A Country Girl

The summer of 1956 I was 4 years old. My grandparents, Mama and Daddy Bond, had moved from Orange to a little east Texas town called Buna. Getting there was like driving back in time to another era that existed long before I was born. Entering town we’d drive past the first stoplight to the house with blue spots and turn left. Proceeding about a mile or so more on the dusty road to the two little pink houses, we’d again make a left turn. Then, we’d drive just a piece up the dirt road wedged between tall grass and weeds, past the cow pastures to my grandparent’s house. Tucked way back into the piney woods, their house was the first on the curve of the cul-de-sac where four other occupants lived.

Visits to my grandparents’ small farmhouse in the country are quite memorable. My grandfather, my uncle and dad had to convert the back porch into a bathroom because the house came without indoor plumbing. Before the bathroom was finished, my grandma would place a round metal washtub on the floor of the would-be bathroom. Then, she’d fill it up with water partly from the garden hose coming through the window, and partly from the pot of water warmed on the stovetop. Then, I’d step in and take my bath. Before the plumbing was installed, we’d have to go outside to the outhouse for the toilet. At night my Mama Bond would put a chamber pot under my bed just in case nature called.

As I close my eyes and think back on those hot summer barefoot days and the warmth of the sand road in front of their house, a smile crosses my face. I can still recall the pleasant sensation of the soft smooth sand and how my toes sank into the tiny tan granules. I would gather a coffee can full of the sugar-like sand from the road and take it to the backyard to an old wooden table under a tree. There I’d use perfect amounts of sand and water to mix up a delectable mud pie baked out in the summer sun. Mama Bond kept a collection of old cracked, chipped dishes, bent up pots and cast off jars along with mismatched utensils in the little tool shed just for granddaughters to make mud pies. I was delighted to work and play in my makeshift kitchen in the cool shade of that tree all afternoon.

Everything about life in the country was slower. We’d wake up most mornings with nowhere in particular to go. Mama Bond would wash clothes and I'd help hang them on the line in the backyard to dry. In the autumn we’d rake and burn dry leaves in the dirt clearing on the circle of the cul–de-sac. In the spring, I watched day lilies intently hoping to see them close up their petals by day’s end, but never did. Some days we’d drive into town with Daddy Bond so we could go grocery shopping while he bought Lucky Strikes and a newspaper. Then, we’d go back home and sit in the back yard hulling purple peas, seeing after the chickens or playing with their dog Chipper. My favorite times were spent sitting by the pond fishing with a cane pole. My grandmother and I would talk and tell stories. Daddy Bond would shoosh us saying we were frightening the fish away.

As a little girl, I loved my visits to Buna because there was always something to do. I got to feed chickens and pigs, gather eggs, fish in a pond, swing on a rope swing and help my grandmother churn butter with the fresh milk from the neighbor's cow. She made me stand outside the cow stall and watch from a window as she milked the cow. Her cat Peggy always came with us to get a little milk Mama Bond would aim her way. Then, late afternoons we’d sit out on the front porch after supper to watch the sunset, listen to birds sing or just talk.

The day the photograph with this post was made, my mother picked me up early from my vacation with my grandparents. Mom had forgotten about an appointment we had with Olan Mills photography. She didn’t get to “fix me up” the way she wanted to. Mom braided my hair in a hurry and threw the yellow cotton dress on me before packing me back in the car to drive home. I believe I remember her saying something like I looked like I’d just come in from playing outside. She was right. I’d just come back from playing in the country like a little country girl.