Author: Sheri

The growth of young pine trees grew to one side and the back of the brick parsonage. That was our playground. The trees were limber enough to use as catapults. We’d pull the top of a tree down, climb aboard and launch. It was a relatively short flight and sometimes ended in a crash landing. The trees weren’t big enough to choke out the undergrowth. Blackberry vines along with other thorn bushes and broom straw grew unrestrained. The lingering heat from summer helped to make the broom straw dry and combustible. 

We often made forts out of broom straw and sticks. One day we were out playing, and two of my brothers devised a brilliant plan. They would take turns starting a fire and see which one could let it burn the longest before putting it out. My sister, just two years older than me, and I were with them playing in the growth of trees and brush. One brother lit a match to ignite the broom straw then proceeded to stomp it out. The next one took his turn. He let it burn a little bit longer before stomping it out. The fires burned longer each time as the game continued. 

When it was my youngest brother’s turn again, he lit a fire and waited and waited and waited. The fire spread quickly. He stomped and stomped. My other brother and sister started stomping. I was little, and I was barefooted. I just watched. When it was apparent the fire was out of control, they took off running to the house. I was scared to death. I froze in my steps. I could not move. One of brothers came back for me. He grabbed me up under his arm and headed to the house. He was my hero!

By the time I got to the house, Mama already knew what was going on. She got on the phone to call for help. About that time, a neighbor was coming down the road on his tractor. He came to the rescue and started cutting a fire break. Mama said, “You girls go make some cookies.” Mama’s response to anything was to stay busy. I’m sure she wanted to take our minds off the fire. I was scared, and she knew it. She went outside, and my sister and I made cookies. I kept going to the door looking out the window to make sure the fire wasn’t coming any closer. 

Other neighbors came and helped. I wanted to see what was going on, but at the same time I thought our house would burn down. I just knew the fire would come into the yard, creep up to the house and burn it to ashes. Thanks to our neighbors, it wasn’t long before everything was under control. I rested a bit easier and was thankful for them and for my hero! 

Cookie, anyone?

The teacher arose from her chair behind the desk. She had a ruler in hand as she walked toward the board and pointed to a specific location on the map. There were only two students sitting in their desks in the one-room schoolhouse. I watched from the back of the room. I was amazed at the transformation that came over this lady as she stood in front of the room. That lady was my mother, and the students were two of her great grandchildren. When we first stepped into the furnished old schoolhouse beside Garfield County Museum, I told the kids to sit in the desks, and Grandma Buck would be their teacher. 

• 

• 

Years before, my mother taught in a one-room schoolhouse near Barber on the Montana prairie. She received her teaching certificate shortly out of high school. She had gained some experience teaching while still in high school when she substituted for a teacher, Leona Manning, who was on leave from the Grey Cliff School. Teaching was really nothing new to her. It was in her blood. When she was just a youngster in the first grade, she went home from school every day and taught her little sister everything she had learned that day. Her sister started school the next year but was automatically promoted to the next grade because she already knew everything the second-year students knew. 

• 

Teaching in a one-room schoolhouse was a bit different though. This pioneer teacher served as custodian, principal, counselor, nurse and athletic director. There were lesson plans to prepare for her 13 students in 7 grades. She was responsible to teach reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, history, geography, grammar and other academics. The fire had to be started in the stove every morning to have the school warm for the students. If weather permitted, they had recess outside. One piece of playground equipment still stands at the site where Cavill School once stood. I can almost see children laughing and playing around the Giant Stride, running so fast their feet would leave the ground. I remember visiting the Cavill family and Cavill School when I was small. Not long after, the school was torn down. Since then a plaque has been erected to commemorate the teachers and the students. The school was named in honor of the Cavill family who were the first settlers in the community. Fred Cavill was on the school board and was responsible for acquiring the teacher. Mama lived in the three-room teacherage beside the schoolhouse. On weekends she would stay with the Cavills or visit the Sherods.

• 

• 

When my parents married, my mother had to give up her position at Cavill School. She continued her teaching profession even though it was just for one little girl who lived in the mountains. It wasn’t long before she taught her own children when they came of school age. She continued to receive pay as teacher of the mountain school.

Seeing my mother in front of the classroom was like stepping back in time. I saw my mother transform into a young schoolteacher. Her eyes lit up and twinkled as her countenance changed. It was evident that she had a love for teaching and learning. Sunlight fell on my mother’s face as the door of the little schoolhouse closed behind us. Was that a twinkle that lingered in her eyes? Though the encounter with the young schoolteacher had been brief, it seemed that my mother walked with a lighter step.  

I pulled back the layers of tissue paper and unwrapped the little drawstring bag, gently taking it in my hand. At one time a little package of thin papers was attached by a strip that wrapped around the bag. Some people wouldn’t give this tiny swatch of fabric a second thought and might even toss it away, but to me it is a great treasure. It no longer has the smell of tobacco nor has it been in anyone’s shirt pocket for over 50 years. I loosened the drawstring, opened it slowly and peaked inside. It was full of magic!

The magic is not in the little bag but rather what is contained inside. You might peek inside and not find even one little leaf of tobacco. When I look inside the worn-out tobacco bag, I see a wealth of treasures. One look transports me back in time. There I am, sitting with my granddad on the porch. I hear his voice as he tells me stories of life on the prairie. I hear the story of the hail storm that destroyed the family’s crops. With a laugh he adds the words of his sister, “Well, someone go milk the cow. We’ll not let this ice go to waste.” They made ice cream and had a party.

I peek in the bag again and see my brother being chased by the mad mama cow. Another look and I hear fiddle music as big rough hands draw the bow across the strings to make the fiddle sing and the fiddler’s fingers dance.

There are other treasures in that little bag. There are tales of cowboys and covered wagons. There are memories of wagon rides to the creek, climbing apple trees, playing in the hay loft, swinging on a rope, wading in the creek, walks in the pasture, and rides on the tractor. I even find a box of chocolate covered cherries in that little bag of magic. Carefully I place the little drawstring bag into the tissue paper and gently wrap it up again and place it back in the trunk. Another day, I will once again pull it from its wrapping for another dose of magic.

A few years ago, I pulled into the parking lot of a local store. There was a load of kids in the back of a truck. One of the kids was teaching the others to spit. They were hanging over the side of the truck bed, two fingers pressed on their lips, aiming and firing a projectile of spit. I thought they were doing an admirable job with their spitting skills, but then, they didn’t know Mrs. Cash! She had been a neighbor of my grandparents years ago. She would have put those kids to shame!

My grandparents lived along a country dirt road. Neighbors would wave as they drove by with a cloud of red dust following them down the road. I thought that was the perfect place to live. There was a big barn, an apple orchard, a shed with a tractor, other buildings and even an outhouse. The house seemed huge to a little kid and there was even a porch across the front. A wide hallway divided the house in two. On the left side was a living room and a big kitchen. I remember taking a bath in the washtub in the kitchen floor as Grandma Bee baked peanut butter cookies. The tops of the cookies were squished with a fork, sprinkled with sugar and they were yummy! I can still smell those warm cookies being taken from the oven. 

They lived in an era where neighbors were more than just people who lived nearby. Neighbors helped one another with their crops. They were a community who took care of one another. If someone had a need, the neighbors would pool their resources to help. They also took time to visit with one another. Ladies would gather for quilting bees. Grandma Bee took me with her once. I crawled under the quilt that was stretched out on the frame and watched the needles move in and out of the fabric as the women buzzed like a hive of bees.

One of their neighbors was Mrs. Cash.  She was more than a neighbor; she was a friend. I never heard her called by her first name. Back in those days the ladies were called Mrs. or Miss and men were called Mr. I really only remember one thing about Mrs. Cash and that was she dipped snuff or chewed tobacco. I don’t know if Grandma Bee approved, but she at least tolerated Mrs. Cash’s vice. In fact, she enabled her habit by having a spit can that Mrs. Cash used. That lady would sit on the red vinyl sofa in the living room, work up a good spit and let ‘er fly. She could hit that spit can that sat all the way by the door. Ping! She’d hit it every time. She could spit as good or better than any man, and man, that woman could spit! Ping!

It was the early ‘60’s. Daddy had been appointed his first pastorate. Besides pastoring three small town churches, he also worked and went to school. My mom kept up with us kids and did whatever was necessary to survive. She was busy all the time. With cooking, cleaning, sewing, baking bread (6 loaves at a time), canning, herding kids, church functions, typing college papers, and everything in-between, she had no time to herself. 

We lived in the church parsonage. I didn’t realize at the time that we were relatively poor. That’s why we had to eat oatmeal. It was a staple in our household, and Mama said it would stick to my ribs. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. Though I was small, I learned to cook there. I made mud pies in the back yard under the big pecan tree. My sister made her mud pies on the piano keys, and I think she got into trouble. I guess she didn’t want to practice that day.

The pastor’s family did benefit from parishioners sharing their produce in the summer, eggs or fresh meat at butchering time. Some of the former pastors may have been asked out to eat regularly, but our family didn’t get asked very often. Who wants to have the pastor’s family for Sunday dinner, especially when there are 6 kids, 3 of them rotten boys? We did get asked on occasion though. I loved going to the Brandenburg’s house. Mr. Brandenburg was blind. He ran the general store in town and knew almost everyone who came into the store by the sound of their feet. One day my dad walked in, and Mr. Brandenburg said, “Hello there, Preacher. Sounds like you put on a few pounds.” He kept an immaculate garden and tended the grape vines that draped over the arbor to the side of the house. Mrs. Brandenburg was so kind and a wonderful cook! 

One Sunday morning Daddy said we were invited to dinner after church. I was excited because I thought the Brandenburg’s had asked us to come, but they didn’t.

Ms. Mary lived out of town. Her house was close to the road on a small hill. Across her driveway was the well. Her chickens were free range, and we had to be careful where we stepped. When we found out that we were going to her house the complaints began. Even Mama and Daddy didn’t want to go, but they graciously accepted her invitation. We were told to eat our meal and not to say a word. Ms. Mary was not the best cook. She put the food on the table and had us sit down to eat. She passed a plate and said, “Have a biscuit.” I had never seen a green biscuit before. Her biscuits were green, and I mean, they were green. They tasted as bad as they looked. She baked them in a kerosene stove and that’s exactly how the biscuits tasted – like kerosene. 

As I look back through the years, I now see things in a different light. I see a woman who gave sacrificially to honor her pastor and his family. She was a simple country woman who had little to give, yet she gave the best she had. Somehow with that thought, even mud pies would taste a bit sweeter and green kerosene biscuits would taste more like manna.