Summer School

Ah, cotton vacation! While kids in city schools slaved over books, we on the farm were enjoying cotton vacation. This special time came every fall around September first and continued for about six weeks. This was not a celebration of cotton, but a time when schools closed, freeing children and teenagers to work for their families on the farm during harvest season.

This vacation time didn't come easy. We started the school year around the middle of July. At this time there was no air conditioning in the schools. With 100 degree temperatures outside, it was stifling in the classroom. A big fan on a stand whirled from a corner of the classroom. Large open windows along one side of the classroom let in the warm breeze accompanied by the high pitched singing of cicada and the buzz of wasps and bees in the bushes beneath the windows. The classroom door was always open to increase circulation of the slightest breeze. You could hear the quiet rythm of the voices of other teachers in the building.

The smell of lunches packed in paper bags drifted from the coat room closet that stretched across the back of the room. This closet was closed off by a number of folding doors that reached to the ceiling. An unruly child might find himself isolated behind those folding doors as a time out. The smell of juniper and other evergreens drifted in the open windows and mingled with the smell of chalk, and crayons and pencil lead. Reading, writing and arithmetic filled the morning hours. That and the increasingly warm temperatures lulled us into semiconsciousness.

Lunch was a long time coming. But, when the bell finally rang, we filed out into the warm sun and then sought shade to eat our lunch. Lunch for me was usually a bisquit, egg and or bacon left from breakfast. The steps or the sidewalk along side the building was my favorite place to eat. Recess followed. The boys hurriedly ate and quickly organized a ball game. The girls played jacks on the sidewalk which wore our fingernails to the quick. Swings and slides out in the blazing sun drew a few. Recess over, we lined up to go back into the building. It was torture to wait in line in the hot sun while the boys slowly came in from their makeshift ball field on the far side of the play ground. Then more waiting until the teachers, who were standing in the shade, decided the line was straight enough.

The afternoons were slow and lazy. With lunch time over we rested with our heads on our desks as we listened to Mrs. Conrad read another chapter from some literary classic. The afternoon lessons were more interesting, science, history, social studies and occasionally art, my favorite.

Then came the ride home on the bus. Students of all ages crowded onto the bus. Activities of the day had left everyone hot, sweaty and smelly. The older kids crowed the younger children out of their seats leaving them standing or to find a less desirable place to sit. The only thing that made the ride bearable, was that my older sisters were on the bus. But, juniorhigh and high school boys were also on there. They pulled my pig tails, teased me and fought each other disregarding those in their line of fire. The bus driver was oblivious to the activity behind him. His objective was to deliver his load and get home.

At last the bus stopped at the house on the hill. Book satchel in hand, I scurried down the bus steps, across the dusty road and into the welcome shade of the elm tree in the front yard of the house on the hill. The aroma of something cooking pulled me into the kitchen. Suddenly, I was starving. Today Mama had tea cakes hot from the oven. I spread a little butter on mine. Heavenly! I was home at last.

Home was a place where I could be myself, a place where I didn't have to strive for perfection, a place where I could predict the actions of others and their reactions to me, a place where I was unconditionally loved. Such was the house on the hill.

The Storm

The Storm

The day was muggy and hot. The doors and windows in the house on the hill were wide open to catch even the slightest breeze. Cooking was almost unbearable. Mama's hair was pulled back into a bun but the stray hair framing her face and the wayward strings of hair on her neck were wet with sweat. We kids tried to play in the shade of the mulberry trees but the sullen day pulled the energy out of us and we fussed and bickered, punched and shoved; finally winding up on the front porch in a mood that matched the sullen, stifling day. Even the chickens seemed agitated, pecking and sqawlking at one another. The mother hen chirped and scratched the ground, pecking at leaves and grass trying to keep her little family together.

It first began with just a haze along the western horizon. a heaviness but hardly noticed. It hang there in the early afternoon like an autumn weariness. After a while the haze turned grayish blue, a welcome change, a hope of rain. An occasional spontaneous breeze whisked sand and leaves into a whirl wind that raced across the yard, disturbing the chickens and then dissipating into the tall cotton plants near by.

Then a low rumble of thunder. We're not even sure it is thunder. It is just a quiet rumble that fades into the hum of bees and wasps. In a few minutes we hear it again. Then again. It soons becomes louder and and more menacing. Gradually the sky turns dark; a dark bluish black. The dark hue spreads across the horizon. The storm begins to define itself with dark rolling clouds that seemed to pull the smooth dark sky upward covering the sun. The hot humid air is swallowed up by a cool brisk breeze straight off the dark, approaching storm.

The mother hen clucked frantically, trying to encourage her baby chickens under the house to shelter. They half run, half fly toward the security of the house. The cool wind helped them along, turning their tails over their heads, blowing them under the porch to safety under their mother's wings.

Mama met us at the door as we came running in ahead of the storm. Lightening cracked across the sky followed immediately by deafening thunder.

"You kids get out of the door and stay away from the windows!" she warned as the lightening and thunder increased.

Mama rushed from one window to the next closing them. She left them slightly open to stabilize air pressure as if the cracks and creveses in the old hourse weren't enough. Suddenly the storm was upon us.

"Sit on the bed!," Mama said, "And stay there!"

We were never allowed to sit or lay on the bed. We knew better than to dive into the comforting feather bed, so we sat there on the side of the bed, feet dangling, hearts racing and eyes wide with fear.

Mama walked the floor until the back door opened and Daddy and the boys hurried inside. They struggled to close the door against the wind. The men stood in the kitchen wiping their faces on their sleeve and slapping their hats on their legs to rid them of water. Mama took her place at the head of the bed to wait out the storm. The head of the bed pressed hard against the supporting wall that ran the length of the house. We all watched helplessly as the walls of the house on the hill bent toward us then relaxed. The walls continued to bend, relax, bend, relax with the pulse of the storm.

Just as quickly as the storm arrived, it was gone, leaving behind cool clear air. Droplets of water hang on the leaves of the trees, water dripped from the eves of the house and inviting puddles of water beaconed from low places in the muddy yard. The storm raced eastward across East ditch toward the Horseshoe farm. We were safe.

The house on the hill was void of cushy comforts. There were no soft cushioned sofas or chairs. There were no carpets or lamps. The rooms were lighted by a single light bulb that dangled from the ceiling. Wooden walls with heavy gray paper tacked over them surrounded the family living in the house on the hill. But, the house on the hill was a refuge from familial, physical, and emotional storms that came our way. We always found comfort, peace and safety in that old house and in the one who ministered within its walls.

Even today, when the storms of life come my way, I retreat in my heart and mind to the security of the House on the Hill.

A Sunday Visit

The mulberry tree at the west end of the house was a welcome haven from the summer sun. No grass grew in its dense shade and a cool breeze set the huge leaves to turning in the wind, alternating their fuzzy white side with the dark green side. Those huge three point leaves turned and twisted at the end of a long stem. We snapped leaves from the lower branches, broke off the long stems and used them to sew the leaves together to make aprons and tablecloths.

Being Mary’s eleventh child brought with it a unique but happy situation. When my older siblings came home they brought their children; girls who were more like sisters, welcome playmates for Bobbie and me.

Being an older child also brought worries and concerns to a young tender heart. To me, my parents were old. Old people died. Daddy was too tired to play games or to give us much attention. Mama loved to play board games and share stories, but she was often sick.

Jim, my oldest brother, and his family lived in St. Louis. They would drive down occasionally on Sunday to spend the day. This made for an exciting day for Bobbie and me. Laverne would bring “real” bread, light bread, we called it, all wrapped in its own white bag decorated with multicolored balloons. It was almost like eating cake. Laverne also brought banana pudding. This was a special treat. This was the only time we’d have bananas. But, best of all, Nancy came.

Nancy was Jim’s daughter just a year younger than I. We soon found ourselves beneath the mulberry tree playing house. We’d sweep up narrow rows of dirt, twigs and leaves to mark the boundary of our kitchen. We’d set the wash bench inside and pull up some buckets for chairs. We’d spread our leaf woven cloth on the bench table and tear leaves and grass as if we were breaking beans or tearing lettuce. This was accompanied by idle chat; about things of which we thought grownup women talked. But one Sunday afternoon a serious conversation developed between Nancy and me.

Mama was having a stretch of illness and I was filled with dread and concern. What would I do? What would become of me if Mama should die? She was the most precious, the most important person, in the world to me. I shared my concern with Nancy. She looked at me with eyes bright with hope.

“Oh, Grandmother (her special name for Mama) doesn’t have to die.” She said. “Jesus died so she wouldn’t have to.”

Though neither of us understood the infinite meaning of what she said, the demonstration of her simple faith was sufficient. That eternal truth gave hope and satisfaction to the troubled hearts of those young girls.

Joy filled my heart. I had never heard of Jesus. I knew nothing of him. Immediately I loved him, and was eager to share this news with Mama. Thus began my life long relationship with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Thanks Nancy, for the most important conversation of my life.

Jesus cares about you and me. My young heart was not ready for saving faith, but that did not impede the faith I needed for that moment. Jesus seeks you, no matter your age or your circumstances. Jesus can also use you, sometimes in special ways that are uniquely yours.