Sometimes, we would drive the wagon to Uncle Fulton’s house to see him, Mattie, their daughter Anna Faye, and Allen’s beloved Granny Midgett. We would sit at Granny’s feet and listen to her stories. She would dip her snuff and let us brush her very, very long beautiful gray hair. She was the soft side of Fulton and Allen. Both loved her dearly, and, without her their behavior towards their wives and children would have been even rougher than it was. Even so, their women were not allowed to have their own lives or make their own choices.
Sometimes the living room at Granny’s was completely filled with a big wooden quilt frame on which the women were working sewing together a quilt. We loved the hubbub of activity and the adventure of crawling under the quilt frame.
At Fulton’s we loved the water. Just outside their kitchen window there was an amazing artesian well that spewed up water of its own accord. As a result they had running water in the house. The water tasted a little like the oil that flowed from the pumps that Fulton maintained near the house. They also had a bathroom with a porcelain bathtub. Plentiful water and a real bathtub from which water was piped outside after its use meant that when staying at Fulton’s we each got to take a bath in clean water. But, the outhouse was so far away that slop jars, which were two-gallon or so metal cans with lids, were essential at night.
© 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003 Portia Isaacson Bass and Veta Leigh. All rights reserved.