
Merica was taking up chicken from the last iron skillet left on
the stave, Innis was drying the big one and getting ready to hang
it back on its place an the wall, Grandma was pulling apart the
last couple of rolls from the pan just out of the oven, so Charles
ran ahead and got the chair right where we all knew Grandma would
put them down. The tomato and cucumber dishes had been replenished
and Mama was bringing in big bowls of mashed potatoes and string
beans. Each table was like a fresh start. They left us alone to
hunt through the platter of chicken for our favorite piece, to
take or not take green beans and corn, to eat as much as we could
hold, or food did not run out.
All
the time, Mama and Aunt Lillie, Grandma and Aunt Merica and the
grown up girl cousins talked and talked, and we heard snatches
of stories and dropped-voice secret things about cousins and aunts
and uncles who lived too far away to be there on Sunday dinner.
Before
we got our dessert we heard the gramophone beginning to play in
the sitting room.
