A Little Story of My Childhood

64 Note: My mother was in her eighty-fifth year when she died in 1975. She lived alone after my father died. I'd visit her in the long lonely evenings of autumn and winter and she would be sitting by her fireplace piecing quilt tops, working crossword puzzles, or reading. Three of her favorite books were Almetta of Goblin Run, Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, and the Shepherd of the Hills. One winter evening I visited Mom and she was writing. "Mom, what are you writing?" "Oh, just a little story about my childhood." "Let me read it, please." "No, not now. Maybe someday." Mom didn't spend many more winters alone. After her death I was going through her belongings and came across an old copy of the N.E.A. magazine folded and tied with a blue calico string. Upon opening it, I discovered Mom's little story written in ink on sheets of notebook paper. This little vignette of her childhood reveals glimpses of the life of a child in Appalachia here in Eastern Kentucky during the closing years of the nineteenth century and opening years of the twentieth century. ____________________________________________________-Cynthia E. Mclntrye On Sunday, December 28, 1890, in a little house on a little hill in Lothair, Kentucky, I was born. I was three when we moved to the old homeplace across the river from where I live now. Here I spent my childhood days, and very happy days they were! My sister and I played up and down the little branch in front of our house, and gathered wild flowers which grew everywhere then. Once in awhile we would go as far as the river, but not often. Mama would call us when we got very far away. We had a dog named Sam and we would hitch him to the little sled Papa made for us, and put our big yellow cat, Tom, in the sled. Then Sam would pull him over the ice that froze on the branch. We enjoyed every minute of our young lives. Every fall we would gather chestnuts on the hill back of our house. Our playhouse was a big box in the yard, and we played with rag dolls. After I grew older I brought the cows in from the pastures and milked them, and then fed the calves, geese, and sheep. Mama would scour and clean everything in the house come spring. I would go to the woods and gather wild flowers of all kinds to make pots of flowers to put in the house. The house would smell so good with honeysuckle and sweet Williams ! I remember well my first day of school when I was seven. My Uncle Jess Morgan taught me. We walked five miles to school and we only had five months of school each year. The road was so pretty from home to school. Trees were turning all colors, leaves falling in our path, with pawpaws on the ground on both sides of the road. It was much more beautiful than now, being iust as nature made it. We went up and down little hills and walked around big rocks. Every minute of our walk was fun. Our first playmates before we went to school were black children who lived up 65 the branch above us in a little log house. They were so good to us. John was near my age and he would do anything he could for us when we played together. He always had a hard life after he grew up. But that is another story. Their grandmother lived up above them. One day when we visited her we stayed all day. When dinner time came she baked a big pan of cornbread on the fireplace, since she didn't have a stove. When Aunt Dill (we called her Aunt Dill) gave each of us a piece of cornbread she said, "Honey, that's all I have for dinner." I can just see the big pan of cornbread and those two old people around their big wood fireplace. This world was a pleasure to live in then, even though one just had bread to eat. After...