November 17, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from the Mt Pleasant Church in Holly County, Kentucky. We had a big day at the church on Sunday. The church women had a dinner for this couple who have been going here to church since before cars. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffries tell me they showed up at church in a buggy when they got married fifty years ago.
That was 1915. Wow! I can't even imagine 1915. Right before World War I. But Mr. Jeffries says they didn't call it WW I. They called it the Great War that was going to end all wars. He had to go over to France in 1917 and fight in that war.
Right after he left, Mrs. Jeffries found out she had a baby on the way. She has some great stories to tell about that time too. She went back to live with her parents out on the farm. They went here to church too, but they've moved on up to heaven now. Anyway, she talked about how worried she was for Mr. Jeffries and how the church had prayer meetings to pray for the soldiers. Then the influenza epidemic broke out and everybody was afraid to go anywhere. Those that weren't sick already. Dad says a lot of people actually died from the flu. That sounds awful, doesn't it? Anyway, Mrs. Jeffries says she stayed out on the farm and tried to keep her baby from getting sick. Her mother made these garlic amulets, necklace like things, for her to wear to ward off the germs. Mrs. Jeffries laughs and says it was pretty stinky perfume, but she didn't get the influenza.
Mrs. Jeffries laughs a lot. Dad says she's not really all that old, but sixty-six sounds pretty old to me. She got married when she wasn't much older than I am now. Sixteen, but she says that wasn't so unusual back then. It was just hard when the war broke out and then later they had to make it through the Depression years. They have a lot of stories and Dad says I should listen. So maybe I'll take my notebook with me next time we go see them and get her to tell me more.
But right now, I'm going to tell you a little more of Bailey's story.
Bailey's Bug by Jocie Brooke
(continued from last time - read the whole story so far up top under Bailey's Bug in the menu line.)
{Bailey just escaped from the bulldozer monster but he's worried they're still too close. The thing is roaring at them.}
Lucinda must have agreed that the monster was too near. "I think you both need to quit yapping so we can get out of here."
"Right ye are, Miss Lucinda," Skelley agreed. "Two narrow escapes in one morning is more than enough. We might be a bit shaky to outwit the dogcatcher as well. I'll see you safe out of the neighborhood, then start hunting a new place to live." He gave the pile of rubble that had been his house a sad look.
"Why don't you come with us?" Bailey said.
Skelley's eyes lit up. "Ye mean share your adventure? It's been many a day since I've been on a real adventure. And for a truth, just thinking about yours was making my feet get a little itchy."
"Adventure," Lucinda muttered. "I'll take a nap in the sun over adventure any day."
Bailey barely heard her. Even the monster bulldozer's growl behind him didn't sound so loud anymore. He was hearing the hum inside him again.
"This way," he said.
He headed off down the street, all of the sudden feeling so free that his feet barely skimmed the walk and his tail swooshed back and forth.
"What's the matter with you?" Lucinda hissed as she dodged his tail.
"I feel good. Really good." He paused a second to figure out why. "Because I don't have to drag that nasty leash along with me now."
"But you lost your collar too. Makes us look homeless for sure."
Skelley spoke up. "Don't ye be worrying, Miss Lucinda. The lad and will see to it that no harm comes to you."
"Humph." Lucinda snorted. "The lad does well to keep from tripping over his own feet."
"Aye, there could be truth to that," the old dog admitted. "But he did stop the bulldozer before it knocked the house down on us."
Bailey's feet felt even lighter until he was almost floating at the old dog's praise.
Lucinda brought him back to earth. "Then the bulldozer stopped him."
(To be continued.)
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Holly County, KY. I'm not on Main Street tonight, but actually visiting Miss Sally. Miss Sally is the sweetest lady you'd ever want to meet and we have her in our church out there at Mt. Pleasant. Daddy wishes he had a whole church full of Miss Sallys. She's always volunteering to do whatever needs doing and doesn't ever care who sits in what pew. She says that none of the church pews have anybody's name engraved on them and all she wants is to see them jam packed with people listening to Daddy preach the Gospel. She knows that some of the folks contributed to buy the pews a few years back, but that didn't give them ownership. No sir. It's free seating at the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church and if you think different then you'd better be talking to Miss Sally.
But I'm at Miss Sally's because of chickens. Yes, you heard me right. Chickens. My chickens. Well, they were mine before I gave them to Miss Sally. I couldn't very well keep chickens. You've got to have a chicken house for that and special lights to keep them warm and these saucer like things you turn a mason jar upside down on so the water trickles out to fill the saucer without running over. You have to tip them over really fast after you fill up the jar. The first time I tried it, I spilled water everywhere, but Miss Sally just laughed. Miss Sally never got married to have kids of her own, so instead she just adopted every kid at church as hers. So it made sense to let her adopt my chickens.
Now you might be wondering why I had chickens to put out for adoption. That's one of the strange things that has actually happened here in Hollyhill. I won them. Well, sort of won them. Maybe I earned them. I don't know. But what happened is this. I went to this 4-H meeting. Dad's always wanting me to join clubs and I thought why not. If nothing else, I could snap a few pictures for the newspaper while I was there even if I didn't want to learn to sew. I already know how to cook popcorn, eggs and chocolate chip cookies. When I told the leader, Mrs. Casey, that, she laughed and said there are lots of other projects I can take. I figured it would be rude to say I wasn't interested in those either, so when she started talking about this contest where you could write an essay about why you wanted 100 baby chicks, I said why not. I didn't expect to win the chickens. I was just making Mrs. Casey happy. I like keeping the people around me happy. Except for old Zella. Nobody could keep her happy!
Well, lo and behold, I did WIN those baby chickens. I have no idea what I wrote about taking care of them, but whatever I made up must have been good.
Last week the chickens came in the mail in a box with holes in it. Can you believe that? Not the holes. Of course, you can believe that. Even little chickens have to breathe. I mean them coming in the mail like a letter. One noisy letter. You should have heard them cheeping when Dad took me to the post office pick them up. I suppose it is too much to expect the mail carrier to stuff them in our mailbox. Our mailbox wouldn't hold them anyway.
Dad and I took the top off the box and looked at those baby chickens after he put them in the back seat of the car. "They're cute," I said as I very carefully scooped one out of the box. "And soft."
"Aunt Love won't like them in the kitchen." Dad stared at the chickens.
"And Jezebel would probably eat them." I let the chick escape from my hand back into the box with his friends. The box was divided into four squares. Dad said that was so the chickens wouldn't pile up on one another and smash or suffocate the ones on the bottom of the pile. With them divided into four places, the piles wouldn't be as deep and the ones on the bottom could maybe scoot out.
"The cat's name is Sugar," Dad said, but more out of habit than caring what I called Aunt Love's cat.
And so we gave the chickens to Miss Sally who is excited to have baby chickens and who says I can come and feed them any time I want. Then this summer she'll fix us fried chicken. Somehow I don't think I'm going to have much of an appetite for fried chicken this year.
But anyway, that proves I can make something with my writing. Hope for the future! Did you ever win something by writing an essay? Bet it wasn't chickens. But you might have had chickens. Did you?
