A
Cumberland Christmas, Circa 1910
S.
R. Lee
An
Excerpt from the book Granny Lindy
[The
narrator of this chapter is Grady Harrris, remembering his life
as an adolescent boy
adopted by an older couple, near Livingston, Tennessee.]
I
do believe I liked going trading more’n I did visiting. Course,
not just down to the stores, for I could go there most anytime
Pap went, but at Christmas we’d go all the way down to Monterey
to buy shotgun shells so we could have a real fine Christmas hunt.
That was the most sociable trading I’d ever done in those
days cause there was more than one store in Monterey and we would
go round to three or four. We could get everything we went for
at one, but it was nice to go in different places and see how
they did. Course we went to get shells, but Pap would always take
a little money along because he said a body never could tell what
he was going to find in a town that would be interesting. We’d
always get the shells first, a whole box full, for they were what
we come for. I’d carry them and just the heavy feel of the
box was good, seemed like I could hear the sound of a gun every
now and then just back in my mind when I was carrying those shells.
Then we’d go about and see what there was in town, and Pap
knew a heap more folks down there than I did, seemed like he knowed
most the storekeepers and a lot of the men we’d meet along
the street. I worked right along side of Pap every day except
when I was in school, and I knew he’d be on the farm all
day, but he sure knew more folks then I could dream of. I reckon
he met them a long while ago.
When we’d go up there just exactly in the week before Christmas
itself, we could get oranges. I think that was the real reason
why Pap took some extra money because Mammy liked those oranges
so. The first time we saw them, didn't none of us know what they
were, but the storekeeper said they was called ”oranges”
and had come up all the way from Florida on a train. Pap thought
Mammy would kind of like to see something so strange and new as
those oranges, so he got three. Law, Mammy did take on over them
things. I don’t believe there was anybody on this bench as
fond of things from far away as my Mammy was. We tried to bring
them to her every year after that, but if we didn’t get up
there just exactly to the week before Christmas, nobody there
had none, and the trouble with getting there was that right often
the roads were too muddy for us to get through at that time of
year. If the ground was frozen, we could ride the mules or take
the wagon either one, but if it wasn’t then we had troubles.
When the rain had been real bad, a man could walk where he couldn’t
get through on muleback. Law, there was a low place between here
and Pond Ridge store that would get so muddy the water and mud
would come clean up to the mule’s belly when a body tried
to ride through there. A man could walk round it if he was careful
where he stepped, so we never were so we couldn’t get to
a store at all. Thing was, if we wanted to get to Monterey at
the right time for those oranges, we just had to hope for freezing
weather because once winter set in with the rain and mud, we were
pretty much at home except during the cold snaps.
But we could always get shotgun shells from some store in walking
distance, and so we always had us a good Christmas hunt. We’d
start about four in the morning of Christmas Day and not have
to get home till after dark. It was fine. The weather would be
cold, but when the sun shines up here toward the end of December,
it’s just right for walking through the woods. Sometimes
we’d really cover territory, walk all over these mountains
and up toward the next ridge too. That depended on what squirrels
we were finding. Some folks buy good whiskey special for Christmas
as well as hunting shells, so when we’d pass by down at Guild’s
store, there’d be a crowd of fellers down there having their
Christmas drink and shooting round a bit maybe, seeing who could
hit what. Pap didn’t hold with just a lot of whiskey drinking,
though, so we never stayed but just to say “howdy.”
Then we’d just go on and hunt steady the rest of the day,
and we generally brought home as fine a mess of squirrels as a
feller could want. Mammy would be cooking us fried squirrels and
making squirrel dumplings for more’n a week after that.
***
S.
R. Lee writes fiction, short non-fiction, and poetry. She
took the Woodland Award for Best Poet in the Cookeville Creative
Writers’ Contest, May 2000, and has read at the Southern
Writers Festival, Nashville. She was contributing editor of The
Poets of St. Paul’s, an anthology of St. Paul’s
Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. Lee has a Christmas carol published
by Oxford University Press.
Read more about her book Granny Lindy.
©
S.R. Lee