Part 1

Crows and Mormons

Daddy was on the path coming from the chickenhouse toward the house. The sun was sinking in the western sky over Dry Branch. Daddy looked through the beech branches to a cluster of crows, squawking just near the treetops. 

The old road up the hill to our house was rutted and muddy. The biggest beech tree’s large roots snaked across the road. Each time the old farm truck bumped across those roots, us kids would hold on tightly to the cattle rails to keep from bouncing around like calves to slaughter. 

Daddy noticed two slight figures traversing the hillside just below the jutting roots. “Hey,” he called out to the approaching figures. Two teenage boys in slick Sunday clothes answered, “ we are Jeffrey and Donald from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons. We are here to share the word.” 

Daddy said, “You better come straight on up the hill and get your feet dry.”

Daddy brought the two bedraggled teenagers into our warm, bustling kitchen. Mom looked up and said, ”Where did you find these two?” We rarely, if ever, saw people we didn’t recognize. 

Ruth Ann was the first in the kitchen to peer at the visitors. 

Phyllis, most likely rolling up her hair, came in from the bedroom. 

Bobby and I were gathering kindling for the morning fire and burst in the back door shocked to see the entire family crammed in the kitchen with two shivering Mormons. 

Mom was none too happy to have two more mouths to feed but she told Phyllis to collect their shoes and set them by the Warm Morning stove in the living room. 

Heaven only knows what those two boys thought as they pulled their wee bibles from the suit pockets to commencing to share the word. 

Mom shooed everyone out of the kitchen but me and Ruth Ann. Mom said,  "go and drag two chairs off the porch and set the table.”

The Mormon missionaries were huddled by the Warm Morning stove and Daddy gestured with his hand for them to move away a little as he chucked a big lump of coal in the stove. “That was a big waste of coal,” Moma said later. The wood cooking stove was blazing and the Warm Morning was as hot as a firecracker and we were all getting hungry but very warm as we gawked at the young strangers. 

Moma took the big pot of soup beans and poured them into the big crockery bowl. She told Phyllis to put the fried potatoes in another dish. She sent me to the cellar to get a jar of pickled beets and as I opened the back door, Moma was turning the cornbread out on a platter. Moma said, “get in here and eat before I throw this out to the other dogs.” I wondered what those Mormons thought of that.

Part 2 

The Word and Bingo

Jeffrey and Donald continued their mission to bring the word to our home. They would trudge up the hill and knock carefully on our back door to announce their arrival. I remember one cold, snowy evening when the Mormons knocked on the door. Moma was baking molasses cookies and her face was flushed from the heat of the cooking stove. “Well,” said Moma, "you must have smelled these cookies to have walked all the way here in the snow.” They sat down at the kitchen table, drawing in as close as possible to warm themselves. Moma gave both of them a warm cookie and said, “you might be sleeping on the floor tonight.” They looked a bit perplexed wondering if the offer was real or Mom was just teasing them. They had on thin black cotton city raincoats and their slick frozen black shoes. Mom scoffed and said, “can’t they afford galoshes for the two of you?” They were either dumbfounded by the word galoshes or were surprised that Mom didn’t know missionaries had to suffer to spread the word. Either way, they were happy to be in that warm kitchen. 

Moma had a big beef stew on the stove, a few beef chunks were swimming in dark rich gravy. The big pot was bubbling at the brim with the beef, potatoes, onions and carrots. She was making a pan of biscuits to sop up the gravy. Daddy came in the back door and Moma said, “Joe, go dig up a cabbage.” And Sally, go down in the cellar and get a jar of peaches. Daddy walked out with me to just beyond the cellar to the edge of the garden. There, under a mound of dirt, was the big hole lined with straw and filled with cabbages, pears and apples. The cabbages and fruit were wrapped in old newspapers and buried in the ground. Moma said they could last until after Christmas. 

After the feast was consumed and the dishes washed, we all gathered back around the kitchen table. We had a very ragged bingo set in a dilapidated cardboard box someone had left there years before. The bingo paper sheets were tattered and the round wooden playing pieces meant for placing on the bingo sheets were mostly missing. The numbered and lettered rounds were called out by Mom. A1, G7, B4 etc etc. The first person to complete a line with the letters shouted out BINGO!!! Our little wooden tabs, long lost, had been replaced with corn kernels. The missionaries had never been allowed to pay games but in the warm kitchen, bellies full, they seemed to find a way to justify having fun. I have no memory of them staying the night but perhaps they did. Maybe a makeshift pallet was placed on the floor in front of the Warm Morning Stove. 

After they were drawn into playing Bingo, future nights included Rook card playing and checkers. I remember much merriment and laughter but not a lot of spreading the word. 

Daddy would talk with them about religion and philosophy before retiring to the living room to read. Daddy did not participate in the game playing but Mom, oh, our Moma was a card shark and wasn’t above cheating, including the very naive Jeffery and Donald. Mom would always giggle at the end of her slights of hands signaling everyone that it was all good fun.