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A Plowing Memory of
Yore
- A Father's Day memory - By Jenny Wren
Ahhh, such sweet memories of Mom and Pop, at home on the farm. A memory recalled today on Father’s day- 2003...
When Jenny wren was about ten years old, she remembers:
Jenny wren was the water girl, clad in bib overalls and nothing else; heading for her dad and brothers as they plowed in the fields. She sits now on her memory cushion as the happening unfolds.
She recalls the sweat that beaded the brow of her dad under the brim of his
old felt Stetson hat. He had always worn a hat; yep, pop was a gentleman farmer,
as well as the country sheriff of the area. for over thirty years.
His sweat band left the tell-tell sign of a mountain shaped, salty imprint upon each hat in just a few wears.
Jenny remembers how she always held his hat while he drank the cold water as
her toes twisted restlessly in the cool, damp dirt clods which broke up so
easily with just one step or two. She looks adoringly up at him,
with the purest of love that a little girl can have as she who adored her poppa.
She would watch in childish glee, watching his face as if to engrave this memory
of her precious dad. There sat a big bead of sweat raced back
and forth on the end of his nose. She wrinkled her own nose as if to help
dislodge it.
He would finally get his fill of water. Jenny would giggle as he smiled down at
her brown from the sun,-upturned face, and would give his special grin, making
his eyes squint as he freely shared his well remembered smile. She turned her
head a little sideways and waited, because she knew it was coming, He always
gave that satisfied "ahhhhhh, that is good water!."
The sound he made was between a growl and a clearing of the throat. He never
failed to satisfy this little girl’s heart. She used to sit on his lap and he
would rock her lovingly, telling her that she was his baby. He would take the
old red bandana hankie and pour some of the water that was left in the aluminum
water-dipper (that had replaced the homemade dipper made from a gourd.) He would
pour the water on the wrinkled hankie to dampen it, and then tie it securely
about his head under the hat and this seemed to ward away the heat from the hot
sun., that he worked so hard plowing under.
Sweaty salt marks were on his blue work shirt, where he had labored in love on
his farm that he had cleared with his (and my brothers' own hands).
He would gesture his crippled hand (crippled from falling in a fireplace when a
tiny child.) It looked twisted up into a fist with the little finger curled
downward into his palm. He would gesture this hand about, saying proudly, "Look
out there, my Jenny wren. This was once all woodland right here, where we are
now working..."
She looked and could hardly believe that a huge forest had once covered this whole area.
"'Even right here, poppa? "She asked, as if thinking aloud.
Her dad calls out to old Adder the horse, "Git up lady."
Jenny knew she was dismissed for the time being.
Jenny walked back to the house with the now empty bucket plopped upside down on
her head like a helmet. (the house had also been home made, built from the
ground up, by her father and brothers who cleared from the very woods he had
just spoken of.
Ahhhhh memories of childhood and of another place and another
time............................
.by Pop's Jennywren
