Every other Saturday, the man hitched up the old horse, Maxie, to the wagon and set off for the small community two miles away to buy flour, meal, sugar, coffee and occasionally a newspaper, which once read, was pasted to the inside walls of the cabin to help insulate the place. Flour and water was the paste they used to make the newspaper stick. Held pretty good, that flour and water paste. On those jaunts into town, sometimes Daddy would take the oldest boy, or sometimes the girl, but not very often. The baby never went anywhere except to church with the family, or occasionally around to Clive’s, the man’s older brother. A rare treat was when both the boy and the girl climbed into the old wagon with their daddy and rode into town, thinking it was the adventure of their lifetime. On those days, they wore their church clothes and Mommy made them wear shoes. About the only time they wore their shoes except when they went to church. Mommy would take lard, rub a little on the shoes and shine them up. They really looked pretty, all spiffy and new looking. When they were going out where people could see them, the girl’s hair was properly combed and maybe braided, tied on the ends with strips of material from a feed sack. Mommy’s eyes would tear up sometimes, wishing she had real satin ribbons to put in her little girl’s hair. The boy’s hair was wetted and slicked down, with a perfect part on the side when he went anywhere.
Money was scarce, so every penny was counted, and if their daddy felt magnanimous and bought them a piece of penny candy, the children thought they were in hog heaven. Riding in the back of the wagon on the long trip from town to the cabin, they’d make the candy last as long as possible, taking only small licks at a time, sharing licks if they had different flavors. The boy and the girl learned to share everything they had, since neither of them ever got much.
On this particular Saturday, Daddy took both the boy and the girl into town with him. It was their mommy’s birthday, so he gave her a little rest from having to watch the kids, but she still had to tend to the baby. Daddy told her to put the baby to sleep and lay down for a while. He had big plans for that night, he said, seeing as to how it was her birthday. Mommy just grinned, but wore an apprehensive look, because you never could tell about Daddy… just what he might do.
When Daddy took them into town, he sometimes took them into the places he did business, and sometimes he left them in the wagon. Being kids, they questioned that, but Daddy just said it wasn’t none of their concern what he did in those places he wouldn’t take them.
It being a special day, besides the provisions, Daddy bought a yellow ceramic vase and filled it with crepe paper flowers of different colors and presented the gift to Mommy when they arrived back at the house. Crepe paper flowers were readily available at that time of year because it was near Decoration Day, and many women made the flowers to decorate the graves of their dead. They’d work for a month or more on them, so as to have them all ready when Decoration Day did roll around. Daddy talked Mommy’s Aunt Bertie into giving him some of those homemade flowers to take to Macie for her birthday, thinking she’d really like those colorful flowers that she could keep and not have to throw away like real ones.
The children jumped around, laughing and happy to see that Mommy was really pleased with the gift Daddy done brought her. She wasn’t expecting to get a present at all. Tears gathered in her eyes and she gave their daddy a big hug for the vase and he swung her around and kissed her right on the mouth. Wriggling out of his arms, Mommy took the flowers and set them smack dab in the middle of the mantle over the fireplace where anybody who came into the cabin could see them, but the kids couldn’t get to them. They very rarely had any company, but sometimes the man’s brother and his wife would come around the mountain to visit. And she’d asked them when she’d seen them at church the week before to come for her birthday. Maybe they’d come and maybe they wouldn’t because they hadn’t said for sure. They were like that. If they had said for sure, they’d have been there, rain or shine.
Mommy had to go change the baby, and he’d just peed, so she hung the diaper over the line at the foot of the bed for it to dry. Since it was so hard to wash clothes, the baby used the same diaper two or three times if he just peed in it. Mommy put the poopie diapers outside in a covered bucket until she could wash them. She sat down in the rocking chair that sat between the beds, facing the flowers, and fed the baby, pulling her breast out of the front of her dress for the young’un to latch onto. Smiling at the flowers on the mantle the whole time she fed baby Nathaniel, she reached down and patted Shannon on the head, giving her a brilliant smile and Shannon felt like she’d been the one who brought the flowers. And she smiled back, squatting at her mommy’s feet like she did every time Mommy fed the baby if she was anywhere around. Watching Nate eat fascinated Shannon and she couldn’t wait till she got old enough to get her some young’uns. Nate was such a cutie pie and Shannon watched his little mouth tug on the dark rosy nipple. Every once in a while, he’d let go and turn his head to grin at her. Nate seemed partial to Shannon and Shannon sure loved baby Nate.
Daddy and Clay, Jr. went out back to unhitch the horse and Mommy yelled for them to check and see if the hens had laid any more eggs. Mommy only had three eggs in the house and she wanted to bake a cake for her birthday but she didn’t want to waste them if they didn’t have any more. They had to have some for breakfast the next morning. Daddy said they’d check and sent Clay, Jr. to look and see. Mommy turned twenty-six that day.
They ate their meager supper in the small lean to kitchen, shooing flies away from their food. It was too hot to shut the doors and Daddy hadn’t bought screening to make any screen doors yet. The ones from last year was still in the barn leaning against the wall, cause the screens was tore out of them where the kids always pushed on the screen and not on the wood, no matter how many times Mommy and Daddy told them not to push on the screens. It was only the middle of May, but it was already getting awfully hot. Daddy was fixing to get some screen when he went to town that day, he told Mommy, but didn’t have enough money to buy the roll of screen and the vase of flowers for her birthday. Maybe next time after he sold some more locust posts, he’d get some. Shannon thought Mommy liked the flowers a whole lot better than she would any old screen door.
Seven year old Clay, Jr. and five year old Shannon sat at the rickety table and savored the sweet, moist cake. They only had three chairs and so Clay, Jr. got one because he was the oldest. Shannon sat on the table with her legs hanging over the edge. Mommy and Daddy had a big slice of birthday cake and Daddy told her it sure tasted good. He just kept going on about it, probably because Clive and Dorie hadn’t shown up to help them eat it. It had been quite a while since Mommy had baked a cake and you could tell she was disappointed that they hadn’t come for her birthday. Little Nathaniel sat on the floor looking up at them, probably wondering why he couldn’t sit at the table with the big folks. Shannon watched him reach his little arms up every few minutes and after a while Mommy picked him up and sat him in her lap, feeding him small bites of cake with her fingers. Shannon sat on the side of the table and swung her legs back and forth looking forward to the next rich explosion of flavor in her mouth.
Daddy and Mommy put them to bed early, saying something about celebrating and Clay and Shannon didn’t want to go to sleep and miss it, even though they didn’t know what sort of celebration they were talking about.
It was hot in the cabin and Clay Jr. was sleeping in his under shorts and Shannon in only her panties. A lightweight quilt was at the foot of the bed in case it turned cool during the night, but right then it was stifling. The sandman was sneaking up on their droopy eyes, and it was hard to stay awake with Mommy sitting in the rocking chair humming to the baby. It wasn’t long before Shannon and then Clay Jr. was overtaken by sleep as they were young and had had a big day.
Sometime during the night, Shannon woke up enough to hear her daddy say something to Mommy, and his voice sounded funny. Didn’t hardly sound like Daddy. “Jus’ a little drink, honey. Won’t hurt you none.” And her mommy laughing a little, saying back that she didn’t want none and he better quit because he’d had enough. “Aw, c’mon, honey. I brung you flowers, didn’t I? An’ I got this new jar I jus’ got today. Thought I’d