My Children Are More Precious Than Gold (2 page)

Dillard finally joined the others by
the fireplace. He sat down, turning his feet to the fire. Soon he
wrinkled his nose at the odor of wet wool as the heat seeped
through the socks to warm his feet.

“
Don't worry about me.
I'll find my way. I always do,” Jacob assured Dillard as he stood
and stretched. “Anyway I reckon the cows will bunch up on the back
side of the pasture hill so I won't have too far to go.”

Jacob put on his coat, hat, and boots
then reached for the brown, woolen scarf hanging on his coat nail.
“Besides, I'll be plenty warm in my new scarf that Bess knitted me
for Christmas.”

At the mention of her name, Bess
turned from the dish pan to look at her father. He smiled kindly
and winked at her. Bess winked back with a twinkle in her dark
eyes. Her round face showed appreciation at the fact he liked the
scarf she’d knitted for him. She watched him wrap the extra long
scarf twice around his neck, and over his head, then throw the ends
over his shoulders to trail down the back of his heavy, brown
coat.

The other children held their hands
over their mouths and snickered at Jacob's remark. They remembered
him opening Bess's gift Christmas morning. He pulled out the scarf
-- and pulled -- and pulled. That morning, Bess's proud
expectations had turned to consternation when the other children
giggled at the scarf's extra long length, but Jacob, blue eyes
twinkling, looked serious as he thanked Bess for his warm
gift.

Nannie gave Bess a choice of colors
for the wool, then dyed the wool. Soaking the fibers in dye made
from boiling black walnut hulls would make brown, hazelbark made
black and polk berries made purple.

Bess chose brown for the yarn color.
After Nannie spun the wool fibers into yarn, Bess knitted every
moment when Pap wasn’t near to see what she was making. She wasn't
sure how long to make the scarf so she added plenty of length to be
on the safe side.

Jacob knew the effort it took to knit
his gift. To silence the children before they hurt Bess feelings,
Jacob sternly reminded the children how hard Bess worked on his
scarf. Also, he added that he liked his Christmas gift the length
it was. The scarf was going to keep him warm on a day like this
one.

A blast of bitterly, cold wind rushed
through the open door and swept across the room to the fireplace,
causing red flames to shoot up and flicker wildly back and
forth.

Dragging the tree behind him onto the
porch as quickly as he could, Jacob yelled above the roar of the
wind before he shut the door, “I reckon to be back in about an
hour.”

Tom went to the wooden, steamer trunk,
covered with more scars then paint from years of use. It set in the
large room's far corner. The skinny young man lifted the heavy,
rounded lid. “I’m goen to get out the games. Who wants the
checkers, and who wants the dominoes?”

“
I'll take the checkers,
and Lue can play me first,” Sid suggested, sitting down Indian
fashion opposite Lue on the floor. He expected to win at the game,
because he usually beat everyone in the family except
Pap.

Tom spilled the dominoes onto the
floor, and Don plopped down across from him. Dillard settled down
near his brothers to watch. He hoped the winner of one of the games
would let him play.

When the dishes were done, Nannie
pulled her spinning wheel away from the wall next to the stairway
door. She pulled it and a gunny sack of carded wool over near the
fireplace where the lighting was better. Settling her ample frame
on the stool, she smoothed the wrinkles out of her apron and tucked
a stray wisp of gray streaked brown hair into the bun on the top of
her head. Then she began to pedal slowly while she fed a few
fluffy, white, wool fibers through her fingers to the whirling
machine.

Spinning relaxed her. Maybe because it
was hypnotic to watch the wheel turning while thoughts rambled
around in her head. Or, maybe since she was always tried sitting
down to spin was a good excuse to get off her feet. Which ever it
was, Nannie didn’t have time to sit and do nothing, but she could
sit down to spin without feeling guilty.

Clink, clink came from near the
fireplace where Cass, Bess, and Alma sat. Cass patiently showed her
younger sisters how to knit the curves to make the heel in the
socks. Once the girls caught on, their fast, flying knitting
needles changed the wool yarn Nannie spun into various sizes of
socks. Later on, they would knit gloves and scarves for the
family.

The girls started learning to knit at
nine years old. First, they knitted their own socks, gloves and
scarves. When they had that mastered they knit for other members of
the family. The younger girls, Lillie, Lydia and Veder, came
scurrying down the ladder from the cold loft bedrooms with their
new rag dolls and plopped down in a circle near the
fire.

For a while, the spinning wheel’s
whir, the knitting needles’ clank, the checkers’ thunk as the boys
jumped them across the board and the snowstorm raging outside were
the only noises in the cabin.

Soon Bess grew tired of listening to
the storm. It reminded her Pap was out there somewhere in the cold.
She didn't want to worry about him. “Mama, tell us what it was like
in the winter when you were a little girl. Did yer Pap have to go
out on days like this and check his cattle?”

“
Papa has always been a
hard worker like yer Pap, but we had workers called slaves that did
most of the work, cause my father owned a lot of land back then.
They called Papa's farm a plantation. We lived in a big two story
white house with lots of rooms. The large veranda on the front of
the house had six columns across it.

When my brothers, sisters and me were
small younguns, we had a nanny that helped our mother look after
our needs.”

“
Were ya rich, Mama?”
asked Bess.

“
If we were, I didn’t
realize it at the time, but I suppose we had as much as most folks
before the war.” A far away look passed over Nannie’s face. She
sighed a long drawn out sigh and looked down at the expectant
faces. “After the war between the states, everyone around here had
a much different life. Papa lost everything but that small piece of
land he and Mama live on now. It laying next to Little River was a
blessing. Papa built the grist mill and has made a good living ever
since. He had to build a new house, because the Yankees burnt our
wonderful mansion. I shouldn't complain now. My folks had it better
than most of the people living here.”

“
It's been a while since
Pap left. Shouldn't he be back by now?” Sid asked his mother as he
jumped Lue’s last checker. He listened to the moaning wind whip
around the house. Visibility had to be poor so he worried about his
father being out in the storm alone.

“
Yep,” agreed Lue. “I
think his hour must be up, Mama.”

“
Supposen we should go see
what's keepen him?” Don was uncomfortable on the hard floor.
Besides, he wanted any excuse he could think of to stop the domino
game, because he was losing.

“
Just wait a bit. Ya have
to go out in this awful storm soon enough to do chores. I hate to
see you out there too soon. Maybe yer pap will be back by chore
time.” Nannie spoke calmly though her forehead wrinkled with worry
creases.

More time passed. The storm moved on,
and still Jacob wasn’t back.

“
Mama, we better go hunt
fer Pap. He should have been back afore now,” Sid insisted as he
looked out the window. “The storm's let up now, and still no sign
of him comen down the pasture hill with the milk cow.”

“
Spect yer right. Don and
Lue, ya all go hunt fer Pap. Sid, ya and Tom go start the chores.
They need to be done. It'll be dark soon,” suggested
Nannie.

“
Sure, Mama,” the boys
cried in unison as they rushed for the row of coats.

When Lue reached for his coat, his
hand caught on something on Jacob's empty nail. “What's this
here?”

“
Looks like yarn,” said
Don.

“
Sure enough does. Ain't
this the color of Pap's scarf?” Lue ran his fingers along the yarn
to where it was caught under the door. “Pap must have caught his
scarf on the nail, and it's comen undone.” Lue opened the door, and
lifted up on the brown yarn to pop it from under the snow drift on
the porch. He came back in and untwisted the end hooked on Jacob's
coat nail. The string was so long, Lue rolled the yarn into a ball.
“Don, let's follow this here string. Maybe it will lead us to
Pap.”

“
That could be a hopeless
thing to do. As long as Pap's scarf is, he could have gone the
whole length of the Blue Ridge Mountains afore that scarf would
come undone enough he’d notice it was missen from his neck and
head.” Don giggled at the thought as he stepped out on the porch
behind Lue.

Wood smoke hung heavily in the air,
caught in a down draft created by the north wind coming over the
roof. Lue and Don walked through the smoky, snow drifted yard, down
the lane, and up the pasture hill.

Once in a while the overcast sky spit
a few lacy flakes at them as a last reminder of the storm. They
trod toward the blue gray horizon. The only sound breaking the
silence was the rhythmic crunch underfoot as the boys struggled
through the deep, crusted snow.

Rolling the ball of icy yarn while he
walked, Lue gently pulled to lift it from under the snow so he
wouldn’t break it. This yarn was the only trace of Jacob, because
the blowing snow had long ago filled his tracks.

At the base of the hill's backside,
the boys found the Christmas tree laying where Jacob dropped it. A
flock of sparrows fluttered off the branches and flew away,
disturbed from their popcorn feast by the boys noisy
approach.

Lue cupped his hands to his mouth and
yelled, “Pap, Pap!”

The echo, P-A-A-P, P-A-A-P, bounced
back at them from the distant ridge over the wind’s eerie moan. The
wind whistled through the frosted, white pines and the leafless
trees blanketed in snow.

“
Look! There's the cows
over yonder by the creek.” Lue pointed in the livestock's direction
and felt the cold air sting the tip of his chilled, blue finger,
sticking out of the hole in his wool glove. “Maybe Pap's over
there.”

“
Maybe he did go to see if
the creek's froze over. He'd have to break the ice so the cattle
could drink ifen it was,” Don puffed, sending small clouds of steam
floating away in front of his face.

At the top of the knoll, the boys
spotted at the same time a brown hump moving in the snow some
distance from them.

“
Pap!” Lue and Don yelled
together as they staggered along through the deep snow.

Lue stopped rolling the yarn and stuck
the ball in his coat pocket. The rest of the yarn trailed behind
him, leaving a small groove in the snow as it popped to the
surface.

The boys heard a groan escaped Jacob's
blue lips when they reached his snow covered form. “Pap, what
happened?” Lue panted, dropping to his knees beside his father.
“What's wrong with ya?”

Jacob’s face contorted with pain as he
struggled to speak. “I -- I tripped on an icy rock hidden in the
snow. I -- I think I broke my leg.”

“
Hold on. We'll get ya
home,” Lue assured him. “Don, break off some branches on that old,
snaggled tree over yonder to make a splint. I'll roll up the rest
of this yarn.”

“
Why bother with that old
yarn now?” Don puzzled. “We done found Pap with it.”

“
We need it to hold a
splint on his broken leg. Now hurry up afore Pap freezes to death.”
Lou heard his father's teeth chattering behind his trembling, blue
lips. He knew they had to work fast.

Don laid the sticks down around
Jacob's leg, and gently lifted it. Jacob moaned softly as the
movement caused his pain to increase. As fast as he could, Lue ran
the yarn ball around and up and down the splint to hold the sticks
tightly to the leg until the ball was gone.

“
Pap, we’re ready to start
toten ya home now. Don, hep me lift him.” Lue lifted under Jacob’s
arms. Don picked up his father's legs. Jacob felt the pain sear
through him. He cried out and fainted. “Pap's better off not feelen
this,” Lue comment, struggling to keep his balance in the snow.
“He's heavy to tote in this deep snow so we’re not gonen to be able
to move fast.”

Soon exhausted, the boys gently laid
the unconscious man down in the snow and sat down beside him to
rest.

“
Kin we make it home with
Pap afore dark?” panted Don.

“
Sure we kin. Just rest a
minute.” Lue had to be optimistic for Don’s sake even though he
knew it would too soon be dark.

“
I don't know. I'm
pooped,” Don complained.

“
I sure do wish we had a
cart to carry Pap,” Lue wished, trying to get his brother on
another subject besides himself.

Moo -- oo! Just then the jersey cow,
Daisy, greeted them as she climbed the hill on her way to the barn
for the nightly milking. A creature of habit, instinct told her
where the cow path was even when it lay buried deep beneath the
snow.

“
Don!” Lue grabbed his
brother's arm. “There's our cart comen now.”