A Girl from Yamhill (3 page)

In addition to teaching me scraps of literature and the marvels of Michigan, Mother taught me rules. Her rules, if followed, would turn me into a little lady.

First of all, I must not swear. Just because Bob Perry, the town carpenter, swore did not mean I could. Harvest and sheep-shearing crews also swore but usually stopped when they saw me. I could not understand why. I loved to listen to them swear.

When we walked uptown on errands, Mother sprinkled her talk with rules, gently, more out of habit than any real desire to reprimand.

I must not swing on gates. I might break the hinges, and swinging on gates was not ladylike.

When we turned the corner by the Masonic
Hall, we stopped to exchange a few words with “Old” John A. Simmons. In Yamhill, “Old” was an honorary title, for many very old, hardy men and women were part of its population of about three hundred. Old John A., as everyone called him, was the town undertaker. Some keeper of vital statistics once wrote reprimanding Old John A. for not reporting Yamhill's deaths. He replied that he was doing the best he could, but no one in Yamhill had died that year. English daisies, like flat, pink buttons, grew in front of Old John A.'s house. Bored with the grown-ups' conversation, I started to pick some.

“Never pick other people's flowers,” Mother said. “They don't belong to us.” This was puzzling. Our farm was abloom with flowers, most of them wild, which anyone was free to pick. I longed to pick town flowers—Canterbury bells, peonies, delphiniums, and those little daisies.

We crossed Maple Street, the main street, to avoid walking in front of men who hung around the livery stable. This also was hard to understand, because I liked to watch the men spit arcs of tobacco juice, and to look inside at the hearse and the hack.

Crossing the street meant we got to pass the saloon with its swinging doors. I was curious about that saloon, which Mother so disapproved of, but Mother always seized me by the hand and
pulled me along, chiding, “Never look under saloon doors. It isn't nice.” I could not understand. Many daily activities on the farm could not be called “nice.” Why was town different?

Safely past the livery stable, we crossed back over Maple Street. We usually met a relative or two. Sometimes it was Uncle Fred, my father's oldest brother, who had a fascinating bald head. After we passed him, Mother said, “You mustn't stare at Uncle Fred's bald head. You might hurt his feelings.” How could I hurt his feelings when I so admired his bald head? I once tried to cut off my own hair so I could be bald, too.

We usually stopped at the drugstore for a few words with Uncle Ray, my one uncle who had been sent to college, because Grandfather Bunn felt he was too fat to ever become a farmer. My father had wanted to become a pharmacist, too, but his father said no, he was cut out to farm.

Uncle Ray generously handed an ice cream cone across the counter to his niece. “Say thank you and sit down to eat it so you won't spill” were Mother's rules.

“Thank you, Uncle Ray,” I said before I sat at a round table at the back of the store near the mysterious little room filled with apothecary jars, beakers, and mortars and pestles where Uncle Ray mixed medicines. I licked my cone, swung
my feet, and stared at Great grandfather Hawn's ox yoke that hung on the wall.

At Trullinger-Eustice, the general merchandise store, Mother made a small purchase or two, a spool of thread or a can of baking powder, and paused to chat with Lottie Allen, a saleswoman of strong opinions who pounded the dry goods counter with her fist and frequently said “absolutely, positively”—fascinating words.

As soon as we left the store, I began to sprinkle my conversation with the new words. “Little girls don't say ‘absolutely, positively,'” said Mother, amused even as she made her new rule.

Sometimes we stopped at “Aunt” Fannie McKern's house. “Aunt” Fannie was not my aunt. The whole town, except Mother, called her Aunt Fannie. Mother said calling people not related to one Aunt or Grandma was a very small-town custom. I must call Aunt Fannie Mrs. McKern. “It's good manners.”

Mrs. McKern fascinated all of Yamhill's children because she was “Central,” which meant she operated the town's telephone switchboard from her living room. We loved to watch her plug cords carrying telephone calls into little holes that connected callers to the person called, and unplug them when the conversation ended. She also had a bearskin rug, which I admired. I got down on
the floor and lay nose to nose with the bear with his open mouth full of big teeth.

“Beverly, get up off the floor,” said Mother. “We don't lie on other people's floors.”

Mother dragged me past the barbershop, where I wanted to see whose face emerged from the lather the barber was scraping away with a straight-edge razor. Pressing my nose against the barbershop window, it turned out, was unladylike.

We did, however, stop at the post office with its wall of little bronze boxes with dials that had to be turned a certain way before the box could be opened. Our box usually held
The Oregonian
and sometimes a magazine. In front of the post office, Mother, starved for grown-up conversation, paused to visit with other women. “Remember,” she whispered, “little girls should be seen and not heard.” This was one rule I loved.

Being seen and not heard, I gleaned all sorts of interesting information. A bride scraped burned toast on the back porch every morning; someone could hear it across a field. The ladies shook their heads and wondered what kind of meals
her
husband was eating. A woman had been heard to say, “I just love to knead bread. It cleans the hands so.” The ladies clucked like hens and vowed they would never eat any of
her
bread. A minister's dog stole a neighbor's butter; someone
suggested the minister had trained him to steal because the minister was going hungry in Yamhill. The ladies laughed, but Mother whispered to me, “They're just joking. They know he didn't train his dog to steal.”

Sometimes the most interesting and mysterious conversations ended when Mother shot a glance at me and said, “Little pitchers have big ears.” The ladies' sudden silence was insulting. I was not a pitcher, and I did not have big ears.

On the way home, we might meet Aunt Maud, my real aunt, who was famous for once riding a bicycle downhill over a cow lying in the road because she was too insecure to steer around it. Or “Grandma” Russell, who climbed up on her roof and repaired her shingles, even though she was well into her eighties. “That's a pioneer for you,” Yamhill said. Or Quong Hop, who had come from China to build railroads and had stayed on. Now he owned a confectionery store and lived in a little house near us where I was never allowed to swing on the gate.

Sometimes we made a detour to pay a call on a very old man Mother said I must never forget. Why, Mamma?

“Because he is your Great-uncle Jasper, who crossed the Plains in a covered wagon when he was three years old.”

Oh, was that all? I thought he was interesting because he always wore a white nightcap.

Everything and everybody in Yamhill was interesting. The trouble was I wanted to swear, peek under the saloon door, stare a bear in the eye, and swing on gates. I “absolutely, positively” wanted to do these things. Mother never seriously scolded on these outings and always returned refreshed and full of amusing stories for Father.

In addition to all her rules for deportment, Mother gave me guidelines for life. “Never be afraid,” she often said.

So I was not afraid. When a cat had a fit and began to climb the wall, Mother did not know what to do. I plucked the animal off the wall, dumped it out the back door, and could not understand why Mother was first amazed at my courage and then frightened “half to death.” The cat might have clawed or bit me. “But it didn't,” I pointed out. Mother sighed.

When Father was going to slaughter a hog for our ham and bacon, Mother said I had better not watch. Naturally, this made me want to watch. As soon as Mother went out to the barnyard, I climbed the stairs to try to watch from an upstairs bedroom window. Because the window was too high, I pulled up a chair so I could look out. What I saw was much more interesting than a
squealing hog. Below the mansard roof was a ledge about a foot wide, just right for me to walk on. I climbed out the window onto the ledge. Higher than the woodshed, almost as high as the horse chestnut tree, I began to walk around the house. I had not gone far before Mother saw me and came running until she stood directly below me. “Beverly!” she said quietly and urgently. “Stand perfectly still. Don't move.” Then she shouted for my father.

Puzzled, I obeyed, as I always obeyed on the farm. Father also came running, saw me, disappeared into the house, and was heard taking the stairs two at a time before he leaned out the window. “Hang on to the shingles and back up slowly, one step at a time,” he directed as Mother stood frozen beneath me. I couldn't see what all the to-do was about, but I did as he directed until Father reached out, grabbed me, and hauled me in through the window.

“What the Sam Hill did you think you were doing?” he demanded.

“Walking around the house,” I said.

“Next time do it on the ground.” Father never wasted words.

Mother, white and shaken, had rushed in to join us. “Beverly, you must never, never go out there again. You could have fallen and killed yourself.”

“I wasn't going to fall,” I said, and I was sure I wasn't.

One day we took the train to Salem, where Father was going to play his baritone horn in the Yamhill band at the state fair. The gentle tyrants, the cows my father loved so much, usually prevented us from going far from home.

I was not interested in the exhibits of farm animals, but I was interested in the Ferris wheel. Mother agreed to take me for a ride and paid for tickets; then we climbed into the gently swaying seat and fastened a bar across our waists to keep us from falling out. The wheels began to turn, and slowly we rose. Mother clutched the bar until her knuckles were white. When our rocking seat reached the top, the wheel's motor broke down and we were stranded. I had never been so high or seen such a view: neatly laid-out farms, automobiles crawling along roads, and in the distance, a train breathing out a plume of smoke. I wanted an even better view. I slipped out from behind the bar, happy and free, and stood up on the tilting seat. Mother gasped and grabbed my skirt. I held out my arms and made the seat tilt more.

“Beverly, sit down this minute,” Mother said through clenched teeth.

“But, Mamma, I want to see.” I was on top of the world and had only begun to look.

“Sit down!” Mother dragged at my skirt, forcing me to sit, spoiling my fun. I sat scowling until the Ferris wheel was repaired and we reached the bottom, where Mother demanded that we be let off.

I objected. “But, Mamma, our ride isn't over,” I told her. “Nobody else is getting off.”

Mother did not answer. She had to sit down awhile. When she recovered, she scolded me. “Don't you know you might have fallen?”

I could not understand why Mother was such a scaredy-cat. After all, she had taught me never to be afraid.

Children were part of everything that went on in Yamhill. In winter we went to dances in the Masonic Hall, where, after sliding on the dance floor, we fell asleep on benches along the wall and were covered with coats. We sang or recited in church programs, and afterward ate drumsticks at potluck suppers.

On May Day, we took part in a pageant at the high school and ran around with bunches of wildflowers, which we left at people's doors. On Memorial Day, we went with our families to the old cemetery at Pike, where the graves of our pioneer ancestors were pointed out to us. We played among their tombstones while the adults weeded their graves. On the Fourth of July, we took part in a parade with little girls, dressed in their best,
riding on the bed of a truck disguised with bunting as a float. I recall a man nailing a board across our stomachs so we couldn't fall off. Each girl wore a ribbon bearing the name of a state. I probably brought disgrace to Ohio as the only state whose white stockings had dirty knees.

School did not open until after the prune harvest, when the whole town turned out with picnic lunches to pick prunes to be hauled off to the dryer. Children played among the laden trees but were careful to stay away from the yellowjackets. I stayed away from them but loved to watch them suckling at the plump purple bosoms of fallen prunes.

I went to birthday parties where boys wore sailor suits and girls wore their best dresses, with big bows held to their hair by metal clasps. The curly-haired girls were lucky. Their bows stayed in place. We were always accompanied by our mothers, also dressed for the occasion. Sedately, we played London Bridge, drop-the-handkerchief, and ring-around-the-rosy. I could have played all day. Mothers chatted, and those with straight-haired daughters darted out to adjust slipping hair ribbons. Ice cream and cake were served, and we all went home.

Once I received a written invitation to come to play with Elma, the daughter of the town electrician. Elma had a little electric stove in which we
baked, with the help of her mother, a little cake. The stove was plugged into a fascinating electric socket near the floor. All the houses I knew had one electric bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. After the cake was baked and the stove unplugged, Elma's father cautioned us that we must not touch the socket, which in those days did not have a built-in plug but had, instead, a tiny metal door. I could not keep my eyes off that door, which hid a round hole lined with metal the color of the sun. Finally, when no one was looking, I opened the door and stuck my finger in the hole.
Then
everyone looked, for I received a terrible electric shock, a shock that made me shriek. Everyone was nice about it, and Elma's mother comforted me, but I was ashamed. I did not mean to be naughty; I was only curious and did not think anyone would notice if I stuck my finger in just once.

My one companion was my cousin Winston; we were “practically twins” because we were born a month apart. But Winston, who took after my father's side of the family, was large, good-natured, and deliberate in thought and movement. I, who took after Mother's side of the family, was small, impetuous, and quick.

Sunday afternoons in winter, Winston sometimes came to our house to play in the sitting room, where Father always built a fire in the
iron stove on cold Sundays when the house was surrounded by bare dripping trees, sodden earth, and endless rain. Mother read a magazine, and Father, in work clothes because he had to milk the cows, lay dozing on the floor behind the stove. He had so little time for rest.

One especially dreary Sunday, Winston and I were trying to amuse ourselves by drawing pictures on my blackboard. We were whining because we couldn't think of anything to draw.

“Why don't you see which of you can draw the best bird?” Mother thoughtlessly asked without looking up from her magazine.

I seized the chalk and quickly drew, near the top of the blackboard, several spread-eagled
M
's, which to me looked like birds in flight.

Winston took the chalk and slowly and deliberately drew a fence below my birds. Then he carefully drew a bird perched on the fence. It was all there: head, wings, beak, eyes, and tail. I thought it was a silly bird. No bird had such big eyes.

To better admire his bird, Winston climbed up on a chair and sat with his legs sticking straight out in front of him. “My bird is better than your bird,” he informed me.

“It is not!”

“Now, children,” said Mother, perhaps regretting having pitted us against each other.

“Your birds are just scribbles in the sky,” he said. The superiority of that boy!

“They are not!” I told him. “Mine are better than yours.” No bird looked like Winston's bird, but birds in flight looked like mine, I thought. Anyone watching barn swallows wheeling and swooping would know.

“Mine's best.” Winston, stolid and insistent, was not going to give in.

“It is
not!
” Before Winston knew what was happening to him, I grabbed him by the ankles and yanked him off the chair. He hit his head on the seat and began to howl. I knew instantly I had done a very bad thing.

“Beverly!” Mother was shocked.

Father sprang from the floor, seized me by my arm, and, with my feet scarcely touching the floor, yanked me through the cold dining room and deserted kitchen into the bathroom, where he sat down on the edge of the tub, turned me over his knee, and spanked me.

Now it was my turn to howl. “I'll be good, Daddy,” I sobbed. “I'll be good!”

“By grab, you'll never do a thing like that again,” he said, and left me shivering, weeping, sniveling, alone in the cold—but still unconvinced that Winston's bird was better than mine. I didn't care what anybody said. Mine were better. I knew they were. I also knew I deserved that
spanking, so I had no reason to complain about it or feel sorry for myself.

Eventually I came out of the bathroom and was made to tell Winston I was sorry. My feelings were hurt because Mother had already brushed and braided her long black hair. I always looked forward to doing this for her on Sunday evening.

Winston and I shared another experience, one which I enjoyed. I am not so sure about Winston. Because there was so little to do for amusement in small towns, a woman made a business of traveling around the Valley with a set of child-sized wedding clothes, staging Tom Thumb weddings. Mothers of boys and girls the clothes would fit were notified and assembled with their children in “Grandma” Bedwell's yard. I was dressed as the bride, Winston the groom. The long white dress with a veil and train seemed so beautiful to me. Winston's black cutaway jacket, long black trousers, white waistcoat, shirt with a stiff collar, and black bow tie were uncomfortable.

The taking of snapshots was the point of the whole event, and there we are, side by side, in my Baby Book, with Winston scowling; Winston scowling harder, seated on an apple box with Beverly's hand on his shoulder; Beverly seated on the apple box with Winston looking sulky, his hand on her shoulder; Beverly standing alone,
hands clasped in front of her, eyes modestly lowered.

I longed to play, really play, with other children. A cousin, I somehow felt, did not count as “other children.” One spring morning, when I expressed my wish, Mother told me the stork was going to bring me a new brother or sister to play with. For a farm child, I was remarkably naïve. I accepted her story about the stork without question because many of the birth announcements that came to our mailbox showed a picture of a stork carrying in its beak a baby suspended in a diaper.

“How will you tell if it's a boy or a girl?” I asked.

“Boy babies cry louder,” Mother explained.

That afternoon, Winston came to play. Outdoors, under the lilac bushes, I told him my interesting new information about babies.

Winston had a sister, Donna—a nice enough kid but too little to count for much, I thought—so he knew more about these things than I. “That's not true,” he said.

I was indignant. “It is so true. Mamma told me.”

“It is not true,” said Winston, surprisingly superior. He took down his pants and said, “There. See, that's how you tell a boy.”

I was astonished and interested. Winston was right. Didn't Mother know about this? Somehow
I had a feeling she did but was hiding something from me.

I had no answer for Winston, so I merely said, “Oh.” Then I lifted my skirt and pulled down my bloomers. Companionably, we pee-peed under the lilac bushes, adjusted our clothes, and never mentioned the matter again. And I never asked my mother another question about babies.

Years later, when I told Mother this story, she said, “My land, I had no idea anything like
that
was going on under the lilac bushes.”