Pencil, We Write

FICTION Pencil, We Write Regina Villiers PENCIL, WE WRITE TODAY, and it's special. It's special because it's the first day of spring, and we've lived to have another year. Birds know it, and they sing about it. Doves are sitting on the light line. Soon, redbud leaves will be round, fat, and green. But this day is special another way, Pencil. The Stopgap lady took something we wrote and showed it to the nice editor who runs the paper in town. The paper is the Bern County News, and the editor is Mrs. June Butler. She wants us to write the news from here on Cherry Tree Ridge for the paper. Now you may think news never happens here on Cherry Tree Ridge. You are wrong. Things may not happen here like Katie Couric talks about on TV, but life happens here. All you have to do to see it is to open your eyes. And you may think old Florence Willis doesn't know what happens. But I do. It's true I don't get out much, and I don't have many visitors. I am going on ninety years old, and most of my folks and friends are already walking the streets of gold up in heaven. Even my son is there now. But I know things, and I see things. I still live on here in my old home place on Cherry Tree Ridge. It's where I want to be, way out here in the country. Lots of folks feel sorry for me, for they think I live all by myself. But I don't. I have Pencil. He lives here with me, and we write, every day. Some days, we just write something on the calendar. But we check off every day, and we write something. Every day is a gift. Pencil and I sometimes show what we write to the Stopgap lady. The Stopgap is a bunch of people in town who help old people get by. My Stopgap lady's name is Melanie, and she is so nice. She comes to check on me nearly every day, and she helps me. I can get around my house some with a walker, and I can cook a little. But I need help, and Melanie brings many of my meals. She brings me cathead biscuits that she bakes herself. They are not dainty little biscuits that she rolls out. She just chokes off a piece of dough and pats it into a biscuit. They rise up big and puffy, like a cat's head. They are so good. 36 So Pencil and I will write the news now and then, from out here in the country where God looks over us. I read my Bible every day. April 18, 1999 Pencil, it is raining this Sunday morning. The rain brings the flowers to life, and the dogwoods are blooming along the fence over across the field. Pencil, sincewe started this, lots offolks reporttheylikewhatwewrite. People have stopped by, and we even get letters. A man and a woman from Clover Creek came by with a mess of greens from their garden. And my cousin Maude, in Georgia, wrote us a letter. She said the weather is nice there, and they are hoping for a fine crop of blueberries. I guess Georgia is a good place to live, but I like Cherry Tree Ridge just fine. May 9, 1999 Pencil, today is Mother's Day, and Mama's chair is empty. How I wish I could see her again in that old log house where we lived. I miss her and Pap. But if they were here now, I couldn't take care of them, or go down the hill to get them a bucket of water like I used to. I can't even take care of myself, without help from Melanie and Skeeter. Skeeter is my great-grandson, and he is a fine boy. After he got out of high school, he went away to Indianapolis for awhile. He came home with long hair in a ponytail and a ring in his ear. Folks around here didn't like that...