Monday Lydia was pleased to be invited to a friend’s birthday party. This little girl, Andrea, is pretty special to us, because she was only two pounds, eleven ounces when she was born. We all (meaning, many of my friends and I) feel like we should have some of the credit for the fact that Andrea recovered from being such a sick baby when she was born to being so healthy and bright, because we prayed so very diligently for her. Lydia gave her a variegated/pastel vest that Hannah crocheted.
All week, the weather has been beautiful. One afternoon when I took Victoria for her walk, Caleb and Joseph came, too, on their bikes. Joseph is rather like Tigger, doing oblongs in front of us, periodically disappearing entirely. Every time he showed up again, Victoria greeted him as if he’d been gone forever and a day: “HIII, Doseph!”
Arriving home half starved half to death, I made broccoli cheese soup for supper.
The children sometimes want me to tell them stories about when I was young. (Not that I’m old now, mind you.) Here’s one they like to hear, although it does make them rather wide-eyed.)
When I went to school, things were not nearly so bad as they are nowadays. I got along just fine. I was a timid child (really!), but if somebody needed to be defended, nobody would've guessed I was timid at all, for I was always the champion of the underdog.
I had plenty of friends in school, and I was taught to simply ignore those who made fun of me because of my 'religion'. Ignoring them worked fine and dandy...except for one horrid boy in the eighth grade, who, every time he met me in the hall, reeled off a stream of foul-mouthed smut. I pretended I was deaf; I couldn't hear him. I was blind; I couldn't see him. But things weren't getting any better; he was the ringleader of a group of nasty boys, and he was causing several of them to start imitating him.
Being rather fiery-tempered, I decided one day, 'I've had quite enough of that; one way or another, he won't say that to me again.'
How I would keep him from it, I wasn't certain, but I was determined: he wouldn't do it again.
An hour later, I was walking from the library to my classroom...and there he came, Dale Lovell himself, marching straight toward me. I remembered my promise to myself. The trouble was, there was no one else in the hallway--the place was deserted. Everyone else was in class. I had a 'pink slip', meaning I had permission to be out of class; I was fairly certain he did not.
He spotted me some distance away, and began that horrid smirk of his. He came closer... and closer... and closer...
And then he made his fatal mistake. He opened his mouth.
Now, I knew good and well what was going to come out of that mouth, and I'd just told myself I was not going to hear it.
Not knowing how to close my own ears, I came to the abrupt decision that his mouth must be stopped. So I stopped it, in the only way I knew how.
I launched all one hundred pounds of me straight at him, fist first. Nope, I didn't slap him like a girl, I punched him just as handily as one of his own kind might have done, ker-POW!!--right in the chops, with all my might and main.
I then I got the fright of my life.
His head snapped back, and I actually heard his neck do the Rice Krispy routine: snap, crackle, pop. His eyes rolled back into his head, and I was left staring at a white-eyed individual with a cut lip and a bloody nose.
I thought I'd killed him. I tell you honestly, it scared me to death.
He started to go down. But then, on his way to the floor, he crashed into the lockers behind him, and that seemed to resurrect him. He regrouped, straightened back up, and his eyes came around onto the right side of his head again, albeit a little glassy. He reached up and felt of his jaw.
"Blankety-blank," he muttered, staring at me in astonishment.
I stared back, just as astonished. Then I gathered my wits and continued on down the hall, atremble from head to foot.
By the end of the school day, I'd recovered so well that I jubilantly headed for home, anxious to tell my father of my worthy exploits. Daddy was my best friend, and there were few things I didn't tell him.
He listened to my tale in silence--rare, for him--his look of concern deepening. The story nervously petered to a close.
And then Daddy said this: "You must remember the verse, 'They that slay with the sword shall be slain of the sword'."
I was quite humbled.
I went to school the next day, not knowing quite what to expect; but, in view of the fact that most of the things my father said would happen, did happen, I wouldn't have been surprised if Dale Lovell would've met me in the hall like a buccaneer, sword swinging lethally at his side.
That's not what happened.
The amazing thing was, he never again bothered me or called me bad names. In fact, horror of horrors, he went to acting as if he really liked me. His friends treated me with newfound respect, and he even went so far as to repair the zipper on my pencil case one day. I tried to avoid him as I would the plague, but he just kept popping up like a bad penny, greeting me with a whole lot more warmth than I wanted.
One day in high school, three years later, one of his friends sneered at me and said, "Sweeeeeney!" That was the town's name for us--still is--because of my father's name: Swiney. (It's a mispronunciation; the name is supposed to rhyme with 'money'.)
Anyway, Dale, who happened to be nearby--as always--whirled around and said to his friend, "Don't you dare insult that girl! She's a good egg!" He rubbed at his jaw. "Besides...she packs a deadly wallop!"
All his other friends laughed. I was embarrassed.
I have always thought that the reason it all turned out that way, is because my father prayed so fervently for me. You see, he was terribly afraid that that gang of ruffians would catch me in some lonely corner some day and beat me to a pulp, or worse. But truly the Lord 'caused the wrath of man (or 'girl', in this case) to praise Him'!
One day not long ago, Joseph was out riding his bike when a younger boy hollered at him, "Sweeeeney!" Joseph stopped and went back. The boy looked worried, glancing about to see if there was a quick hidey-hole.
Joseph brought his bike to a stop beside the boy. He smiled at him. "What's a Sweeney?" Joseph asked curiously.
The boy went from one foot to the other. "Uh, well, er," he stammered, "uh, it's someone who wears nice clothes and goes to church!"
Joseph tried hard not to laugh. "Oh!" he said, smiling. And he rode off.
That boy hasn't yelled 'Sweeeeney' since.
One afternoon Caleb was explaining in detail all about the races his class was running at recess. “…and I got to base first, and nobody caught me!” he finished triumphantly.
Hannah asked him, “Are you learning other things at school, too?”
Caleb nodded seriously. “Oh, yes!” he replied, “just yesterday we learned all about soccer baseball!”
Thursday evening, Jr. Choir had just begun when a strong odor started filling the room. One of the boys told me that somebody was spraying bug spray all around the church. Fearing that the children would get sick from the smell, I told them to pack up Bibles and songbooks and head for the basement--but it was even worse down there. We went into the school--but that was right where the Bug Spray Man was spraying at the moment, and it didn’t take long at all for the fumes to start coming in. So we all went across the street, and the kids stood on my driveway using my cordless phone to call their parents to come get them.
Little by little, they found rides and departed. The man who had been spraying was mortified when he realized what had happened. It was Arthur, the man for whom Keith used to work, father of Andrea, who had just turned eight and was attending her first Jr. Choir session. Or at least she was trying to.
Arthur crossed the street to apologize to me.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I reassured him, “Just look at all the children!” I waved my arm at the chattering swarm. “Looks to me like they’re having almost as much fun as if they were inside playing games and singing!”
Indeed, their laughter filled the dusky evening, and one and all seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. Nobody appeared to suffer any aftereffects from the malodorous stench.
Friday afternoon, Caleb rushed in the door with his homework, somewhat pleased, somewhat concerned. He showed it to me; the grade marked at the top was 100%.
“Mama,” he said, “I did way too good on this!”
“You did?” I asked blankly--and then I saw it: a sticker on the page that said “Way to go!!” The words were printed on a picture of a funny-looking dog, and it did almost look like it said “Way too good.” Silly little boy.
That night, we went to Wal-Mart. Joseph got Caleb a present (his birthday is October 13); and he took Caleb with him to pick it out. (Another of those Can't-Wait Kids.) Caleb chose a metallic gray motorcycle, about five inches long or so.
Back in the car, Joseph, in the back seat, was noisily getting it out of its package, and Caleb, sitting beside me, told me, "I’m going to be really surprised when Joseph gives me that present."
He turned around and said to his brother, "Joseph! I’m going to close my eyes really tight when you give me my present, so that I won’t know what it is!"
Once more addressing me, he remarked enthusiastically, "It's a secret!"
Joseph also bought a nice can opener and a ladle, which he managed to keep in the bag until we got home. And then he gave it to me. That boy!
Friday afternoon at 3:00, Larry and Teddy went to help my brother Loren and his wife Janice, who were at Hershey, Nebraska. Their motor home had a broken fuel line, and Larry happened to have all the parts Loren needed. By a quarter after eight, it was fixed, they were eating supper in the motor home, and were almost ready to set out for home. They got back at 12:30 a.m.
I am always relieved when I hear the sound of that Cummins diesel chuckling down the Avenue; I always worry that Larry will fall asleep at the wheel. He, of course, insists that he never has any trouble falling asleep, at all, when I am not along. (I would be a good cure for insomniacs?)
“Were you getting tired?” I asked.
“Nah,” he answered unflappably, with a careless shrug, picking up the newspaper.
“Ahem!” Teddy cleared his throat.
Larry quickly got behind his newspaper.
“Well, there was that time,” Teddy began to give the game away, “when he didn’t realize that a moving van in front of us was going so slow… His eyes were wide open, but I don’t think anything was registering…”
Larry peered over the top of the paper at his blabbermouth of a son.
“…and all of a sudden,” continued Teddy with relish, “he realized that he was getting way too close, way too fast!”
Larry went back behind the newspaper, and Teddy grinned at me. “So, we got closer…and closer… I said, ‘Daddy’, and then, all at once, he gasped, and I think he must’ve stomped the brake pedal with both feet, we stopped so abruptly.”
Well, we all laughed; but I was mighty glad Teddy had gone along, if only to keep his father awake.
Saturday night, Teddy took his big new stereo set to church for me to use as an amplifier. I was singing the song called O Glorious Love.
Since we had a large box of pears ripening altogether too quickly, I made a gigantic pear streusel pie--a quadruple recipe all in one pan--my biggest baking pan. It is a commercial-sized pan that Larry’s Aunt Joanne gave me when they closed down their truck stop after it was flooded out. The pan, in spite of its immense size, was nevertheless brimful. I put a large jelly-roll pan--also from the truck stop--under the pie to catch the drips.
At least, it was supposed to catch the drips.
It didn’t catch them all.
But the pie turned out entirely scrumptious, and I decided to save it for dinner Sunday, since we had invited Keith and Esther, Lawrence and Norma, and Bobby. Esther’s birthday is Monday, so Saturday night after practice for our special songs, we rushed to Wal-Mart with the littles to get her a present. I chose a musical globe with teddy bears inside; a set of two pairs of gloves, one black and one white; and a black knit headband.
For dinner, we had chicken, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, lettuce salad, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots with a cheese sauce, biscuits, and the pear streusel pie. We were just about ready to begin eating, and the biscuits would soon be done, when Lawrence suddenly exclaimed, “There’s a fire in your oven!”
That oven is the wonderful convection oven Lawrence and Norma gave us for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I am quite particular about it. I whirled around and looked in the window…it was just a small flame, caused by the dripping pear pie. I jerked open the door and blew the fire out. It promptly started right back up again. I blew it out the second time. It immediately flamed back to life. I blew it out, shut the door, and grabbed the baking soda out of the cupboard. The fire started again, bigger than ever.
I yanked open the door and tossed in a big handful of baking soda. Presto, no more fire. And, fortunately, the biscuits tasted just fine. We all sat down to eat--and we ate until we were stuffed, we sho’ ’nuff did.
We gave Esther her presents; Lawrence and Norma gave her a pretty watch. Joseph gave her a big black ladle, which quite pleased her.
At church that evening, the organist and I played one of our favorite arrangements: Onward Christian Soldiers and Stand Up For Jesus, including both tunes of the latter, as a medley. When the first song is over, the preacher (my brother) prays. As soon as I heard, “Our dear heavenly Father”, I opened my eyes, leaned down, and looked under the piano.
The amplifier was off.
I reached for the remote…but it was gone. And then I spotted it, about six feet away from me. I stealthily got to my feet and sneaked over to the planter ledge where it was lurking, and turned on the stereo set. Everything was supposedly set just right for my song.
There were several more songs, then only one more prayer before it was time for my song. So, during the prayer before the offering, I peeked under piano again, doubtless looking just exactly like the ducks on Wilkinson Wetlands when they are busy feeding off the shallow bottoms.
The set was off again.
I snatched the remote and turned it on again. But during the last congregational song before my song, I heard the piano change tone and knew it was because the amplifier had gone off. But, not wanting to stick my head under the piano again while everybody looked at me to see what on earth I was doing, I left it alone, hoping I’d been wrong, hoping the dumb thing was still on.
It wasn’t.
Fortunately, I seemed to have been endowed with a little extra volume, so most people could hear me okay. Bother.
The boys invariably forget their ties upstairs in the living room after coming home from church. Larry remarked, “If this was a two-story house, and we had a fire upstairs, we could let ourselves down from the windows by tying all these ties together.”
Bobby came in when he brought Hannah home tonight--wearing a gray leather French beret, ala Sherlock Holmes. Caleb and Victoria were well entertained, particularly when Bobby perched the hat far forward on Caleb’s head. But they laughed the hardest when, as he was driving away, he pulled that hat down low on his forehead, stuck out his bottom lip and chin, and slouched a bit, looking for all the world like a grumpy little old man.
Now…time to get on with my Chapter 6.
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