As Lambs to His Fold, Page 4

CHAPTER THREE

  Oh, How Lovely Was The Morning....

  Leaving my room the next morning, I said, “Howdy,” to the violet. I asked if it had slept well. I explained that I was going to take care of it the best I knew how, but that I would sometimes have to pinch off the dead flowers. I hoped that pinching wouldn’t hurt it too much, but it had to understand pinching was for its own good. I stood looking down at the violet, my hands braced on the windowsill, my mind scampering off in imagination.

  I pictured Eve walking through the Garden of Eden....She was a little girl, like me, and she just happened to see the first flower ever — a beautiful, African violet....

  And she said, “Oh! You beautiful African violet! I’ll take care of you, and feed you, and love you forever!” But then Eve ate something she wasn’t supposed to, and so she was Banished. And Adam was Banished, too. But, before she was Banished, Eve asked if she could take something with her....

  And God said, “Well, all right, but hurry up! I have a lot of things to do!”

  So Eve dug up the violet. But then she didn’t have anything to carry it in. Yes, she did, too. She had an apron made of fig leaves. So she carried the African violet in the apron made of fig leaves....And she and Adam walked a long, long ways. And then Adam built a house out of logs, and sticks, and things. And Eve took some nice dirt and planted the violet. And the violet nodded its little, purple heads as though saying, “Thank you.”

  Feeling that I had done my part to cheer up Miss Biggs’s violet, I went down to breakfast.

  As I sat down, Mamma said, “Beth, before you go out to play, I want you to tidy your room. That means throwing out everything you have no more use for — old test papers, valentines, your rock collection.”

  “But, Mamma,” I started to protest.

  “That’s enough,” said Mamma. “Finish your breakfast and then get busy.”

  Daddy, with a small twinkle in his eye and a small crinkle to his lips, said, “Are you going to start on me next, dear?”

  I knew that Daddy meant the condition of his study, which was no great shakes for neatness. Daddy, in his spare time, was writing a history of Welcome Valley. He had papers everywhere. Mamma said, “Oh, Paul! You know it’s not the same thing!”

  She didn’t seem to understand that he was joking with her. I couldn’t understand her not having a sense of humor. Daddy and I overflowed with jokes and chuckles. The things that sent us into laughter merely puzzled Mamma.

  Mamma was a small woman with neat, dark hair. Her name was Marie. She was quick and efficient in everything she did; but she habitually wore a slightly puzzled expression, as though she couldn’t figure out what she was missing.

  As an example of Mamma’s reaction to jokes, we had a street in Welcome called Balm Of Gilead Avenue. All the streets in our town were named for trees — in memory, I guess, of the struggle to get trees to grow in this desert land. There were trees of every kind in Welcome now, in front yards, back yards, and arching over the streets.

  Daddy, with a chuckle, liked to call that particular street “Bamagillyerd Avenue.”

  This upset Mamma. She would say, very distinctly, “Balm Of Gilead. It’s a tree mentioned in the Bible.”

  “I know, dear; it’s a kind of poplar. But, our pioneers called it ‘Bamagillyerd’.”

  “Go down and see for yourself! It says right on the sign: Balm Of Gilead Avenue!”

  “But, don’t you think, dear, that we should honor a fine, old custom and call it Bamagillyerd?”

  Mamma would say, “Hmph!” and march out of the room.

  I once asked Daddy, “Why do you tease Mamma like that, when you know it makes her mad?”

  He replied, “You misunderstand, Beth. I love your mother and would never want to hurt her. The teasing is a game we play. She knows that making jokes is a part of my nature. Oh, she may not understand the joke; but when she tosses her head, and says, ‘Hmph!’ and marches out of the room, it’s her way of getting back at me.”

  Now I asked Mamma, “Can I keep my things if they’re piled up real nice on my closet shelf?”

  Irene, who was depressingly neat, said in disbelief, “Hah!”

  I explained privately to Heavenly Father that I was only “replooving” Irene in righteousness, like I’d been taught in church; and then I stuck out my tongue at her.

  Mamma said, “Bethany!”

  I opened my mouth to ask why she was scolding me when it was Irene who had said, “Hah!” But, then I caught a look from Daddy. So I got busy eating my scrambled eggs and toast. Then I scooted upstairs to obey Mamma.

  My room was a mess of papers, valentines, and rocks. I had saved my best test papers and had pasted them around the walls. I had done the same with valentines from people I liked. Some of the papers had come adrift and were scattered on the floor. The rocks, in a pile in the corner, I had gathered on a hike with Daddy up East Canyon. I had planned to take them to where they tested rocks, to see if the little gold sparkles scattered on the surfaces were really gold. They might be, you know.

  Then, all at once, it seemed too much of a bother to save it all. My wastebasket was already full, so I gathered up papers, valentines, and rocks and took them to Irene’s room and dumped them in her wastebasket.

  My tidying job had taken less than five minutes. Then I was down the stairs and out the door to meet Leatrice. She was sitting on the front steps waiting for me.

  “What d’ya want to do?”

  “Let’s go visit Brother Nickelbee.”

  So we did.

  But, first, we made a treat to take to him — peanut butter and sugar balls. We were so fond of this combination that we once started to write a cookbook. We got as far as, “Peanut butter and sugar is good.”

  We could go through a jar of peanut butter before you could say, “Wait a minute.”

  Nowadays, it would be no use trying to make peanut butter balls. The peanut butter of my youth is gone, buried under quantities of oil, salt, and sugar.

  The good, old stuff was firm, not sticky. You could take a small piece, roll it in your hands to make a ball, and it would keep its shape. When you dipped it in the sugar bowl, the sugar remained on the surface, delicious and slightly crunchy.

  We went over to Leatrice’s house and made a quantity of the balls, ate half of them, then put the rest on a plate to take over to our friend.

  __________

  To get to Brother Nickelbee’s, we could go either of two ways. The first was across Grandpa’s alfalfa field, which stretched behind our place. The second was to walk south to where Welcome Road met Birch Avenue, turn west and continue past the houses of people we knew until we came to a short lane on the right, which ended with Brother Nickelbee’s little log cabin.

  We chose not to cut across the field. The alfalfa was still very young, just in its babyhood, and Grandpa had asked us not to trample it. We decided, virtuously, to go the longer way around.

  We walked up Birch Avenue past the homes of our acquaintances. One house, however, we went clear out in the street to avoid — the residence of Sister Posey. She yelled at kids, and we were afraid of her.

  Sister Posey was named correctly. Flowers were her passion. With her small, skinny frame and her long, skinny nose, she rather resembled a chicken scratching in the dirt — in her case, with a rake.

  There was no grass in Sister Posey’s yard, just flowers and closely-clipped shrubs, with here and there a little steppingstone path. Her back yard was a shortcut home from school. When she caught us in her yard, she yelled at us, and waved her rake, and threatened to tell our parents.

  This shocked us considerably when it happened. Weren’t Latter-day Saints supposed to be nice to everybody? Especially little children. All we did was trample a few of her daisies, and they sprang right back up again.

  When I complained to Daddy about Sister Posey, he looked at me sternly and said, “Sister Posey is righteously indignant. Stay out of her yard.”

  That was all right for
Daddy to say; but I couldn’t understand how a woman could take flowers to the sick and put a beautiful bouquet on the organ every Sunday and yet be so mean.

  Sister Posey liked to grow other things, too. She had a fruit and vegetable garden and was fond of experimenting.

  One day, Leatrice and I saw her exiting from Johanneson’s Feed and Seed with something in her arms that looked like dried sticks. We went in and asked Brother Johanneson what Sister Posey had just bought.

  “Boysenberries.”

  We thought he said, “poison berries.” That was terrible! Why would she do such a thing?

  “Maybe,” conjectured Leatrice, “she’s gonna poison kids who cut through her yard.”

  I was shocked. “She’s not s’posed to poison people! Specially children!”

  “Maybe she’ll put up a warning sign with a skull an’ crossbones that says, ‘Stay out! This means kids’!”

  “She oughtta be called ‘Poison Ivy’,” I muttered.

  And so, after that, we always made a wide detour around Sister Posey’s place.

  __________

  We turn down the lane that leads to Brother Nickelbee’s small, log cabin. His place touches Sister Posey’s back yard. We are careful not to step there — but we glance sideways to see if she has really put up a sign with a skull and crossbones on it.

  Leatrice knocks on the door. When there is no answer, we walk around the corner and find Brother Nickelbee busy among his flowers. He is weeding, leaning forward in a chair he has carried from his kitchen. As he weeds, he hitches the chair along. His weeding tool is a longish stick to which he has attached a metal tip.

  Brother Nickelbee is ninety-eight years old and a genuine pioneer. He had pulled a handcart across the plains in 1859.

  Our friend has a luxuriant, white beard that covers half his face and flows down his chest. When he speaks, the beautiful hairs around his mouth move gently. I think it must be like God speaking from a cloud.

  When Brother Nickelbee is working in his yard, he tucks his beard inside his shirt. He has done so today.

  He greets us enthusiastically with a hug and a smile. I am not sure he knows which one of us is Beth and which one is Leatrice. He calls us both, “Sister.”

  We all go in the house and sit down to eat peanut butter balls and listen to Brother Nickelbee’s radio with the morning-glory horn. He seems to like the children’s programs as much as we do: Jack Armstrong, The Lone Ranger, and, best of all, Little Orphan Annie.

  He likes it particularly when Annie is having adventures out west. One of us brushes his beautiful beard while the other one feeds him peanut butter balls. Brother Nickelbee gets very excited, pounds his fists on his bony knees, and shouts, “Go get ‘em, Annie! Pow! Pow! Pow! Send ‘em to Boot Hill!”

  On one occasion, Annie had found a gold mine. It caved in on her, and her faithful dog, Sandy, had to dig her out. Some bandits had caused the mine cave-in, because they didn’t want Annie to get the gold. So when they found she’d escaped, they tied her up, and gagged her, and dragged her to their hide-out. And Daddy Warbucks and Punjab had to rescue her.

  Leatrice and I had hounded our mothers and Grandma to buy cans of Ovaltine so we could send in the labels and get secret decoder rings. When they came, we took one over to Brother Nickelbee. He seemed very pleased and showed us he was wearing it every time we came.

  We sit in Brother Nickelbee’s front room, he in his rocking chair, Leatrice and I on the cot with the horsehide thrown over it. The horsehide is a pretty, brownish-speckled color. It had been on the outside of Brother Nickelbee’s favorite horse, Betsy.

  On one occasion, he was riding Betsy when he was caught in a blinding dust storm out in the Nevada desert. Brother Nickelbee couldn’t see a thing in front of him; but Betsy found the way home. When she died of old age, he had her hide made into a cover, as a sort of honor to her.

  Brother Nickelbee has many interesting things in his front room. On the wall hangs his old saddle. Hand-woven Indian rugs are on the floor; Indian baskets hold pinecones and dried cattails. On the table is Brother Nickelbee’s collection of arrowheads; also a small, leather bag that smells like all outdoors: sagebrush, and pine needles, and other things. An Indian friend gave it to Brother Nickelbee and told him that if he wore it around his neck, it would protect him.

  “I could tell ‘twas somethin’ special ta him. It ‘peared the magic worked on many an occasion. Oh, I know ‘twas really the Lord pertectin’ me; but I wore thet little bag round muh neck ta remember the kindness o’ the friend thet give it ta me; an’ I allus prayed he’d be kep’ safe, too.”

  Now, as we munch on peanut butter balls, Brother Nickelbee says, “I want ta thank you sisters fer comin’ ta visit me.”

  “Next time we’ll do your weeding,” I say. We wouldn’t have made such a generous offer at home.

  “Thankee.” He sighs. “Seems like most o’ the spry hez gone outta me. But I surely do love flowers. I guess flowers is God’s way o’ sayin’ He loves us.”

  “Why do you s’pose He made weeds?”

  “Well, I guess it’s so’s we’d ‘preciate the flowers more. Sometimes, seem’s like we don’t ree’lize how precious somethin’ is ‘til it’s gone.”

  We sit quietly, contemplating that deep thought. We have never lost something precious; but our friend has. He sits slumped forward, his hands between his knees, his head sunk into his shoulders. He looks every year of his ninety-eight. We know he is remembering his private sorrow.

  As a young man, Brother Nickelbee had crossed the plains with a handcart.

  President Brigham Young had said, “Let all who can procure a loaf of bread and one garment on their backs, be assured there is water, plenty and pure, by the way, and doubt no longer, but come next year to the place of gathering even in flocks, as doves fly to their windows before the storm.”

  “Thet cart was jest a wooden box,” Brother Nickelbee had explained, “‘bout five feet square, mounted on big wheels. Had a pair o’ shafts with a bar acrost, an’ a man walked ‘tween the shafts jest like a horse, leanin’ inta the bar an’ pullin’, oh, mebby four er five hunderd pounds o’ food, an’ beddin’, an’ clothes fer him an’ his fambly.”

  In Wyoming, Brother Nickelbee lost his young wife. She went down to the river for a bucket of water and was never seen again. It was supposed that Blackfoot or Shoshones had stolen her. Brother Nicklebee had spent years searching but had never found her.

  I once asked him, “Are you still mad at the guys who stole her?

  Brother Nickelbee shook his head. “No. “T’wouldn’t do no good. T’wouldn’t bring ‘er back. Oh, I grieved lots, but they’s no anger in muh heart. I found, over time, thet they’s jest ‘bout the same number o’ good an’ bad Indjins as good an’ bad whites.” Then he added after a pause, “I made me some fine friends amongst the Indjins — fine, fine friends.”

  Now I say, sympathetically, “Would you like another peanut butter ball, Brother Nickelbee?”

  Leatrice asks, “Would you like us to comb your beard?”

  “Thankee, no. I think I’ll lie down a bit, if you sisters’ll ‘scuse me.”

  We help him to the bedroom and onto the bed. We take off his shoes and cover him with the sunburst quilt the Relief Society sisters had made for him. Then we kiss his cheek and tiptoe out.