The Christmas Letters (3 page)

Word comes from everywhere: the bridge is out at Bar-berville, they are sandbagging at Duncan, they are already evacuating Little Point, downriver. We are glued to the radio. I start collecting rainwater. In the gathering excitement, the children run wild. And more news comes: they are evacuating Powell’s Neck, old man Burgess won’t leave, they tie him up and carry him out on a stretcher, his
daughter has signed a paper. Miss Treadway, the piano teacher, is in hysterics, they have taken her to the Hospital.

Bill’s mother remains surprisingly calm in the face of this Disaster, in fact it comes to me that she is actually
enjoying
all the excitement. Her eyes glow like lamps in her yellow face and she never leaves the porch where she sits in state on the glider, wrapped up in blankets and wearing her Sunday hat, chatting with all who come by. For the first time ever, Bill is short with her, cutting her off in mid-sentence as she rambles on and on.

Not only that, but he
spanks
Ruthie—something he has never done before.

Of course Ruthie
did
scare us all to death by disappearing like that, gone for over two hours without thinking to tell any of us that she was going to see her little friend, whose parents had picked her up in a car and taken her home for a visit. We were frantic. Bill paddled her good, until
everybody
was crying, Joe above all, pulling at his daddy until Bill smacked him too, causing Joe to disappear for the rest of the afternoon. Bill was not himself. He seemed exhausted when it was over, a man in a daze. He went upstairs and lay down on our bed like a Corpse in a coffin, very stiff, with his hands folded up on his chest. I did not dare to mention the mud on the quilt, I believe we both knew by then that it would not matter. I tiptoed over to kiss my Bill but his face was Stone, and he lay exactly
like that until the sheriff came to the door a few hours later and said that we would have to leave.

In a way, this was a relief. Bill got up. The children suddenly turned into little Angels, very helpful, and we all worked with a common purpose, loading up the car and truck, carrying everything else upstairs. We packed the attic full, and that room up under the eaves where I had stayed with my little Mary so long ago.

One of the last things I did before we left was to look out my little round window again, at a whole world gone wild, the mysterious dark river that I had loved, which had held so much promise somehow, now turned against us— wide, yellow, and Evil, rising every hour up the long green bank with its edging of lacy froth. The sun was out by the time we left, but it made no difference, of course, as the river was on the rise.

I couldn’t believe it—suddenly, it had turned into the prettiest afternoon. Joe and Mary whispered to each other all the way to Cartersville, playing their games, off in their own little world, and I was just as glad of it, for the Real World seemed too harsh that day for children, and I knew I was powerless to protect them, or any of us, from it.

For the first time in my life, I questioned God’s wisdom and His will, for I had prayed to Him all along, and yet He had done nothing, and had allowed this to happen to us. I was full of bitterness, and the bright sunshiny day only
seemed to make it worse in my estimation, as if He was mocking me. We took shelter at the Presbyterian Church in Pasquotank, which was far enough inland to be judged safe. There we found sandwiches and coffee, and other children for our children to play with, and I must say that Bill’s mother seemed to enjoy the whole experience enormously.

I did not. My mind was filled with what must be happening back at home, and I remained cut off from my beloved husband, as from God. Bill went back out directly in the truck with the other men, and came back in the late afternoon with a set gray face. “It is over, Birdie,” he said, and turned away, but then in the night on the hard church floor, he broke and started crying and so was restored to me, and I thanked God, though I knew we had lost the farm.

One of the worst things about a flood is that—unlike a fire, which makes a clean sweep of everything—when the waters recede at last, everything is unfortunately
Still There,
and though it is all ruined beyond hope, there it yet is, to be dealt with. You feel like you
ought
to clean things up, you
ought
to be able to use them again, but the truth is, you cannot.

We had to walk across the muddy fields to our house, for the road was gone, and pull ourselves up through the open door, for the porch was gone. Inside we found a foot of stinking mud throughout the entire first story, and the biggest ugliest Catfish I have ever seen was flopping
around on the kitchen floor. At that point, I just sat down in the mud and cried my eyes out. After all the work we— especially Bill—had put into that sorry farm, it broke my heart! At that point Joe caught the Catfish with his bare hands, and Bill killed it with a knife, and they carried it in a croker sack over to the church ladies, who put it in a big pot of chowder which they were making at the church. I couldn’t eat a bite of supper, I couldn’t get the awful picture out of my mind, how it looked as it flopped in the mud on my kitchen floor, with its awful grinning face, its wide smart eyes, those sweeping whiskers, oh I would have nightmares about that Catfish for months to come.

Well, to make a long story short, we lost the farm.

But I have to say, if it hadn’t happened, why, we would be out there still, I reckon, both of us, working our fingers to the bone every day, just trying to make ends meet. Bill would never have got up the nerve to get that bank loan and start the dime store. For Necessity truly
is
the Mother of Invention, as they say.

So now, here we are living in town, on the other side of that river which has receded of course and now flows within its banks as pretty as you please.

And our dime store is a real big Success! As some of you have heard from me already. Everybody comes to shop, as there is nothing like it for miles around. Bill sells everything you can think of, from nails to sheets to
makeup. We’ve even got a popcorn machine! And a candy counter with candy corn, fudge, jellied orange slices, nonpareils, why you name it.

And I am the proud proprietor of Birdie’s Lunch, which we have built into one corner of the store. You know how much I have always loved to cook. Well, Birdie’s Lunch is very popular, I have to say. I am open for Breakfast and Lunch only, though some people buy their Supper and carry it home, especially on chicken and dumpling days. My meatloaf is another very popular item. Best of all is, I get to see Bill all day long, not only at supper time, when he is dog tired, as on the farm. And all the children work at the store with us, they all have jobs, and are a big help.

Last year at Eastertime, we had them all helping us to make Easter baskets. It took me and Bill and everybody else that works for us, plus the kids, we had formed a regular little Assembly Line. This was on a Sunday afternoon after church when the store was closed, several weeks before Easter. It was a cool rainy day as I recall, and I had made some coffee and chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies to give everybody, so we had kind of a Party Atmosphere, and we were all enjoying ourselves. We had boxes of Easter candy and little toy rabbits and bunnies and such as that, yellow and purple cellophane paper which came in long rolls, and several huge cardboard boxes filled with pink cellophane Easter straw. I was the one who tied the bows, I have always
been very good at bows. We worked all afternoon. I was so busy, and having such a good time, that I didn’t even notice when Mary and Joe disappeared. Then suddenly it was time to go, and we couldn’t find them anywhere.

“Mary! Joe!” we called all over the store, and finally here they came, popping right up out of the last box of Easter straw, nearly scaring us all to death! They had crawled down under the straw, and fallen asleep there. Oh how we laughed! We are all enjoying the dime store.

Mary comes down to the store every day after school. From the very beginning, she has always “taken care of the dolls” for Bill, dusting them and fixing their hair, arranging them on the shelf. She makes up names for them, and a life story for each one. Sometimes I swear I don’t know what will become of our Mary, she is
too smart
for a little girl. I fear that she may have trouble adjusting to the world because of it. She is certainly “our little scholar,” making straight A’s in school. Why, Mary would rather read than eat! This is absolutely true.

Meanwhile Ruthie can scarcely sit still long enough to get her homework. She is crazy about Acrobatics and Tap Dancing, which she takes from a Miss Lovett who comes over from Goodlettsville and holds classes at the American Legion twice a week. There are many more opportunities here in town, which we are taking full advantage of.

Joe is a Boy Scout, for instance, he is so good with his
hands and can make anything. Joe puts together the airplane and automobile models for display in the dime store, and sweeps the floor, and Bill pays him.

More than anything, Bill and I want these children to have the opportunity to go to college, which we never had. So we are all working together, and though the hours are long and sometimes it seems that we will
never
get this loan paid off, still we are all together, and the future looks bright to me as I see that God had a greater good in mind than we could envision when he sent us that flood, which is why I said at the beginning of this long letter, Calamity can often be a Blessing in Disguise.

Even old Mrs. Pickett likes our new life. Her personality is much improved. Bill has bought her a hearing aid and a new set of teeth, which make her look exactly like a horse, I have to say, but she sits now on a lawn chair in the front of the dime store talking to everybody, and everybody is amazed by how old she is, and how much she has got to say. Of course, I am not amazed, and I am glad she chooses to place her lawn chair by the Checkout instead of my lunch counter.
P.S. Kids love these. They are good for Christmas giving, too, as they will keep in a tin for ages. I have made a ton of them this Christmas season.

Lots of love and a very
merry Christmas 1956
from your busy, busy, busy
Birdie

STICKS AND STONES

½ cup butter or margarine, melted

4½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1½ teas. salt

8 cups cereal (Cheerios and Chex)

1 cup nuts

1 cup pretzels

Mix well, bake 1 hour at 250°, stirring every 15 minutes.

Christmas 1962

Dear All,

If I thought I was busy before, I have to say, it is nothing compared to now, what with Mary and Joe in High School, and going off like firecrackers in every direction. I swear, there is so much for kids to do these days! I think it
is wonderful. It is surely not a bit like when we were growing up in Blue Gap, and had to work so hard, and then find amusement among ourselves. I can still remember how much I hated to hoe that corn, and how that old burley tobacco would stick to your arms and hands. Those were hard times, I reckon, but they seem sweet to me now, and almost golden somehow, as seen through the haze of the years. Don’t you recall how we all used to sit out on the porch of an evening, and talk? Why, we would talk about everything, I reckon we didn’t have anything else to do, but my, those were some good stories we heard, weren’t they? Don’t you remember Granddaddy telling about the Ghost Dog? And old Aunt Lydia was so funny, without even knowing it. Don’t you remember that story she used to tell about the time when she was coming out of church and some woman behind her, I believe it was old Mrs. Green-leaf, said to her, “Why, Lydia, I’ll swear, honey, you look so pretty from the back!” Don’t you remember Lydia telling that, and then saying, “Now, girls, I don’t know whether I ought to get mad or not!” and asking all us little girls what we thought about it. We got so tickled at her, well it’s all so long ago, isn’t it? It was a Different World.

And nobody ever sits on the front porch here even though we have got one. We are all too busy, it seems, what with me and Bill down at the dime store all the time, and the kids in and out so fast, so busy with all their activities.
When I think of our own front porch now, I think of the screen door slamming all day long. “Don’t slam the door!” I used to call out, “Don’t slam the door!” but now I scarcely bother. It is the pace of Modern Life which has made all the difference, even down here in such a pokey little town as ours. And if anybody today has a moment to sit, they are likely to sit in front of the television, which
is
wonderful, I have to say, you can always find something to be interested in. Mrs. Pickett has to watch her “story,” as she calls it, every afternoon, this being “Search for Tomorrow.” “Isn’t that Andrea Whiting just
awful?”
Mrs. Pickett will ask everybody, but she wouldn’t miss a day if it killed her.