Dear Flora Mae

É¿ SW &/cm Jlae £ (V ^ by Patricia A. Shirley iniriey •—^ f—^ uy rai Bee Tree Gap, Kentucky June 14 Dear Sister Flora Mae, I'm bringing Pap home with me tomorrow. He don't know it yet, but he'll come around when I point out the good in it. Ben Riddle, from Salers Branch, brung word yesterday that Pap's doing poorly and needs doctoring most likely. It fair breaks my heart to see him in the squalor and uproar such as come with Bud and Eulie's lax ways and all them younguns running around. It's a shame and a scandal that a feller eighty-four don't have some peace and a corner in his own house without having to shake a varmit or a youngun outen it. Last time Ed and me was over at Two Penny Creek, them hound dogs of Bud's was underfoot so as a body couldn't hardly walk acrost the floor, and I swear the chickens was pecking crumbs from under the kitchen table until I give them a flap and sent them squawking outen the door standing wide open. Eulie didn't bat a eye. I reckon she was hoping them hens would save her sweeping up the floor. Not that she would nohow, and the menfolk never notice the difference. It's best you are up in Winchester where you ain't seen the old place since Bud hoodwinked his grandpap and moved in lock stock and barrel last fall saying he didn't have a place for his brood. Looks like Pap would have figured that out as Bud's own daddy didn't turn a hand to help. Pap even closed in the dogtrot to git more room space for everybody . He give his room to Bud and Eulie and sleeps on a cot next to the kitchen stove. Pap don't have so much as a drawer fer his few treasures but lays them up on a shelf. There's no telling what the loft has become where the brood but the least one sleeps. I suspicion that Mam's good quilts is getting turrible use up there where no one goes but them younguns. It still breaks my heart to recollect finding Mam's Flower Garden quilt under a hound in the kitchen corner where he has chawed a hole in it. Eulie didn't pay a bit of mind when I give the varmit a boost and took that quilt right out and put it in Ed's truck to take home. I tell you, it's a far cry from when Mam was living in the house and keeping it and Pap proper. That Bud ain't worth the powder and lead to blow him up. He allows his bad back got over in the mine at Blue Diamond won't let him work, so he piddles about with old cars and blows a lot when he can git outen that cheer and into a shirt. Days he don't stir offen that dogtrot with Eulie working about him, but he's always ready to light into the vittles. "How do you feed this passel of younguns without working, Bud," I says oncet when I was full aggervated. Bud jist cocks his bald head to one side and gives me a big wink. "Wall now, Aunt Bessie," he says, "There's always them stamps, so we eat right reasonable." That feller shore must have took after his Mam's side, as nobody in our family 4 a kind word for Eulie ever. "Hey, old woman," he'll yell from his chair in front of the TV that blares all day long and half the night. "Git a move on and git me a beer! " And Eulic brings him whatever he calls fer. She don't say much, so you don't know what she's thinking. Sometimes, I doubt that she thinks at all. She never lights, even at meals. She's busy waiting on that bunch and fetching and toting fer Bud. I says to her oncet, "Eulie, why don't you set down and rest sometimes and let Bud and the...