Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

The Easter Frock, from Come Go Home With Me

8 LISTEN HERE FROM COME Go HOME WITH ME: STORIES BY SHEILA KAyADAMS (1995) The Easter Frock Bertha Franklin used to love to sit on her porch and tell me stories about what Sodom was like back when she was a girl. I was always spellbound. Bertha was a great storyteller, and she was the same age as my mother. Her stories formed a window for me, a window I could look through back into the times of my mother as a young girl and young woman. Evidently, Bertha's mother told her stories about what it was like growing up in Sodom back at the turn of the century. This is a story Bertha told me that her mother, Tootie, told her. Back then, a peddler drove a horse-drawn wagon around to the different communities, and you could buy just about anything you needed offhis wagon. You could get nails, buckets, and dry goods. You could even buy cloth. Before Easter one year, Tootie managed to save up enough money to buy a pretty piece offilmy material to make herselfan Easter frock to wear to church. Now, back then, the dresses had a bustle on them that stuck out over the hind end. If you could afford it you could buy a wire frame to make it stand out, but if you couldn't, well, you just stuffed it with rags. Tootie spent a lot of time working on her frock and finished it the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. She hung it on the back of the door and went on to bed thinking how pretty she'd look next day at church. She got up late the next morning and realized she had forgotten to stuff her bustle the night before. She hurriedly reached in the rag bag, pulled out an old flour sack, and commenced to stuffing that bustle. She got to church and swept right down to the front, holding that dress tail out, nodding and smiling and speaking to everybody. As soon as folks stood for the first hymn, Tootie heard some snickering behind her. And every hymn thereafter, it seemed like the snickering spread till it was all the way to the very back of the church. When the last amen was said, Tootie hit the door. She checked to see if her slip was hanging or if all her buttons were buttoned, but she couldn't find a single thing undone. She stiffened her spine and stormed offdown the road. About halfway home, her brothers caught up with her and just set into horse laughing, all doubled over holding their sides. Tootie, who had a tem- SHEILA KAy ADAMS 9 per to match her shining red hair, had suffered enough in silence. She wheeled around on them boys with a vengeance. "I want to know what's so damn funny?" she said. "Folks has laughed at me all morning in church, and I'm abour sick of it!" Bur you know how brothers are (and Tootie was blessed with eight of them). They just laughed even harder and ran offdown the road with Tootie chucking rocks at them as hard as she could. By this time I reckon Tootie was livid! She charged down the road, marched up the hill to the house, and slammed through the door, banging it closed behind her hard enough to rattle all the window glasses in the house. She started down the hall to her room and spied the hall chair sitting therethe one with the mirror on the wall above it. She climbed up on the chair, positioned herself so she could look over her shoulder, and there across her bustle you could read, plain as day: "50 LBS. OF THE VERY BEST." ...