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$en,n> w (^^2> by Richard Relham°\ v_ e^> (Sy^^C) 6^9 My clearest memory of Jenny is imprinted on a snapshot taken on a steel truss bridge spanning Calvin Creek. She is leaning against a side rail wearing a short tartan skirt with a matching bonnet on her blonde hair, beneath which a Mona Lisa-like smile gave spice to her little round face. Jenny was four years old when I met her. The family had just moved to Pilter and she attended our Sunday School, which was the only one in the community. She lived just a few doors up the road from the Clubhouse where I stayed and we soon became fast friends. I was a bachelor at the time and I suppose she came to represent the daughter I would like to have had, though at this period such a desire was not clearly formulated. Her father, Red Bascom, was a coal miner, the color of whose hair accounted for his nickname. He was below average height but broad shouldered and muscular. Her mother, Anna, was a pretty woman, probably younger than I but psychologically I felt she was older because she was a married woman with three children. The next child, Connie, was about fifteen months younger than Jenny and was a redhead like her father, and the baby was a boy. Mrs. Bascom was on a higher cultural level than her husband, was a good housekeeper and seamstress and dressed her children better than the average for the community. Jenny came to visit me frequently at the Clubhouse and if I wasn't on the porch she would come to my room. I recall that one day I was rearranging books in mybookcases and singing snatches of hymns as I worked. Jenny was playing with something in the middle of the floor when she suddenly remarked, "Mr. Relham, you can't plant feet." It was only then I realized I'd been singing, "Lord, plant my feet on higher ground." Try explaining that line to a four year old who knows only the literal meaning of the word "plant!" For the next few minutes I reflected on the metaphorical use of language and how confusing it must be to children and foreigners who learn the literal meaning of a word first and then discover it can be used in quite a different sense. 41 Once on a summer's day Red Bascom came down to see me after supper and suggested that he and I go get his family who had been visiting for a week or two at her home in a neighboring state. Red didn't own a car. He seemed to have made his decision on impulse and was ready to start right then. I didn't ordinarily start on long trips that spontaneously but after asking a few questions I decided to accomodate him. We went out to my car and after resisting a hint that he drive I began the 150 mile trip over twisting mountain roads. After dark it became an eerie, wearying trip—up one mountain, down the other side, across a creek and up another mountain—a repetition of this over ridge after ridge of the broken-terrain Cumberlands. About ten o'clock it began to rain and I was almost mesmerized by the monotonous swish of the windshield wipers. Red and 1 didn't have much in common to talk about except his family and the three day work week in the coal mines. I soon relapsed into my own thoughts giving only part of my attention to his occasional remarks. One remark did inspire a rejoinder. He complained that Charles McCoy, who owned all the real estate in Pilter, including the clubhouse where I lived, had raised his rent. I sympathized with him but was impelled to ask, "Didn't John L. get the miners a raise in the last contract?" He answered in the affirmative. "Haven't you ever noticed," I inquired , "that every time you get a raise prices go up in the company store and rents are raised?" We went on to discuss how the coal operators did their best...

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