The Red Wagon
A Painted House by John Grisham, published in paperback in 2002, was described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as follows: “Some of Grisham’s best writing … even without lawyers, a Painted House earns a well-deserved favorable verdict.”
In the story the family consists of grandparents, parents and a curious seven-year old boy, Luke. The grandparents own the home, a barn, an old John Deere tractor, a ‘39 Ford truck and a small acreage in the southern lowlands of Arkansas. They lease an additional 80 acres of bottomland for growing cotton. They must borrow $14,000 from the nearby town bank for planting and harvesting the crop. Tending and picking the cotton depends on the labor of the entire family plus several Mexican migrants and a family of hill folk. The story unfolds through the eyes of Luke, who is very aware of the interaction among the different groups and is an unseen watcher on several occasions.
My story today was stimulated by the reading of the Painted House, as I remembered and compared my situation as a seven-year old with that of Luke.
My setting is in the hill country of southern West Virginia some 20 years before the time of the Arkansas family. Because of the early death of my Grandpa Lilly, my father did not have an opportunity to go to high school, but my mother did finish high school. They eloped at a young age to Tennessee and my oldest brother was born the fall after her graduation.
Sometime later, my parents were deeded 25 acres of mostly bottomland property with an old house. That house was my home for the first 12 years of my life.
As was true for most of rural America of that time, that house never knew electricity. We carried water in a pail from the neighbors, who had a hand dug well on their back porch. In many summers the water supply was limited and there was only enough for drinking. During those periods, I can remember my parents starting fires down by the river’s edge and heating water from the Bluestone River in a no. 3 washtub. Mom would scrub our clothes with homemade lye soap on a washboard and rinse them in the river. Then she hung them to dry on a line in the sunshine.
The mill was about 100 yards away and from May to September, we bathed in the mill pond. Outside of those times I have to believe that we only bathed but once a week, probably Saturday evening. Bathing meant carrying water, heating it on the kitchen stove, and then pouring the hot water into a no. 3 washtub. There were five of us kids to bathe in the same water. Hot water would be added between baths.
The toilet was a one-holer about 100 feet away from the back of the house. To go there on a cold winter night, we would have had to navigate down steep steps in an unlighted house and out into the cold. Emptying a pail was a daily chore.
We four boys slept upstairs. Mom or Dad would carry a lamp, tuck us in bed, and then go back downstairs with the light. The only heat upstairs came through a doorway to the upstairs that was left open only at night. Wide boards made the walls for the two upstairs rooms, but when we looked up there was only the rafters with tin showing between the wide chestnut boards. At times the west wind-driven snow would sift into the bedrooms. We slept two to a bed with heavy, heavy quilts. When one turned, the other would automatically turn. Our favorite room was the kitchen with its wood-burning stove. We cooked, ate, played and read there. A wood-burning King heater in the living-bedroom provided additional heat for the really cold months. My sister Betty slept downstairs in an unheated bedroom, but probably moved near the King heater in the winter.
One of my earliest memories was seeing an A-Model Ford arrive at our place early one evening in October. The next morning as a four-year old, I saw my youngest brother for the first time in bed with Mom. The stork had brought him during the night. We were led to believe for several years that even the farm animals found their offspring behind stumps.
Dad bought a new ‘33 B Model Ford Truck. To this day, I don’t know how he could possibly have accumulated the $500 it cost. In their entire lives, my parents never borrowed money. The family never owned a tractor until after World War II. Our truck farm was basically self sufficient. Wild game and fish provided extra protein. Vegetable crops, extra eggs, milk and meat were cash producing.
My father’s early morning routine was to get out of bed before the rest of the family, start the fire in the kitchen stove, and in the winter renew the fire in the King heater. He would then go outdoors to feed the animals and return in 20 to 30 minutes. Mom would get up to a warm kitchen, make 36 biscuits and cook fatback bacon. Dad would return and make “poor-do” gravy using the grease from the bacon. That delicious gravy was spooned over those wonderful biscuits and we had a great breakfast.
Just as Luke, the seven-year old of the Painted House could pick 100 pounds of cotton in a long, hard day, I, at seven, worked in the fields, milked cows, fed the animals, split wood, and did chores before and after school. I tried to do what my two older brothers could do.
At Christmas, we would cut a red cedar from some old fields or woods and sometimes cross the river to find the right one. It was decorated with tinsel, a few bulbs and natural things. The cedar fragrance filled the house. Santa Clause generally brought apples, oranges, nuts, hard-tack candy and two decks of cards. Sometimes there might be a small gift for each kid.
The greatest gift that Santa ever brought was a red wagon with dual back wheels and gold colored standards. I was seven and we kids wore ruts in the yard and in particular, under a grape arbor on the north side of the house. We would pull it to the main highway a half-mile away, and with great exhilaration, ride it non-stop downhill all the way to our house.
– Percy