BLACK WALNUTS…SEVEN FIREPLACES… AND SMALL PLANETS

by Kathryn Urick

Published in Ames Tribune, September 24, 1984

A brief story of a few years of my life as a child in the village of Christiansburg, Ohio.

“I love the Fall, the mist and all,

I love the night owl’s lonely call,

and wind around.

I like the gray November day, and care,

dead boughs that sway against my window pane,

I like the rain – I like to sit and tend my

fire a bit,

I like the Fall, the mist and all.”

Dixie Wilson (from Sounds of a Distant Drum)

I get nostalgic in the Fall, don’t you? It seems too early for Fall days to be settling in… others think so too. Several weeks ago I heard the shrill voice of the cicadas and the elders say that’s a sign of frost (in about six weeks) they add.

Something tells me to go ahead and write – so I continue, but first, another Fall poem, a favorite, comes to mind. It’s about the wild geese and their flight to warm days.

“Something told the wild geese, it was time to go.

Though the fields lay golden, something whispered,

‘Snow.”

Leaves were green and stirring, berries luster-glossed,

But beneath warm feathers, something whispered,

‘Frost’

All the sagging orchards steamed with ember spice,

But each wild breast stiffened at remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese it was time to fly,

summer sun was in their wings,

Winter in their cry.”

unknown.

How can one put into words the memories that flood one’s mind – fascinating memories about the years of my childhood spent at “The Grove.”

My family lived in the house beside the blacksmith’s shop in Christiansburg. I was told we moved there from a small farm in Clark County when I was three months old. Here my father was an apprentice to a blacksmith and thus learned the trade. When I was eleven or twelve years old, our house burned. As we needed a place to live, sometime later the Grove became our home.

“The Grove” was a small acreage at the edge of the village; some small fields, a barn, pond chicken houses and trees… trees…trees! I was a child of the outdoors and soon discovered the walnut trees. Then in my mind I started to plan; I would gather and hull black walnuts, dry them on roofs of small buildings; there would be bushels and bushels that I would sell! No matter that my hands became stained a copper color. But something happened – perhaps it snowed too early, I don’t remember but I didn’t sell a SINGLE WALNUT.

My older sister, Mildred, was delighted – she always said I was too big for my britches and she was sure that now I would have time to help with the dishes, a job I did not like. (She would never let me wash).

With Spring came another idea. I would plant, harvest and sell soup beans! My father had already given me a small ready-to-plant plot of ground. More bad luck – it rained and rained, turning the green bean patch into a moldy, black bean patch.

But fun-filled days overshadowed all disappointments; I especially remember raking mountains of leaves, jumping into the piles, burning them and then running through the swirling, good-smelling smoke. At the supper table everyone know what we had done.

I’ll always remember the pond at the far end of one of the fields, a great attraction. But Alice (my friend) and I were warned of the sinking sand over in THAT corner. We were frightened just enough. But we did enjoy picnics after we remembered to hide our lunches – the cows nearly always ate our oranges! One day when we went back to the house, my stepmother said, “You girls should have come back sooner, then you would have died laughing at the old hen that got her feet fast on sticky fly-paper. How she did squawk!”

Alice and I slept out in a tent almost every night. Storms always waited until midnight to happen and thunder and lightening sent us running, dragging our wet blankets and yelling, “Let us in, please.” Alice had red hair – it was a stringy, wet sight as we ran up the winding stairs and jumped into bed.

My father bought a pony which my brother claimed for his own and I sweat it was not my idea to bring her into the kitchen one day when the adults were not home. We led her in the east door toward the west door; the floor sloped somewhat. “Babe” slipped and fell. I’ve often wondered how many rooms she would have sedately trotted through had she decided to run.

Of the seven fireplaces the one we used the most was in the living room. In the bedrooms they had to give way to warm feather ticks and plumpy, soft comforters.

I believe it was James Freeman’s poem “Small Harbors that settled it for me. “The Grove” was my Small Harbor; I just didn’t think to call it that:

“We need small harbors in our souls

Where we can slip out to the sea

To wait a moment and be whole.

A book, a poem, a song may be enough.

Some exercise, a walk, a time to solitary labor.

A dog, a cat, a garden, talk, shared with a passing friend or neighbor.

Sometimes the merest human touch;

A silent prayer is such a place –

Small harbors may be nothing much,

But ah! They have a saving grace.”

According to Webster, nostalgia means “homesickness” (for habitation). I don’t believe I’ve ever been home-sick for cold bedrooms. I’ll call it “reminiscing” and be grateful for my electric blanket!

Dear grandchild, This is one of the articles that made it to publication before I was “fired” – I never knew why. Please don’t allow your children to think their great-grandma was too much of a “reprobate” after all.

Loved you forever,

Grandma