Root Jumper (9 page)

Lou Ella is known as the Rock Lady. She sells her rocks all over the United States and overseas. I think she is a remarkable lady.

Friends and Unusual Pets

The Crows

A couple of friends and I went to visit one of our neighbors, Willa Mae Roberts, who is ninety-three years old. The first time I met Willa Mae she and her cousin were visiting my grandmother. She and her cousin were sitting in an outside swing on the front porch. When I saw her, I thought she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. I was probably about eight years old. I had never seen much make-up, and she was wearing beautiful lipstick. She also had such lovely black hair. She was so friendly and nice to us kids. I think we just mostly sat and stared at her and her cousin.

People live in a community for years, but we never think about all the good things they do. Willa Mae was always a kind, giving person. She was the only person living in her community who had a car and so she got the job of taxi driver for all the people who needed to go to the doctor. If people had business to do at Milton or Huntington, they just went to see Willa Mae, and she dropped whatever she was doing and took them.

Willa Mae had an old flat- bed truck (she could drive anything). She would pick-up all the kids in the area and take them to ball games or to see the Christmas lights. Today this would not seem like much, but to kids back then it was a treat. Willa Mae and her husband Orval owned a small grocery store on Barker Ridge. Willa Mae always fixed a lunch for the kids going to school. It was a nice big slice of bologna placed between two slices of white bread. Oh, how good a bologna sandwich tasted to them! She charged only five cents for the sandwich. There was always a gang of kids with their faces pressed up to the candy case. Everyone got a treat. If you had a penny, you could get several pieces of candy. This reminds me of a story a fellow told me about my husband Doyle. He said Doyle stopped at the store when they were kids and got candy. Doyle’s Dad had a job so he was more fortunate about money. He told me that Doyle always had a sack full of candy, but he always shared with everyone until it was gone. My husband was always a kind man. Willa Mae’s store was a meeting place for everyone—they just seemed to gather in the store to visit. I don’t know how Willa Mae ever got her work done.

While we were visiting with Willa Mae and talking about everything, we spotted a blue bird nest in the tree just outside the window. We were watching the bird, Leoris, Willa Mae’s daughter, began talking about her father Orval’s pet crows. Orval is now deceased. Leoris said her dad had raised those crows and that they were very smart. He had first made them a bed in the barn in some boxes. He would always go in the morning to let them out. He was afraid that something might happen to them. They followed him wherever he went around the barn and in the fields. She said her dad would talk to them, and they would make their noises back to him.

Leoris said that after her dad had a heart attack, he couldn’t do much for a while. He would tell the crows to go to the barn when it got dark, and they would obey him. Sometimes he would tell them to get in the tree in the front yard, and they would obey him. She said they would sit around his chair as he talked to them, and they would make their noises back to him.

We had a lovely visit together that day with Willa Mae and her daughter Leoris. Willa Mae is truly a kind, loving person who always has a friendly word for anyone she meets.

The Rooster Mutt

Another friend and sweet lady was Aline Meadows. She lived on Barker Ridge. I would see her out occasionally at the fair and at other different places. She would say that she had to get home to take care of Mutt. I asked her who Mutt was. She said, “Oh, that’s my chicken.” I asked her to tell me about her chicken. I told her I would like to come and see her chicken. She told me to come anytime. Even her neighbors talked about Aline’s chicken. I really planned to go see her, but I didn’t make it. She passed away, but I never forgot about her pet chicken.

Aline’s chicken Mutt was a rooster. There had been two or three other chickens to start with, but something caught them or they got killed by a car. There was just the rooster left. Mutt was quite a character. He and Aline became inseparable. She was a widow, and you could see Mutt sitting with Aline anytime she was sitting on the porch.

Mutt roosted on the air conditioner every night. When he got up and had finished his crowing, he and Aline had breakfast. She fixed him toast, butter, and jelly. She spoiled this rooster like you wouldn’t believe. She also got fine cracked corn for him to eat, and every summer she grew a tomato plant that produced small tomatoes. Aline would split these small tomatoes for him to eat. When it was hot, she would crush ice cubes for him to have cold water. Mutt lived many years. When he got too old to fly up to roost on the air conditioner, Aline would lift him up and put him on the top.

The neighbors said that any time you went to visit Aline, Mutt didn’t want you coming into the yard. Aline had to tell him it was alright or he would fight the visitor. I believe Mutt is with his friend Aline today.

The Donkey Sadie

Another interesting pet that I remember belonged to my friend Matt Hanna. This pet’s name was Sadie, and she was a donkey. My father-in-law, Chet Rutherford, originally owned this donkey. I don’t remember how he got her or where she had come from. There isn’t anyone to ask. This happens when you become the oldest person around.

The donkey had become a pest, and Chet wanted to get rid of her. He said if he could find someone who would give her a good home, he would get rid of her. Matt Hanna, a neighbor who lived on Barker Ridge, came by. Knowing Chet, I’m sure he told Matt the donkey was a saint! Anyway, Matt wound up with the donkey which he later named Sadie after a friend of his wife. Sadie lived in the Ozarks of Missouri and was probably stubborn just like a donkey is supposed to be.

In earlier years, Matt had been the principal of our school here on the ridge, and he had a farm on Barker Ridge. Who knows what he was thinking when he adopted Sadie. Matt’s daughter Elizabeth said that she was five years old when Sadie moved in I think Sadie sort of pushed Elizabeth aside and got most of the attention.

Sadie was a cross between a goat, a donkey, and a human. She didn’t stay fenced in—she just wandered around doing as she pleased. Occasionally she did wander onto the hard road. One of the neighbors said that she had her head stuck in their open window.

Sadie enjoyed a strange diet. She ate coal, plastic, paper, wood, or anything she could get ahold of. Sadie loved chewing tobacco, and she chewed all the tobacco she could find or was given. She tore clothes from the clothes line. Sometimes she was selective and just pulled out the clothes pins.

Sadie was a great watch dog. No one came around that she didn’t let the family know with a great bray. It took Sadie a long time to shed her coat of shaggy hair. In the fall she might still have this shaggy coat. Elizabeth said her mother Opal would take two slices of bread and put coarse salt in between, making Sadie a coarse salt sandwich. She said that this would help her shed her coat.

One day Sadie really got in trouble. She drank some diesel fuel from a container that contained fuel for a bull dozer. Her people smelled this on her breath, and really thought she might die. But she didn’t!

Elizabeth said that when she started dating her husband Danny, he had a nice, shiny car. Sadie didn’t like the car and would back up against it and try to kick it. Danny got her to lay off by giving her a cigarette.

There was a cemetery out the road from where Matt lived called the Webb Cemetery. This was in the 1960s and very seldom did a car go by to the cemetery. On this particular day there was a funeral, and several cars went by the house. Sadie didn’t know what to think. Elizabeth said that Sadie just went wild. She went around and around the house braying at the cars. What a character she was!

Elizabeth said that she, her brother John, and some nephews tried to ride Sadie. There were two pine trees a short distance apart. When they tried to ride Sadie, she would head for those trees, knocking off the rider in the small space between the trees.

As Sadie aged, she decided to sleep on the ground outside the back door under a pear tree. Matt’s wife Opal always got up very early. She often stepped outside the back door to look at the pre-dawn sky. One morning as she stepped out the back door, she fell over Sadie who was sleeping there. She wasn’t hurt but was quite startled. This incident gave Matt “fodder” for one of his speeches. He was a great speaker and often spoke to different groups including churches. He was always on call somewhere. At this particular time he was speaking at a restaurant to a men’s group from a Pea Ridge church. To capture his audience’s attention, he used the story of Opal’s falling over Sadie. Pretending to be a seller of newspapers he said, “Extra, extra, read all about it. Woman falls over her ass!”

Sadie lived to be twenty-nine years old. Chet, Matt, and Sadie are all gone now. They say authors are weird, but I can just see Sadie on her rear end sitting between Chet and Matt.

The Dog Rover

Dale Rollyson, who lived across the road from me and who was a great friend and neighbor, used to tell me about this dog he had when he was a kid. The dog’s name was Rover. The family had just moved from Huntington, West Virginia, to Big Seven Mile at Lesage, West Virginia. This community was about twelve miles from Huntington.

Dale got Rover in the 1930s when a neighbor gave him a puppy. He dog became known as Dale’s dog because he was always with Dale. As the puppy grew, he became very protective of the family. Rover was a mixture of Airedale and German Shepard. He grew to weigh about forty or forty-five pounds. Rover became an expert at sniffing out copperhead snakes. He would grab a snake and shake it until it died. Copperheads were so sneaky. Dale and his friends that he played with always felt safe as long as Rover was with them. When Rover started barking, they always knew something wasn’t right. One day as all boys do, they went swimming in Seven Mile Creek. They had dammed up the creek to make themselves a swimming hole. They were having a great time in the water when Rover started barking. When they first heard him barking, they ignored him. As he kept on barking, they decided to get out of the water to see what Rover was barking about. Just as they got out of the water and were on the creek bank, a six or eight foot wall of water came down the creek. There had been a cloud burst of rain at the head of the creek, and if they had stayed in the water, they would have drowned. Once again Rover had saved them.

Rover watched out for the chicken house so that nothing got in. He also watched out for the barn and the house. Dale said that Rover just guarded everything and did whatever needed to be done. You could tell Rover to go get the cattle, and he would go and do.

Back during this period, farmers always had to clear what they called “new ground.” Dale said that his dad was clearing land above a rock house on Big Seven Mile behind his grandfather’s farm. Rock houses are rocks formed into the hillside that have space in them like a house. His dad had set a small fire to burn the underbrush behind him. He ran into a nest of copperheads. His dad didn’t know what to do. He had fire behind him and snakes and a huge rock cliff in front of him. He called for Rover. Rover made short work of the snakes—five copperheads in all. Once again Rover had saved a life.