Aunt Nellie's List

Beyond the grey, weathered fence, the beauty of the white dogwood tree stood in full bloom. Sunlight, like flashlights in a forest, skipped across the petals. Tall pine trees stood behind it, framing the delicate tree.

For a minute, my mind wandered into those tall trees and I walked barefoot. Again a little girl, I felt the warm blanket of pine needles between my toes--- a blanket so think a squirrel could run across not making a sound.

Inside my kitchen, the sun sparkled in the dog's water bowl throwing diamond darts on the strawberry wallpaper.  While the sun danced and played games, I whirled like a dervish in my own performance ---moving!

I had a lot of tasks to complete, with one list on my computer, another near the phone in the hall, and a third one in the car. It was quite overwhelming. Will I ever fill them all? One on my desk reminded me not to forget the water hose and rose trellis.

Twenty-six years ago Trevor and I married in the white-steepled Willowbend Church in the small town where I was born.  Two weeks from now we'd be living there. Trevor had decided to deed his medical practice to a younger partner.  Right now he was downtown packing his office.

The best part of the move for me? Daddy's only sister and mother's favorite relative lived there.. Aunt Nellie was everyone's favorite---her neighbors, those at the church,and those at the town's "Soup Kitchen for Hungry Hearts".I was her namesake, Julie Nell.\

She lost Uncle Frank twenty years earlier but continued managing the farm.. When I was ten, I decided to gather the same-size rocks from the gravel street and line the path to her front door. When she came out she hugged me and told me I had created a "walkway like in a storybook". That was the best thing she could have said since my favorite thing was for us to read together.

Early on she'd let me pick any book from her full bookcase, and run sit in her lap in the rocking chair and she'd read to me. As early as 4 years old, I pestered her, "Read to me, please", holding up one of the cloth books. In later years, we'd sit side by side on the sofa, me holding one half the book while she mesmerized me with her animated account of the lines she read.

One Sunday morning in church when I was five, my folks let me sit with Aunt Nellie and Uncle Frank. I had to promise to behave. I did for a while. When I wanted "to.get down on the floor", Aunt Nellie, with a mysterious demeanor, carefully eased an envelope from her Bible and drew a picture.  The picture I recognized immediately as the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Through the remainder of the sermon, I sat transfixed trying to draw a rabbit like hers.

Today, I picture her sitting on the porch that stretched across the front of their farmhouse, rocking and anxiously awaiting our 'homecoming' as she called it. All those good times I think back on as a child baking with Mother and Aunt Nellie, all three of us getting ready for Christmas! Just before Christmas one year I watched Uncle Frank load up their donkey, their family cow, Bernice, and two sheep in his trailer and he let me drive to church with them in his red pickup.  The animals completed the live nativity scene on the church lawn.

 That same year, I remember Aunt Nellie going back home one evening to bring shawls to cover the couple manning their posts in the manger scene when temperatures took a sudden drop.

Later I would be standing at the graveside with one of  Aunt Nellie's arms around my shoulder and the other holding onto my mother when we buried my dad.

Back in the kitchen, I heard the maildrop lid, "clink". I hurried down the hall with a cup towel in one hand and scooped up the mail with the other.  Relieved not to find any unpaid bills, I turned over an envelope addressed to me from Manor House. I slipped my fingers hesitantly beneath the folds of two typed pages.

     Dear Julie, it began,

     I skipped to the bottom of the second page where I saw the familiar signature .But, on this stationery?  I started reading.

     "The news of your moving back has me smiling all over,"  it began. Seems like yesterday you were sitting on the wooden seat of the swing in the backyard!" The next line really unsettled me.

    "Please don't be surprised to see my new address and don't be disappointed I didn't tell you"

     How could I not be unsettled? She's no longer at the home place? She looked forward to the hyacinths and wisteria returning every spring, and her azaleas! All summer she tended the pink sweetheart rose bushes around her gazebo. She had an old-fashioned garden full of yellow and orchid hollyhocks, purple larkspur, snapdragons, poppies, zinnias, and blue plumbago.  Forever busying herself with something or another outside, her yard was her kingdom inside the picket fence all summer and her neighbors loved it!

   The letter continued, "You must know how lucky I was to live alone as long as I did, even after losing Lucky our fine watchdog, but you see, my few needs became many. I wouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't tellyou how much I miss home and all the folks coming and going down our road, but I just couldn't keep up the home place.  Time's changed when you could find help on every corner.

    I stared at her words. Whatever happened to Amsey? I questioned aloud. He's been hers and Uncle Frank's handyman forever--- even kitchen-help man, and car-repair man.  He drove to town for groceries when Frank stayed down from his tractor accident. Her next sentence told me.

     When Amsey took sick last May, there was nobody to help tend the yard, the rose bushes or cut the honeysuckle away from the house, nor anyone to clean and fill the birdbath.  Seems like I was forever sweeping leaves from the front porch and picking up dead limbs and branches all down the sidewalk.

     Manor House? We would have wanted her to live with us.

     Before you get here I want to tell you: I'm not too independent lately, but things are so much better now.  Someone here drives me to all m doctor appointments.  I have good meals every day and lots of company, and interesting programs every week.  I even have a chair lift.  Bet you never thought putting my hair up in braids would be a chore, did you?

     How I loved watching her fix her braids to encircle her head every day.  When I turned ten, I got to brush her hair at night.  I could hardly believe how long her chestnut hair grew. She could sit on it! I rushed and brushed my pigtails every night, but my hair never grew longer than midway down my back.

    Her last line read, "We have so much catching up to do when you get settled!

     With all my love,                                                                                                                                             Your Aunt Nellie"

     I leaned back into the chair in the kitchen. The sun continued its game, sunlight speckling the wallpaper, as I rose and went to my writing desk.

     Dear Aunt Nellie,

       Only two weeks and we'll be there! I'm so excited.  Now tell me, what can I send you in the meantime?                                                                                                                                                Clouds cropped the azure sky as I drove up the hill to the post office to mail her letter.

Two days later, the phone rang, a voice on the line scolding me. I do not need a thing. I don't wear the clothes I have  My best present is you and Trevor coming here to live.  As soon as you catch your breath, hurry over to see me. My eyesight is a bit of a problem. A friend came yesterday to type up this list."

    List? I have lists for everyone: the paper boy, the movers, and the phone man, too.       ........................................................................................................

         A radiance permeated the room while I read her list.

    "So my dear Julie, here's what I really need:

   1.  Help me write some notes.

   2.  Read the Bible to me. 

   3.  Sort through my pictures.

   4.  Sing some of the old hymns with me.

    5.  Pick some flowers from the old garden. (no one's living there)

   6.   Remind me of so many things I used to know.

   7.   Bring me up to date don't the outside world. 

   8, Pray with me. I'm doing a lot of talking to God these about folks on the other side. 

       With all my love,                                                                                                                                               Your Aunt Nellie

        .......

       * and I said to myself---  That's a list I can hardly wait to fill!

     

                                                                                                             

       

The Garden, Idle or Idol?

       The Garden, Idle or Idol?

    It all started this morning when I looked at the miniature old-fashioned pink rosebud, faded and stiff, taped to the side of the marble lamp on my breakfast table. It’s winter now but the delicate fragrance remains and reminds me summer will return.

Drought plagued the summer past.  Trees dropped their leaves early so their trunk and roots could capture what rain fell. Flower seed bundles grew heavy as petals fell.  Oak trees produced larger acorns for strong seeds. All lie buried in winter’s senescence.

This is the season I do my homework. I make a plan. I calculate. I expect setbacks. I practice patience.  This is the story of earth.  It’s the story of our faith. “Except a seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot live again.” (paraphrase) Faith tells me its time to be still and know that nature repeats itself.  “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”. (Genesis 8:22 RSV).

   But when every fiber in my being pulses with excitement and the rake and the hoe start their curtsy on the garage wall, I know it’s time!  Dig in the dirt. Plant those seeds. And I do! Nothing exceeds the thrill of working in the garden for me.

But a friend cautions, “Don’t you know that can become an idol?”

“And what is the definition of an idol?”  I had to know. “An idol is what you desire more than anything else. An object of extreme devotion,” the definition reads.  “So what you are giving all your energies, free time, and full attention to can become an idol,” she cautioned me. 

             “Planting a garden? Surely not,” I assured her. “The joy in planting seeds produces such blessings for which I  praise the Creator when they grow because he gives the soil and every drop of rain and ray of sunshine.” She left me alone .

But it’s winter now. I can’t get outside in the garden. Outside it’s cold and very dark. My finances, my job, my health, any number of  things wrap me in a shroud like a seed. Only I’ll never sprout.

  Instead,  I choose to rest in the thought that I am not in control. The Creator is.  I petition him to bring good from bad, joy from sorrow and hope from despair. I thank him for listening as I continue to pray and wait. Wait and pray.

             Spring will return.

And when it does, I work.  I rise up early to mix the soil and remove the weeds. I prune and I harness pests. I catch my breath.  An idol? No. A tender reminder that it’s a partnership, at one with the Creator.  I hum the Sunday School chorus as I work:

“I dig, dig, dig a hole in the ground and plant the seed just so, 

 I pat the dirt and water it well and put away the hoe.

I watch for the sun and the rain to come but this one thing I know-

I can dig a hole and plant the seed. . . but God makes the garden grow!”

                  When I climb beneath the covers at night I thank Him for being the soil beneath my feet as I work and rest and sleep, awaiting the ‘touch of the Master’s hand’.

                               

                                                     The Baron’s Legacy

        Baron Bunny, for years the pharmacist in Cornersville knew more than most doctors.  Miss

Mousie, his loyal assistant during those years,  and now his housekeeper watches over his every

 need. As the senior resident in Cornersville, the old gentleman remembers when the railroad moved through at Petticoat Junction and how the townsfolk set their watches and clocks by the train whistle.  Last summer, Deary Deer, the principal at Gorman, asked Baron if he would give a talk to the high school students on the Cornersville history.

        “Why, Mrs. Deer, it’d be my pleasure,” Baron responded.

       A heavy downpour fell the morning of the high school assembly, but students were in their  seats sitting quietly when the town’s revered gentleman made his way to the podium assisted by his shiny black cane. Miss Mousie watched proudly from behind a curtain to the left of the stage.

     “Good morning students,” Baron Bunny warmly addressed the eager bunch before him. “I’ll have question and answer time after I finish so be thinking of questions you might have.”

      He began telling them about his grandparents who had moved to this area in the middle of a  drought before the turn of the century. “They lived through the Great Depression here, two World Wars, and rationing.” he said. He told of the railroad coming, the picture show, the building of the dam, and paved roadways.

        The bulk of his time The Baron spent recalling for the student body one tragic event in the life of the small community: “You will want to remember it’s been over 20 years since the tornado hit downtown in Cornersville.” The auditorium crowd, so quiet you could hear a pencil drop, seemed anxious to gather every word the oldest resident offered.

       “The Corner Drug Store, where I  worked 45 years, flew upwards in the torrent and its remains  strewn for about 10 blocks. That’s where Mister Murphy’s Grocery Store stands today. The Lollipop Candy Store once sat on the corner of Main and 3^rd Street;  it was destroyed by the horrific winds of the tornado and the quilt shop built there the next year (The Raveling).” He cleared his throat. 

       “Two places I think may be your favorites remained untouched: the Paramount Theatre with its great neon sign still in place, and Waltrip’s Bakery, now The Rose.  For weeks following the tornado clean-up, the tire store employees gathered their outside display of tires from blocks away, some from roof-tops.

     You may have heard the story of the Cornersville Church dome. My father stood inside the bakery and saw the winds lift that heavy done upwards for an instant, then set it back in its original place! Unbelievable, don’t you think?” he asked.

   “Just look at our downtown today.” he concluded, “A really fine square with all the pecan trees lining the park.”   He glanced over at Mrs. Deer, who sat smiling.

      A hand went up near the front of the auditorium,  “Someone told us the courthouse has ghosts living in it since the tornado.” And the Baron quickly acknowledged,

     “ I don’t know about any ghosts taking residence in that historic place, but I do know it houses the records of our town and our wonderful county. I think you’d be amazed by how much information that building holds.” He paused to take a sip of water from the glass on the podium, then continued, “From long ago land records and outlaws roaming the countryside, to every birth, these facts are listed in those files in the basement. If you need information of any kind about this area, you can find what all has gone on in this community since the courthouse was built in 1889,” and Baron’s large frame shook as he chuckled a bit thinking about all the history the old building held.

      Right then the bell rang in the hall and he waved, “Thank you, students. You were a good audience.”

       On the way back to the classroom one student told another, “The Baron really knows our history, doesn’t he?”

     “Yes, I’m excited.” she said,  “I’m going to ask my grandparents for their stories.”

   “I will, too” her classmate echoed.”

      “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known.” Jeremiah 33:3 (RSV)

Cozy' Regret

Cozy’s Regret

        Cozy Coyote,  by far the hero of the town and a really fine-looking fellow with thick golden hair, held the trophy from the Mars Mountain Triathlon two years in a row.  But this hot August afternoon  he was anything but somebody’s hero.  You see, last night had been a long one and the big celebration after his latest win lasted until dawn. Food ran out long before the crowd did, and now he was really hungry.  Almost back to his house,  he passed the familiar farm where Mrs. Puddleduck had her nest in the bow of the old weathered, gray rowboat whose frame rested upside down. The two saw-horses which supported each end had been made by Cozy’s uncle over a decade ago. 

      If he just hadn’t been so hungry, this next part would never have happened. Because Mrs. Puddleduck was back laying her eggs again, he could see three big ones laying  inside the old boat just inside her fence.  And before he could think straight, he burrowed under the thick cassia bushes and grabbed the closest egg and  swallowed its contents.   “Oh my, what have I done? Maybe she won’t miss just one.”

      But that one had tasted so good, he reached for a second one. Two cracked shells now lay on the ground at his feet. He thought he’d bury those back under the bush, but when he turned to see the one egg left in the nest, he couldn’t stop himself and he ate that one, too. ”Maybe she won’t remember where she laid her eggs,” he said out loud, as he buried the last evidence alongside the other two. He looked to the right and to the left before he left Mrs. Puddleduck’s yard. No one anywhere.  No one would suspect him even if the case came to light.

    After arriving home, he felt really bad. “What did I just do? I’m a thief,” he said to himself. “Those eggs were someone else’s property—they were Mrs. Puddleduck’s.” He felt ill.

        Since nothing like this ever happened in Cornersville,  Mrs. Puddleduck knew she must report the missing eggs and straight she went to the Sheriff’s office the next morning.  Sheriff Dandy Dan listened a minute, and the next minute he was on the scene.

    He might have missed the evidence if he hadn’t felt an indention right under his foot. Holding his magnifying mirror close to the ground, he found what must belong to one of the Coyote families.  Cozy Coyote would never have been considered a suspect except for the strange configuration Sheriff Dan saw in the dirt—the footprint. Only one of that family had a missing pad on his left back foot— Cozy!

      As soon as he saw Sheriff Dandy Dan coming up the road, Cozy knew he knew. He confessed before Dandy said a word. “Cozy, what were you thinking? This sort of thing never happens in our town!” Cozy hung his head.

    Had it not been for all the considerations of his past, and the pleas and promises Cozy made to Mrs. Puddleduck, and the pressure Sheriff Dan received from the rest of the town to “let Cozy make restitution and give him another chance,” he would have been hauled away to jail that morning.

     After admitting the theft, Cozy went right over to Mrs. Puddleduck and apologized. He promised his “sorry” was the most sincere he had ever been. And Cozy lived up to his word. He rebuilt a part of the boat stern that had rotted and filled in the hole where he dug under the bushes. He did Mrs. Puddleduck’s grocery shopping and any other errands whenever she or any of her family needed something from town. He was good as his word and lived to be the most trusted citizen in Cornersville the rest of his life.

  “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.” Proverbs 1,2.

Almost Losing Ziggy

          Even if the moon had not been shining through the thick trees that night in Misty Forest,

Paw Possum would have spotted Ziggy thrashing about on the pine-needled forest floor. “Ziggy, what’s wrong?” he hollered. When he ran to his side, he saw the bulge in his throat, “You’re choking!” He grabbed Ziggy’s throat with both hands, forcing the object out. Something white fell into the leaves beside them. Then Ziggy went limp. Next thing you know, Paw had Ziggy wrapped around him and he ran toward the road behind Miz Maddie’s house.

      Miz Maddie was taking in the bedspread she had hung on the clothesline last night to air. The radio was reporting scattered showers and she could already smell rain when Paw yelled, “Miz Maddie, call Doc and tell him we’re on our way! Ziggy’s choked and gone limp!”

She was on the phone quicker than rabbits can hop, and thankfully, Do Deer answered.          “They’re on their way. They just left my back fence,” she shouted breathlessly.

“Who’s on their way, Miz Maddie?”

“Paw Possum’s got Ziggy wrapped all around his shoulders.  He said Ziggy choked and is limp!”

   Before Paw ever knocked,  Doc Deer’s office door flew open. “Bring him over here, Paw.” The doctor checked for a pulse, “He’s unconscious but he’s still alive. What did you say happened?”

   I found him writhing in the forest; I saw the big bulge in his throat. I used both hands to force it out. That’s when he went limp.”

          Two rainy days later Ziggy still remained in a coma. Doc Deer had asked everyone to pray and they did.  Most of the townspeople gathered on the doctor’s front porch in an all-night vigil.

      The next day: Ziggy woke up! But he couldn’t utter a word.

                             ………………………………………………..

         Meanwhile, Paw went back to the far side of Misty Forest where he had found Ziggy three days earlier and began a systematic search among the leaves, logs, bushes, and pine needles to find what Ziggy had swallowed. “There it is!”   A small white ball—-a hard ball. A golf ball, for sure. He hurried back to Doc’s office with his evidence.

          

                        Fairy Fox and the Missing Marmot Child      

      It was dark outside and not quite morning when Miz Maddie heard voices on the road outside her gate.  She slipped out of bed and stepped to the front porch to listen. Only the hoot of a far-away owl friend. She reached the fence, grabbing hold of the pickets to steady herself, and squinted up and down the road. Only shadows from the trees full of wisteria vines moved in the wind.  She opened the gate and bent down to look.  There, a fresh track!  Her fingers followed the outline, feeling the dampness.  Fairy Fox?

     He had been traveling back and forth from the reservoir most every day. Three months ago he was the one who brought back the tragic news; the Platoro Reservoir dam had collapsed, carrying many, many people away in the rushing water.

    One of the survivors of that disaster, Mamie Marmot, came to live in Cornersville bringing her two children. Their granddaddy Martin Marmot, a quiet gentleman who lives alone up the River Road insisted they come. Before the tragedy, Mamie, her husband, and the three little ones lived happily among the rocks below the massive reservoir. But now they were only three. Mamie’s husband and one of the children had disappeared that night in the flood.

      When they arrived the entire Cornersville community welcomed them and brought groceries and home-cooked meals to help them settle in.  Fairy Fox, who was one of the first to welcome Mamie and her children to town,  pledged he would return to search for her husband and child. And Fairy had been faithful to that promise traveling the 12 mile journey day after day.  Only last week, Fairy brought back from the river station a dark brown, knit nightcap with a while ball on one end. When he showed it to the family they recognized it: their dad and husband wouldn’t be coming back.

     Long after the emergency crews stopped their operations at the site, Fairy Fox continued his search, talking to everyone along the roads, asking questions. He posted signs and even dared hope someone had taken the orphan to live with them. He was determined to take back the truth, even if only proof of the body.

                              …………………………………………………….

     By the time the sun moved slightly above the trees the next morning, the news had spread across the entire community:  “Fairy found the other little marmot and brought him safely home to his family last night!”

     So now you know, little reader, the happy ending to the mysterious footprint in the road last night. It was Fairy Fox carrying the youngest marmot up from the river.  

                                                            Ritzy Racoon

        Couldn’t have been a prettier morning. The sun blinked its way through the cottonwoods as Minnie made her way down the river road to town.  She had her Mama Maddie’s basket on her arm and she had been sent to pick up the baby-blue yard for her mother’s latest project—a quilt for Penny Possum’s little boy.

     Coming from the quilt shop, a horn caught her attention and she looked across the street, a voice called to her, “Hey, baby! How ‘bout a little spin in the Raceymobile?” and the convertible owner wheeled around and pulled up to the curb where she was standing. She tried to look embarrassed.

     “The way home won’t as long if you ride with me,” invited Ritzy Racoon, “I’ll have you there in a jiffy,” and he swung open the door patting the seat where he wanted her to sit.

     She couldn’t resist.  Besides the sun was up a bit higher now and the road home might be hot. Along the way, Ritzy told her about a great place called the Avalon up on the highway. “Let’s go on Saturday night and I can show you all my friends and you’ll see where everybody in town goes dancin’.” She didn’t know what to think about it.

      At home, she couldn’t wait to tell her mother about Ritzy asking her for a date. “No, absolutely not. Ritzy is not the kind of boy you need to go out with,” her mother scolded.

     Two weeks later Minnie told her mother she and some girls were going to the Disney movie at the Paramount. Instead, she met Ritzy at a preplanned place.  They drove to the Avalon and three of  Ritzy’s friends did indeed meet her at the door with tongues hanging out.

     When they reached for her, she flew to the rafters and kept going up to the highest rafter and crouched in a dark corner. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the open transom window and scrambled to it, flying down the roof and half running, half flying across the grass straight for home.

     She didn’t know it but O’Marney Owl flew in and out of the trees behind her in case any of the Avalon gang picked up on her trail.

    “Oh Mother, it was awful. I’ll never disobey you again, sobbed Minnie as her mother tucked her in bed. “Please don’t tell anyone what happened.” And you need not worry, little reader, about O’Marney Owl; he would keep the whole thing under his wing.  After all, he was the preacher.