In our Rylie home, there was a window opening from the bedroom where Mom and Dad slept, onto the back porch room and it provided a partial view of the porch room from the bed where mom was. I slept on a pallet on the porch and when the need was upon me I would go out the back door to the outhouse a few yards away or over by the creek and do what was necessary.
There were a few things Mom would yell in such a way that would shake a person to his foundation. On a warm summer night, I awoke with a need and instead of just standing up and walking to the back door, I decided to crawl on my hands and knees, which I had done before. Out of the quiet night came, "SCAT!!" I fell over, shaking like a leaf trying to hold on to its branch in a fierce tornado. In a flash Mom was picking me up and consoling me telling me that she was sorry for scaring me so. She had awoke and, through the window, had seen a figure moving along close to the floor and thought some animal had gotten into the house and wanted to scare it away. I never crawled to the door again; I walked as tall as I could.
One day, someone (I think it was Mom's youngest sister, Pauline) was visiting. She and Mom went outside to walk and talk; I was inside the house and the visitor's pocketbook had been left on the dining room table. I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look to see what was inside; I was always on a quest for knowledge. Inside the pocketbook I found lipstick, a compact, some other things and a pair of tweezers. Aha! Something interesting! I had seen Mom pluck her eyebrows and our visitor had plucked out all of hers and drew eyebrows over her eyes.
I stood on the seat of the chair that was against the wall under a small mirror and started plucking out my eyebrows. I had finished plucking all of one eyebrow when I heard their voices coming closer. They were coming back inside. Hurriedly, I got down, put the tweezers back in the pocketbook, closed it just in time and walked, nonchalantly, past them with my head down.
I only got a couple steps past them when Mom called sharply, "Junior! What have you been doing?" She could tell I was hiding something. When I turned and looked up at her, she did her, "Oh! My GOD!" exclamation and asked what I had done. Just opening the pocketbook was a capital offense; taking something from it only made it worst. When I explained what I had done, I also made mention that I had seen her pluck her eyebrows and thought it would be alright if I did the same. She scolded me for opening the pocketbook and I had to apologize to our visitor for doing so.
Fortunately, it was summertime and I didn't have to make explanations to my schoolmates. I felt low about having done it and was relieved to heard them having a great laugh when they thought I was out of earshot.
Once, a large pig was wandering around in our yard, poking his snout into everywhere he could. Mom got all of us kids together and told us that the pig might be mad (now-a-days it would be called rabid) because she was pretty sure that she had seen foam around its mouth. Then she explained about the madness and how the pig might attack us if we were outside. If it bit us, we would go mad also.
She said that we should all stay inside until the pig left and for us to keep watching it so that we would know where it was at all times. So we went from window to window watching as the pig explored our yard and, finally, wandered off. Mom wouldn't let us go out for the rest of the day because she thought the pig might still be near and, hearing us outside, might return and attack us.
During the 1939-1940 winter, Dad was hospitalized in the Veterans Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Mom said it was something related to why he left the army sometime after Rosalie was born. When he left, we had a store of wood cut to a size that fit into our wood stove and, eventually, it had dwindled to only enough for a couple days. I wasn't yet big enough to chop more and Mom had so much to do, keeping up with the needs of five children, that it was just too much of a chore for her to chop wood and she needed help.
Late one afternoon, she told me to go ask Bill (I don't remember the name, I'll use Bill) if he could come over and chop some wood as we were nearing the end our supply. I knew that Mr Dehart's first name was Bill, so there was no need to ask Mom who Bill was. Mr DeHart knew our situation and, when I told him Mom asked if he could come over and chop some wood for us, he said yes and came back to the house with me.
When we got to the house and Mr Dehart asked Mom where was the wood she needed to be chopped, Mom was a little taken aback. She asked me where was Bill and why was Mr DeHart there. Mr DeHart told her that he was Bill. Mom told him that she had meant for me to go to our neighbor, Bill, in the house up the road from us and across the road from the store. I didn't know that his name was also Bill. Mr DeHart said that he was there to chop some wood and would do just that. Reluctantly, Mom had me show him to the axe and the wood.
As the daylight faded, Mr DeHart, who was an older person, chopped us a pile of wood, enough to last a few days. Inside the house, Mom scolded me for bringing Mr DeHart. I stood at the window watching as he chopped the wood. As the years have gone by, I've come to feel that Mr DeHart was part of the influence that made me always want to help those who needed help.
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