Tusquittee Chronicles Part III

Tusquittee Chronicle

Part III

By Claude R. Moss

Early Memories and waiting for Christmas

SAN FRANCISCO–1953–Probably the earliest event that I can recall was of someone putting me on the bed tummy down when I dropped my bonnet between the bed and the wall.

I remember a black fat negro woman, Aunt Celia Aulston, who stayed with mother a few days when either Maud or May was born. She sang the spiritual, “I’m a slipping and a sliding, but still I’m going home; little children I am bound.”

I remember when I would frequently fall down and skin my knees as the little short dresses I wore were not much protection. Sometimes mother would pick me up and at other times I would get up by myself.

I remember dreams of flying–the same dream night after night–I would arise from my trundle bed, flap my arms and fly away eastward over the pasture.

I remember when dad left for market with long whiskers and returned with them cropped short. He didn’t look like the same man, and I had my doubts.

I remember the old gourd from which we drank. They were more common than dippers in the late seventies (1870’s) and early eighties (1880’s). The handle came off our first dipper, and I didn’t care since I thought water from the gourd was cooler.

When I first visited Grandfather Russell, He would say, “Well, well, how are Claude and the baby?” Grandmother would only smile, but my aunts would kiss me, and I would wipe them off.

I remember when I couldn’t pronounce my own name. After sneezing, I would say, “Well, well, Taud taking more cold.” I thought maybe my name might be al right for a little boy, but didn’t thing it very appropriate for a grown up since I didn’t know any man named Claude. Grandmother Moss was of the same opinion, since she thought I should have been named for some one in the family. She always called me “Clod.”

I remember the hoop skirts of the early eighties. Aunt Emma, then a girl about 20 years old wore them. Frank Ray, one of Aunt Emma’s beau’s gave me a dime and said, “Go off and play.” We were living in the old house and the only place they had to sit was on the front porch.

I remember when Uncle Tim Russell would come to see us. He seemed to talk almost incessantly, but would stop long enough to pull my ears and pinch my cheeks. Neither Uncle Mahan nor Aunt Sally ever teased me like Uncle Tim and Aunt Emma did.

I remember the bird house on the top of a high pole where the martins would nest. They drove away the chicken stealing hawks; but sometimes thy were not on the job and a hawk would swoop down, grab a little chick and carry it off.

When my first picture was taken and the man told me to watch for the bird, but there was no bird. Maud was the baby and a picture of her was made at the same time. She acted like the little lady that she was, but I seemed to be sulking about something. There were two tintypes of each of us and judging from the one I have of myself, I was about three years old at the time.

When my baby sisters would have hives–I think that was the ailment–Grandfather Moss would be notified. I remember sitting on the upping–block in front of the old house and watching him come up the road with his hands clasped behind his back. He would go in, turn the squalling hiving baby over his lap, take a bunch of skin from its back between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and lance with his pocket knife held in his right hand. After the operation was finished, he would start home walking in his characteristic way of hands behind his back. Even in his old age, grandfather didn’t waste much time.

I cannot remember when my stocking was the only one hanging from the mantle over the old fireplace on Christmas Eve night, but the number increased with the passing years. I was hard on both shoes and stockings when I was a child; and although the little copper tips protected my shoes, it seemed there was always a hole in each stocking when Christmas Eve came. I wondered if I might get anything that would slip through the hole; but the next morning, I always found that Santa had tied it up with a red string from the North Pole.

When we awoke, all of us would rush to the fireplace shouting “Christmas gift on the way. We would untie the stockings and take out the apples and candy; burt sometimes there were other things such as little dolls for the girls or a hollow rubber ball for me. I didn’t get much, but it seemed like a lot to us for many children in the neighborhood got nothing. A child like a man “is rich in the things he can do without.”

At first I believed all they told me about Santa, and I was afraid he might get stuck in the chimney on the way down, but later when I began  to compare the size as shown in pictures with the chimney flue, I decided that he probably came through the door. To satisfy my curiosity,I would try hard to stay awake but was never was able to do so. I was probably five or six years old when Nette told me there was a Santa Clause for each house. This information enable me to arrive at the correct conclusion, but I don’t believe that I informed my parents of my newly acquired knowledge.

To me the days immediately preceding Christmas seemed like weeks and the intervening years seemed like ages for this was the only holiday to which the people of our section of the country paid any attention. On Christmas day, a great many went rabbit hunting and some of the sinners would get drunk, but I don’t remember any church services except when Christmas day fell on Sunday. This seems strange in view of the influence that religion had on the lives of the people in the community.

Editor’s note: This is the 3rd article in a 24 part series……….;

Next week: Getting lost in the woods and I’m a believer.