Maibelle McCullough Mouton:
Remembering With Joy

Now you can see why I won't forget my third grade! In its nine months I had suffered the consciousness of sin and found my Savior and in a single session had solved my arithmetic puzzle!

That summer Guelcksie had a real surprise for Bopeep and me. An Indian wigwam stood on the lawn. With it were Indian costumes and bows and arrows! What wonderful adventures we had being Deerfoot and Hiawatha!

Guelcksie also had a big carton of Crackerjack behind the door of the quilting room. One package for each day with always a prize! We loved it!

Maybe that was the last summer that Edith played with us and she always initiated different things to do! She took us out to the bridges (31) where we caught crawfishes! Our poles were long sticks with string tied on the end, dangling bits of fat meat into the water. When the line tugged, we lifted it and flung it onto the bridge, There Edith let the baby ones back off into the water, and fearlessly grabbed the big ones behind the waving pincers and tossed them into a bucket!

Under the plum tree she set up her doll stove. It was cast iron and had four burners. She filled the pots with lard and we all worked diligently packing bits of wood, grass and stubble into the firebox! But we got it done and then how good those crisp hot crawfish tails did taste! Another thing she did that makes me think it was her last involvement in our childish play was the beautiful paperdoll houses she enjoyed making for us, but never stayed to play! She enjoyed quilting with Lizzie and mama and reading the Lavender books!

Often in the evening Mrs. Davenport came to sit on our front port and visit with mama. She was Kathleen's mother and she was about Edith's age. She came with her. Edith and Kathleen read fairytales to us kids in the dining room. We had a lamp on the end of the table and Edith and Kathleen sat side by side at the end of the dining table and took turns reading -- paragraph about -- Rapunzel, Tom Thumb, Jack and the Beanstalk, Snow White and Rose Red, and Bluebeard! Gladys, Bopeep and I listened, with our heads resting on our folded alarms on the oil cloth covered table.

Lizzie and Hugh made happy plans to take us out that Black river to swim. At least Hugh could swim and we girls could play the water. Huge drove a team of mules and we went in a spring wagon. Hugh set up a tent and Lizzie cared for the food and drink. We kids dabbled in the water and had a delightful time.

I hope you're noticing the strange bathing suits! Even Hugh's suit is weird by todays standard. But it was all high adventure and wonderful fun us. He would never let us be in the water unless he was there to help us if we needed him. It seems strange that two grown people, like they were would be so careful to help us have a good time!

In a day without radio or television, there was a great deal of music and singing in our home. I remember hearing mama singing in the kitchen! Both of my brothers had good voices, and Edith had the best of us girls. Lizzie played the piano and could play by ear any tune we could hum, and if it was too high or too low she changed the key and made us comfortable. All of us singing around the piano is on of my most precious memories! Radio and T.V. have spoiled all that!

Lynn had a charming way of plucking his guitar and singing all sorts of love songs. Because the word Blue is an easy word to rhyme with true and you and knew -- most love songs have "eyes of blue" Invariably when he came to those word he looked at me, his only blue eyed sister and smiled and sent me into seventh heaven! It was as if we had a sweet secret!

When I was seventeen, we were living temporarily in Fayetteville and going to the U. of A. Lynn and Ada came for a visit. One day he brought me a present. It was something I had wanted but would never have dreamed of asking for -- a pair of white silk stockings with black clocks embroidered up the side! They were very stylish that year! What a brother! No wonder I loved him!

Just before we left for Little Rock one summer Gladys decided to bury a paper doll. She had a small narrow tin box with a hinged lid and she padded it with cotton and lined it with tissue paper. There she laid her sweet Lavinia lovingly in her soft bedding and closed the box. We dug the grave under the walnut tree, deep enough that the box would be well covered. We intended to return next summer and see if the tin box had protected Lavinia from the hazards of rain, snow and sleet. We really didn't care that Oscar, the six-year-old son of the hired man had joined us for the funeral. He helped us heap the mound with flowers, never dreaming that the tin box with its hinged lid would have roused covetousness in his heart, great enough to make of Oscar, at six years of age, a gravedigger!

When we returned to Little Rock I went into the fourth grade. I had no idea how it happened that I was invited to sing for the P.T.A. meeting in my school. Evidently I had a childish voice and the grapevine of P.T.A.s in the city passed my name around. Lizzie saw to it that I had the right songs "School days" "'Scuse me, teacher!" And "They always pick on me!" etc. Lizzie saw to it that I had the right songs, gestures and clothes and she took me on the street car to every school in Little Rock!

This made my fourth grade different from the third. In another way it was different for I had my first admirer! I never did find out which one of the boys in the fourth grade threw a paper wrapped package, addressed to me, on our front porch! When I opened the package I was a chagrinned to find a naked Polly doll! Gladys thought she was cute and promptly made her a dress! I don't know who suggested it but presently Bopeep and I were on our way to the drugstore to buy two more Polly dolls! We did, but they were a size larger than the first gift doll! Bopeep's doll had blond hair and she named her Polly Sue. Mine had black hair. She was Polly Anne and Gladys named the small one Polly Marie. This started games and sewing that carried into the years. They were the last enchantment of our childhood! Those dolls made several trips from Little Rock to Alicia and back.

But it all came to with tragic end -- suddenly and forever!

One day in Alicia I wrapped my doll in blue silk and folder her in news paper to take her down to Lynn's house. I was going to play with W.J. their baby son, and I thought if he should be asleep I would sew till he woke.

When I got home late that afternoon, I tossed the newspaper bundle on the sofa and rushed out to find the girls.

Lizzie was an indefatiguable house keeper. She pounced on that ratty news paper bundle and tossed it into the fire! Alas for the sawdust stuffed body and blue silk! I still have the rescued head of my precious PollyAnne. It is a token of the end of our childhood! But really it had fallen apart almost unnoticed! Like Edith, making lovely paperdoll houses for us, but never staying to play! I can remember so well the summer Gladys left us! She got interested in a story that Edith and Lizzie were reading serially in the Saturday Evening Post! Many years later when I lost myself in "Gone with the Wind" did I come to understanding of her fascination with Alisa Paige enduring the Civil War as a southern Belle! No matter how deep we were in our play or how much fun we were having, when the Post came she left us!

Bopeep and I learned we must learn to find our dependence on each other! We invented many new games and made lots of playhouses all over the place! We made one behind the carriage house, where we found two upright barrels that were excellent props for our counter made of boards. We layered our mudpies with yellow corn and lined them up on that counter to dry!

I guess we forgot them and went off to play somewhere else, for when Hugh came down on business in Little Rock, he came out to the house and laughed and told us that he looked at the carriage house from the road and couldn't believe his eyes! There was corn taller than the carriage house, waving its tassels in the gentle breeze! He went to investigate and discovered that our mudpies had sprouted! Being planted as high as upright barrels, they had overtopped the carriage house!