Trains, Haunts, Ice picks, Snakes, Wasps and Rabbit Tobacco
When we moved back to Brookhaven, we were young, I was 6 and Dean was 8, life was full of wonders in the country, we had come home every summer for a week or 2 visits, but to now live here instead of the busy noisy city was like being in Heaven.
We were always getting into something, there was a train trestle a mile west of our lane and the bluff where Emell & Clementine lived. When the train reach the trestle it would start blowing and Dean and I would race down the lane to the bluff to wave at our friends, (though we never met them) the Engineer and brakeman, who always waved and hollered at us, some times they even threw candy to us, I loved the taffy like candy, it was pink and I can still taste it., Momma said that they knew Grandaddy from the freight hauling service, but we had to run like the wind to make it before they passed and Mary, Grandma, Bear and Bug was there waving when we got there. Most of the time when we went to their house we would cut across the pasture and go in the back way to their house, but when we were racing the train it was quicker to go down the lane, besides as fast as we were running the ole haunt in the Big cider tree couldn't get us....lol...
yes, I said Haunt in the Cedar tree, half way between our house and the little house on the bluff was a very large Cedar tree. Clementine swore that she had been attacked one evening by a haunt in that tree, and she had he scratches on her legs to prove it, it was just about dusk dark and she was returning home from helping Granny can sausage, it was hog killing Sat, it was cool and Emell had come up early that morning to help Grandaddy butcher 2 hogs for the winter canning. And to hang in the smoke house. She swears that just as she passed the cedar two hands came out of the tree and grabbed her legs and she couldn't move. She screamed and screamed till one of her older boys came running and she guessed scared the spirit off. She said she had been told by her Momma that in Africa they believed if you made a tribal member mad or caused harm to them in anyway, when they died their spirit would live in a large tree and try to kidnap the person who harmed them... but she couldn't figure out who would want to hurt her, I don't believe that dear lady ever hurt anyone....
This was 2 years before we moved back and she never again walked past that tree if it was getting dark. ...lol...After she told us the story, that Emell had threaten her not to tell, we never went past it either.
As the summer progressed we learned to make jewelry out of clover, spend hours catching lightening bugs. One day Dean and I decided we wanted to put holes in the lid of a jar to keep our bugs in, now we knew not to mess with the ice pick, lol...knowing better and doing it, didn't mix well with Dean and I, she slipped in the house and got the ice pick and we went to the car shed to do our deed...well, you guessed it, she was holding the lid between her feet and stuck the ice pick through the top of her foot, she screamed so loud, I ran and hide and Grandaddy came hopping out of the house, he didn't have his wooden leg on... he was so mad that he snatched the ice pick out of her foot and broke it into pieces, he wasn't so mad at her as at the ice pick for hurting his baby. Well she had to sit on the front porch with her foot in a pan of kerosene...all was peaceful for about 5 minutes, then they heard a blood curdling scream from me, I'd gone around the house to use the outhouse and had sit down on a snake it was getting dark and when you closed the door you couldn't see anything, but you sure could feel it, thank heavens it was a King snake. But my screams brought everyone running including Dean, hopping, bless her heart she brushed up against the side of the house and knocked down a red wasp nest. She was stung 7 times before she could get away from them...she was hurting and I was scared shit less...literally. We weren't allowed to leave the front porch for over a week. The most miserable week of the whole summer.
But the worst thing I remember and man did I think I was going to die...lol..If We hadn't been so sick, Clementine would have probably killed us
You could go down a high bluff at the little house, cross the railroad tracks and up a high bluff one the other side to Granddaddy's north pasture, usually after the train went by we'd go over there, since this was a single track we knew no other train would be coming for at least 4 hrs. We loved to just explore and believe it or not we were looking for a coach whip, do any of you remember them, they were supposedly a black snake that can stand on it's head and whip cows with a its tail. Now why would we what to find one of those things?...lol..
This particular day for some reason Bear decided he was going to smoke some rabbit tobacco, the pasture was no longer in use for cows since Grandaddy was too ill to go over there anymore , the cows where in the back pasture behind the house. There was plenty of rabbit tobacco, plus no one would be coming over there, well nothing do us dumb little white girls but we wanted to try it. Grandma told us it would make us sick, not to do it, well now, that was all we needed, her saying don't...lol..next time I'll listen. It didn't take but a few puffs and I was drunk as a skunk the ground just wouldn't stay still, once again we stayed longer than we should, trying to get me over being sick....never did figure out if Dean got sick, or not, I was too sick to care..lol..everyman for himself at a time like this...This time Clementine got worried cause it was getting close to time for the next train to come through, so she sent one of the older boys to find us and he carried me home over his shoulder , him giggling all the way. Oh I though I was dying, I didn't eat for a week, but to show Clementine had a sense of humor, as soon as I started feeling better she would offer me some fried bacon or a sausage sandwich....I'd turn green and head for the back door, maybe that's why smoking never turned me on...lol....Poor Bear got the strap again from Emell and this time he remembered it the next day. I don't think he ever smoked rabbit tobacco again either....
Live was good that summer, but little did we know that the winds of change was blowing our way and our life as we knew it would change in such a terrible way....
In case anyone has missed the other chapters of my childhood in the Farm House story you can find them here
chapter4
chapter 3
chapter 2
Chapter 1
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