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From: Wtynf <>
Subject: [GenChat-L] Fwd: Aunt Charlotte's Book ( Lucy)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 04:15:53 EDT


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Sender: Walt 55 <>
Subject: Aunt Charlotte's Book ( Lucy)
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Lucy was the mother of them all. I remember her best. Twice a year she came
to visit us and exactly twice a year Mother returned her visits. I can see her
very clearly as she used to come through the woods path, knitting as she
walked, simple, old Lucy in her queer little bonnet. She always wore a large
handkerchief, with a gay border folded in half cornerwise across her breast
and pinned at the throat. She was tall and very, very thin, but straight as an
arrow. There was a certain stateliness about her in spite of the long, limp
calico skirt that wound and twisted about one foot only to unwind and twist in
turn about the other foot as she walked. Her bonnet was crudely fashioned out
of one square piece of cloth. The front was doubled back and casings run to
hold the thin splints of wood. This part was fastened around her head and tied
under her chin. The back was sewed straight up the back to form a little peak,
when freshly starched, the peak would bob and nod as she walked, if not, it
hung dejectedly to one side or the other or back as the case might be. I fancy
that it reflected something of her state of mind, for Lucy was not always
happy. She was very homely, but Mose was sometimes jealous of her and people
said that they quarreled bitterly. She was a good neighbor to us and kind to
everyone. And so she would come to our house, her knitting in her hands and a
goose quill sewed in a bit of cloth pinned at her waist, to hold her extra
needles, knitting as she walked.

Now and then Mother would allow me to go there. I remember going once with
my dainty Sister-in-law. Our dinner was a pone of bread baked on a board
before the fire and tender parsnip greens, cooking with rusty bacon. Someway
it sounds good to me even now. The bacon was scrubbed with ashes till it
fairly shone, then boiled for a long time. I ate very heartily. Of course, I
had the appetite of a child, but I know even now, that it was good. Emeline
ate very sparingly and from time to time old Lucy would say: "Now look at
Charlotte, she is not afraid to eat." and Ike the red headed boy with the nose
that had been split with a butcher knife, would say: "Wall she does." Then
again old Lucy would say: "Charlotte is not afraid eat, Charlotte acts home."
"Wall she does," would say the boy. I do not know why they should have done
it, but for a long time my brothers would say to everything I did: "Wall she
does." and it bothered me. Emeline should not have told it. I never did feel
right about it.

They moved away though and when I saw old Lucy again, they had just taken
her out of the creek, still in her queer little bonnet, pitifully old and
thinner than ever she looked, her sodden calico dress streaked with mud, clung
to her thin legs and crumpled over her sunken breast. She was quite dead. They
were on horseback coming to our house. The spring rains had carried the creek
out of its banks. Mose crossed first and rode on without looking back, but
Lucy's horse stumbled or floundered into a hole, no one ever knew just what
happened, only that presently Mose saw that the horse that followed was
riderless. Some hours later Lucy was taken out of the creek.

Walt Davies
Monmouth, OR

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