Mama’s Warning
The Gettysburg trip is less than a month off, and it’s powerful hard to put my thoughts on anything else. But the rose-print fabric is still wrapped in paper, and Mama doesn’t seem in any hurry to work on my dress.
Virginia Lee Kent
I show Mama pictures of suitcases in the Sears, Roebuck catalogue.
“No need to buy a suitcase,” she says. “You’ll borrow the one I used when I married your daddy and moved here.”
“Where is it?”
“You don’t need it yet. We have plenty of time.”
How can I make Mama understand how important this trip is to me? She came to Rebecca’s Branch on account of loving my daddy. But I had no say in being here. How can I decide if this is where I want to live if I never see anyplace else?
* * *
At long last, Mama and Aunt Freddie measure me and cut the green-with-yellow-rosebuds fabric. We’re in Grandpa’s cabin, where pelts are piled in the corner. Gray fox, red fox, mink, and beaver. Grandpa and Daddy set snares during winter months, and sell pelts to Mr. Pender for cash money to pay taxes and buy things we don’t raise. Like material for my new dress.
The pelts in the corner are twice what Grandpa usually traps, and he already sold pelts to Mr. Pender last month.
“A mountain of pelts there,” I comment.
“To pay for the Gettysburg trip,” Aunt Freddie says around the pins she holds between her lips.
“Must be a right expensive trip,” I say. “Ouch!” I yelp as a pin pierces my shoulder.
“Sorry,” Mama mutters, but the fingernail that digs between my shoulder blades says otherwise. How come I have to mind my words, but Mama can torment me however she pleases?
* * *
I mind my tongue while I set the supper table. As I line up forks, spoons, and knives, Mama sets me straight.
“Your trip with Grandpa is a gift from him,” she says. “And what have I always told you about gifts?”
“I thanked him a hundred times.”
She cocks her head to one side, and her eyes bore right through me. “Haven’t I said not to ask about cost?”
“I didn’t ask. I just said it must be expensive. And Grandpa wasn’t there. Only Aunt Freddie.”
“No matter. Don’t bring it up again.” She waves her wood spoon at me, dripping gravy across the stovetop. “Understand?” Mama’s voice sizzles as much as the drops of gravy.
“Yes, ma’am. Next time I think about cost, I’ll remember that pin in my shoulder.”
Her stern manner melts like hot lard. She giggles and her eyes crinkle, like the girl she must have been, back before her mind got set by worry.
She turns back into Mother Hen while we wait for Daddy. She strings out a list of Do’s and Don’t’s for my trip, mostly warmed-over lessons she taught me all my life. Sirand Ma’am, Please and Thank you, and “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“I’ve taught you not to contradict your elders,” she says, “but you’ve a mind to disregard that.” She cocks her head again.
I avoid her eyes to straighten a fork that wasn’t crooked. Even with my dress begun, Mama can still put a tangle in plans for the trip.
“Freddie thinks you’ll keep Grandpa from being melancholy,” she says. “I’m not convinced. He can turn cantankerous if his mood sours. Try to keep him in good spirits, but if you can’t, don’t make matters worse by being contrary.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And think how your words will make someone feel before you say them.”
I hear Daddy on the back porch, thumping dirt from his boots. Mama adds another warning before he gets through the door. “Mind what I said. Gettysburg will be full of folks, not all of them decent ones. Heed Grandpa, but stay wary. If he gets taken with his haints, he might not pay you as much mind as he ought.”
Mama’s warnings pale next to One-Thumb Willoughby’s, but I confess they tug on my worry bone a mite. To tell the Bible-swearing truth, they excite me some, too. I wonder what people who aren’t decent folks look like, and if I’ll recognize them right off.
I reckon the settlers of your day feared the Indians and expected the Whites to be decent. I best be wary like Mama says.
Virginia Lee Kent
