Alice came in summer. Each summer. She and my Aunt Marguerite rode the Greyhound bus down to our house from just across the river near Cincinnati. Marguerite was Moma’s older sister. She had opinions. Moma never knew when Aunt Marguerite and Alice were coming; they just appeared. Alice had fancy store bought clothes and was a bit older than me, so I could count on getting a box of good hand-me-downs clothes. I specifically remember the box they bought when I was six. I found a bright yellow sunsuit with white and red flowers dancing on the material, I thought those flowers might jump off in my hands. I had never seen, let alone worn, a sunsuit. I didn’t even know that word. Alice set me straight when I called it a dress. Alice was taller than me and sturdy.
Alice had short blond hair with ringlet curls. AND she had white sandals on her feet! I wanted to try the sunsuit on right then and there, straight out of the box, in front of the smokehouse. I stripped off my raggedy dress down to my cotton underpants. I had to put each foot in the ruffled openings on the sunsuit while trying to stay balanced and not falling down. I tried to pull up the sunsuit but it kept falling off around my ankles. Alice was laughing at me and I felt humiliated with my cheeks burning like fire.
Aunt Marguerite came across the yard hauling another box of moth ball smelling clothes. She took one look at me, nearly naked, she pulled firmly on the sagging sunsuit crisscrossing the straps across my back then buttoning the straps on the front of the sunsuit. The sunsuit drooped down almost to my belly button. No one seemed willing to adjust the straps or hitch it up with a safety pin like Moma would. Aunt Marguerite sternly said you two go play.
She had opinions.
Alice played with my older brother and not with me, telling him secrets and such. Alice told my brother about Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier. I would tag along when they wandered off to play cowboys or adventurers down by Caney Fork Creek. Alice knew all about an adventurer named Davy Crockett. Alice knew everything about Davy Crockett because she watched him every time he was on television. I didn’t know a thing about Davy Crockett. He wasn’t in any comic books and we had no television so I just took Alice’s word for it. My brother and Alice wouldn’t let me play or go into Davy Crockett’s hideout they made by the creek. However, from my exiled position, I could hear Alice singing, “kilt him a b’ar when he was only three… Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.” As an outsider to the whole Davy Crockett secret, I starting concentrating on the bear wondering if, at age six, I could kill one too.
My Moma’s oldest sister was Aunt Frances, she was kind and a very good artist. She loved birds and wee rodents. She kept a red bird in a cage in her kitchen. I know this because one time she took me to stay in her house. I was so excited. Her husband Benny worked at The Sunshine Baking Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio. Benny and Frances’ house was far, far away from our house. I thought it would be like going to my Grandma’s just over on the next hill but even better because Uncle Benny and Aunt Frances always brought big boxes of stale sweets from The Sunshine Baking Co. Circus peanuts, orange and chewy; snowball cookies with marshmallow and pink coconut on top. So gooey and delicious. They made a cracker called Cheez-It but I only had a few of those. My sisters and brother liked Cheez-its best and that suited me just fine. They didn’t have one drop of sugar and made your fingers turn orange.
So off we went in their car, crammed to the brim with five people and all kinds of corn, squash, eggs and buttermilk that Moma would send back to keep them from starving in the city. We drove and drove and drove. I started feeling sickly and scared. I was afraid to mention it because Moma told me to behave myself and do as I was told. When we got to their house, it was pitch dark. Someone turned a light on in the kitchen and I thought I heard all kinds of rustling and fluttering. I was so scared I could not move. As soon as we got inside, Aunt Frances stripped me naked and put me in a big white tub with warm water up over my legs… I didn’t have to scrunch my legs up like I did in the galvanized tub Moma pulled into the kitchen right next to the wood cooking stove. Aunt Frances scrubbed every inch of me. Hair, ears, fingernails. She wrapped me in a scratchy towel and handed me a long nightgown that had belonged to my cousin Celia. Frances only had two kids, Celia and Benny. They were older than me and stared at me all the time. That made me feel even more sickly.
I had to sleep in the bed with Celia and I think it was about then I started to cry. I didn’t want to be a cry baby; Moma could not stand cry babies. Frances came into the room, got me up and said patiently, “I’ll put you on the couch.” She put a quilt over me and told me to quieten down. I tried to cry quietly, best I could. When morning came, Frances came to get me as she took the covers off the cages in the living room and suddenly all the parakeets and one big parrot started squawking. If I had known about hell, I am sure that is where I thought I had landed.
Frances was a good cook, not like Moma, but I thought it was nice to have cereal with gobs of sugar and white bread toast with a thin smear of margarine.
Sometime after breakfast, I started to cry again. Aunt Frances showed me her elf houses made with walnuts halves and dried moss. I continued to sob. She offered to let me play with the parrot. I was afraid to tell her I was petrified of birds and baby chicks. I decided if I cried louder she would put that hideous thing back in his cage. She did. I was quietly sobbing but no where near finished with my crying fit.
Somehow I managed to make it through the day but the minute it fell dark Aunt Frances made my pallet on the couch. When I thought about the pallet, the inky darkness , those birds in their covered cages, fear and sadness overwhelmed me. Tears welled up in me followed by wailing sobs. Aunt Frances was kind and put her arms around me. It made me feel funny inside. I don’t remember Aunt Frances saying a word, however, I gulped out: “ I want to go home.”
The next morning Aunt Frances fed me the same breakfast as the day before. Her kids were silent, staring at me. As Aunt Frances began washing up the dishes, I must have been gawking because she picked me up and sat me on the countertop right by the red bird in the cage. “Here,” she said, “ you can turn the water on.” Softly she placed her hand over mine and twisted the knob and warm water gushed out. She gently moved my hand under the warm water and then, she smiled at me. I felt so special I forgot to bawl for an hour or two. After the noon meal it was determined that we would go shopping for a present to take home to Moma. She loaded Celia and me in the car heading for a department store. I knew that word because Moma bought our shoes for winter at Hughes Department Store, right in the middle of Fountain Square.
Frances held my hand in the department store. We walked straight back to the kitchen area. She picked up a hand held grater with a green wooden handle at the top. I thought the fancy teacups were much nicer but in just a few minutes we were out the door with the hand held grater bought and paid for. I don’t remember crying after that because Aunt Frances told me I would be going home the next day!
I made it through the night and jumped off my pallet before daybreak. Aunt Frances scrubbed me up, again. After breakfast, she and Uncle Benny drove a long way to the train station. As we drove along, my aunt told me she would walk on the train with me and put me in a seat. She told me Moma and Daddy would meet me at the Ferguson Station. She brought an older gentleman over and said, “he will look after you until you get to Ferguson.” I didn’t feel frightened because Moma always listened for the train at Norwood Crossing. It came by every day at the same time. All Moma would have to do is listen for the train at Norwood Crossing and she would know to come get me.
I had a flour sack with my clothes inside and a brown paper bag with the hand held grater for Moma.
When the train started moving, my heart nearly lurched out of my chest. A whistle blew as the train zipped past buildings, across green fields and straight through the middle of thickets of trees. I pressed my nose against the glass pane with only one word in my mind. Home.