Page 45 - Always Virginia

Always Virginia 33

was seven years old, the way I learned pinochle from Daddy having
his cronies in to play pinochle, and we’d be upstairs in our room,
listening, and when they’d rap their knuckles down on the table
while playing out a card, I always thought that’s why they called
it “P. Knuckle.”
We also had good friends across the street by the name of
Ruyles. Orland was my brother John’s age. Eustacia was my age.
Their mother and father always called them “brother” and “sister.”
So Orland and Eustacia called each other “brother” and “sister.”
Like my Daddy, Mr. Ruyle was a Star Route mail carrier who had
to move to Carrollton, Illinois, but they would come over lots of
weekends to visit us. All of seven miles. One night when they were
there my whole mouth and face was so swollen so Daddy took me to
old Doc Woltman whose office looked like Doc’s in Gunsmoke, and
he pounded on my teeth with a big nail and said, “It’s her teeth.”
Next day Mom took me to the dentist and it was a boil inside my
upper lip. The twins, Edna and Edwina Kamp, came over to see
me next day and brought me a cupcake, but I wouldn’t let them
see me, because I thought I looked like a monkey.
A Protestant church was right across the street from us, and we
used to cut across there to go to the store and one day a hen with
little chicks chased me and I’ve been scared of chickens ever since,
but not Protestants. They called us “cat lickers” and we called them
“pot lickers.” People don’t do that now.
Another thing we did in May, on May Day, May 1, was to
make May baskets and bring them to the porches of people we
liked. People who we disliked would get a string tied to their May
basket, and then when they opened the door to pick it up, one of
the older boys would pull the string. They used to do this a lot to
a Mrs. Skeel, another doctor’s wife. Dr. Skeel was a good doctor,
but was never sober, so no one went to him much.
We went fishing a lot, so we made our own poles. One day John
and Jimmie were fishing and the town bully, Milo Pontero, began
throwing rocks in the calm water. He wouldn’t stop so Jimmie,