Chapter 5: Mary Potter

Mary Jean Potter had a bad reputation. "She's a wild 'un, she surely is," opined Mrs. Edger, mother of Wilmer Edger and his older teen age brother Delmar Dean. "Oh I do so worry that she will get my Delmar Dean into trouble. Good Lord. Can you imaging having a young hussy like that for a daughter in law? I shudder to even think it.

"But what else can you expect of a young girl running wild and doing God knows what at all hours of the day and night? Imagine that trollop of a mother of hers and how she just up and disappeared one day, never to be heard from again.""

"I'm not so worried about her gettin' my Billy Jack in trouble as I am my little Billy gettin' her in trouble. Then you have to worry about there bein' an unplanned weddin' that you just wouldn't care to attend. You get my drift," her friend added. "Besides, with that drunken sot of a father, what else could a body expect? Like begets like, as they say."

Ma and I were sitting in a booth inside the Bid A Wee Café. It was a nice little place where we sometimes ate dinner when we were in town on a Saturday. We were waiting for Pa. It was shortly before noon and we had what little shopping we considered absolutely necessary over with and paid for.

We were one of the few "cash families" some of the businesses had so we were always welcome. There were so many of the farmers who lived, for the most part, hand to mouth because of the drought that had devastated much of the state. More and more families just walked away from their farms, abandoning all their hopes and dreams. They became a part of the steady stream of "Okies" headed for California.

A photographer for Life Magazine took the saddest picture I ever saw. It was titled, "Death Of A Dream." The picture was of our neighbors' house a year after the bank foreclosed. The empty farmhouse, front door ajar and the broken out two front windows looked to my young imagination so much like sad eyes and gaping open mouth on a corpse. Tumbleweeds and drifting sand completed the picture.

Mister Barger was crying when they drove off, broke and broken, headed to California. The two children, neither yet ten years old, looked back at me from the rear window of their old Chevrolet sedan, their eyes showed their bewilderment as all they had ever known was left behind. Mrs. Barger sat looking out the side window in numbed silence. Truly their dream died that day as they drove away for the last time.

We were fortunate in that we had semi-reliable water. The northern boundary of our farm ended not too far from the North Canadian River. Pa said that not too many hundred years before all of that land was probably swamp. Now it was rich fertile farmland with a six foot deep covering of black topsoil. This was unheard of in most of Oklahoma.

Pa said we were blessed and that we should never forget who gave us those blessings. I liked my Pa's way of putting it. Our other bit of fortune happened because Pa closed his bank account. He brought the money home and hid it in a few secret places known only to him and to Ma and me.

He did this just before so many banks crashed, including the one in Woodman. Pa read the newspapers and the Farm Journal. He felt our money would be safer at home. He was a real smart man in his own quiet way...

The two old gossips were still going on about Mary Potter when Pa came in. He sat down next to Ma in the booth and gave her a one armed hug. Ma smiled back at him and they both picked up their menus and read them just like they did every time we came in.

They always read every item on the menus and commented and asked each other if any of that sounds good, or how about this. The menu never changed and neither did their words. It was some sort of ritual with them. I never could understand what they got out of discussing food they weren't going to order.

I knew what I wanted when we first came in and sat down. I ordered a fancy hamburger with pickle, lettuce and tomato, what in those days was called "California style." Next I asked for a side of French fries covered with brown country gravy. I put mustard on that hamburger, dabbed a little on the French fries and gravy, applied a healthy amount of salt and plenty of pepper to everything and dug right in.

Pa always ordered a chicken fried steak covered with cream gravy and mashed potatoes covered with brown gravy. Even Ma's order never changed. It was always the meat loaf plate. She would take a small bite and say, "Mine is better." Then she began to eat very slowly and ladylike. Ma came from fine, well-educated people and it showed.

Her father taught high school mathematics and history. He also taught English after it came out that he spoke better English than the regular English teacher, who then taught history and shop. Because of her background, Ma always spoke a little better than the people around her. She never put on airs and most people accepted her as the real fine lady she obviously was.

Pa descended from a long line of farmers who were called serfs where his people came from. There was nothing serf-like about my Pa, though. He stood tall and demanded respect. He also gave respect where it was due. All in all, I look on them as being as perfect as any two parents could ever be. I guess we mostly all look on our own parents much the same.

Just as we started eating, a commotion started up in the booth next to ours. Mary Jean Potter had come in and stood near enough to the booth to hear the gossip about her. She was there long enough to get quite an earful. She lit into them in a big way.

"I would hope you two old hens would have the common decency to talk about me in front of my face and not behind my back. My morals are none of y'alls business. Whether I even have any is none of y'alls business. But for your information, I have never welcomed a boy's advances and I never will. Y'all are just jealous because I am pretty and dress clean instead of going around like some people I could mention who smell like they never take a bath

"Now y'all both have husbands that have come sniffin' around me and I wouldn't have nothing to do with them because I have values. And what's more, Missus Edger, You tell that husband of yours to keep his hands to himself because the next time he touches me I am going to slap him up side the head so hard his ears will ring for a week.

"One last thing, your daughter Dorothy was mighty big lookin' when she got married last spring. We were all so glad that her premature baby, little Edgar was so healthy. How much did he weigh? Something over eight pounds at birth, wasn't it? My, you are so lucky to have a premature grandchild born that well developed and big." She turned on her heel and stomped out, nose high in the air.

They started in again as soon as she was out of the café. "Why, how dare she?" Old lady Snyder started in.

Pa turned around and said to them, "Ladies, I would sure appreciate it if you would just please shut up. I am tired of listening to all that gossip. Doesn't it say somewhere in the bible that gossip is the Devils own invention? I do know what The Good Book says about a lying tongue. So, please leave my ears in peace." He turned around and began to eat again. Ma reached over and patted him on the arm. I just grinned. Pa very seldom reprimanded anyone for anything, but when he did, they felt reprimanded. The two gossips got up and quietly left.

It was getting along toward harvest time and Ma needed to hire a town girl to help her cook for the crew. We had all of six hundred acres in wheat that year and Pa needed a crew of six or seven men to get it in.

Our team of Belgian Draft horses could pull the threshing machine. Pa usually drove that team himself. They were a matched pair that stood almost twenty hands high with broad backs and great powerful legs. They could pull that heavy old thresher every day, all day long throughout the whole harvest and never feel the strain. Pa's Percherons were his pride and joy as horses go, but those big Belgians were special, in a class all by themselves.

Pa gave fifty dollars for the pair when a traveling circus went broke just outside of Woodman. They were worth much more than fifty dollars and Pa knew it. The two colts were barely weaned when he bought them.

The circus owner pled for more money, but Pa held firm. "I only got fifty dollars I can spare without hurting my family. So that is what I offer. If you think you can find a buyer who will give you more, I'll board them at my place for you free of charge while you look for one. I'll have no man say I stole from him or took unfair advantage. But times is tough all over, especially here in Oklahoma."

The man sadly agreed and accepted the fifty dollars. That gave him barely enough to get the rest of his outfit to a big city where he hoped to sell things off. Those Belgians stayed behind and kept growing. To a ten year old they looked the size of elephants.

So we had those great beasts of burden. Where most farms had tractors, Pa had horses and worked the land a little slower, but a lot cheaper. Also, because of Ma's cooking, whenever we had a hired crew for harvest, the men always wanted to come back the next year. They worked harder for us than for other people. They were never cursed at or pushed too hard.

No liquor was ever allowed on our property and smoking and chewing were frowned upon. So after harvest was over most of the men got paid and headed on down the road. Two of the crew had been coming back every year since the year I was born.

We ate and Pa left the dime tip as always. Henrietta, our waitress that day, always gave us good service so Pa always let her know we appreciated it. Today you'd be yelled at if you left a ten-cent tip.

As we left the café, Ma spied Mary Jean ahead of us. I could see she had been crying. Ma called, "Mary, Mary Jean, wait up." She hurried ahead and asked Mary Jean if she wanted a job helping to cook during the wheat harvest.

"I don't know if you all want to hire me. You heard what them two old biddies was saying about me." Tears started to roll down her cheeks.

"Dear," Ma told her, "I do not believe gossip. I believe my eyes and my eyes tell me that a very pretty, very nice young lady might need a job. If she is a hard worker and acts like a lady, then I shall be more than satisfied. What do you say, dear?" She looked up at Pa.

"One question, first," Pa looked down at the girl. "Maybe we ought to ask you, can you cook?" He said it so serious it even took ma a bit to catch on he was joking. Ma smiled her special smile just for him and shook her head as if to say, "What can you expect from a man?"

"Oh Misses Hansen, ma'am, when can I start?" Her eyes were big and round and she had a broad smile on her face.

"Well, you might come out tomorrow. Since tomorrow is Sunday we will attend church. Unless there is some delay, we'll be back by about two or so." Ma patted her on the shoulder.

"Yes, Ma'am, I'll try my best to be there by two. If I get up early, I kin walk it in about six hours, if I hump it." Actually it would have taken her closer to eight hours to walk the distance to our farm, unless someone gave her a ride.

"Oh dear. We can't have you walking all that way. Perhaps we could pick you up after church. Will that give you time to pack?"

"Oh, Ma'am, I ain't got but one other dress to my name so I kin pack in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

Pa interrupted, "Well, if it is okay with your family, we could take you out right now. Would that be a problem for you?"

"Oh, no sir. I can run and get my spare dress right now."

"Well, won't your folks want to talk to us? After all, we are strangers to them." Ma was always one for doing things proper.

The girl hesitated. She seemed a little uneasy as she said, "My Pa is ill. They is only him an' me. Ma took off." She looked down at the sidewalk.

Pa interrupted, "Oh, what's wrong with him? Is there anything we could do to help?" Pa was always the first to offer help to people if they needed it.

"Oh," she hesitated, "Oh ... my pa is a drunk an' this early he's still passed out cold from last night." She put the palms of her hands to her face and began crying again as she started to walk away.

Ma quickly threw her arms around the girl and hugged her close. "Hush now. It's going to be all right. We'll just drive by and you can hurry in and get that dress. We'll wait outside for you, so you can hurry in and out." Mary Jean nodded yes and walked with us to our old Ford truck.