My Children Are More Precious Than Gold Read online

  My Children Are More Precious Than Gold

  Story Inspired By Author's Grandmother Veder Bishop Bright

  Fay Risner

  Cover Art

  All Rights Reserved by Fay Risner

  This book published by Fay Risner at Smashwords.com

  Copyright (c) 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  By Fay Risner

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously, and any events or locals are entirely coincidental. Excerpts from this book cannot be used without written permission from the author.

  A short story version of this book was entered in the 2006 Arkansas Writer's Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas in the category Arkansas Pioneer Branch NLAPW Prose. The short story was awarded third honorable mention.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my grandmother Veder Bright. Though she has been gone for over thirty years, her love of family has carried down through the generations.

  Also, I dedicate this book to Genon Williams, a woman who became a part of my family. She was someone I admired for doing things her way.

  Preface

  In the early sixties, I needed to make a family tree as a homework assignment at school. I asked Grandma Veder Bright, my mother's mother, for information about the Bishop – Bower side of the tree. Grandma took a shoe box off a closet shelf and looked through the contents for birth date of her siblings. As she searched she showed me pictures of her family when they were young.

  One thing led to another as I learned about what it was like for the Bishops, living in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Riner, Virginia. The afternoon flew by for me as Grandma told me her stories about her mother's family having money and land. Before the Civil War, they owned slaves. Two of Nannie's brothers fought on opposite sides of the war between the states.

  Nannie Bower married Jacob Bishop against the wishes of her parents. He wasn't consider good marriage material according to the Bowers. His family was poor ridge people. Nannie's parents opinion didn't stop her from marring the man she loved.

  I met most of Veder's ten brothers and sister later in their lives. Most of them came to see Veder and her husband, John, as often as they could. So by looking at the pictures of them in their youth and getting to know the older versions, I developed a sense for what they must have been like as children, living under Jacob and Nannie's roof.

  From what Grandma Veder told me about her early life, I realized their story was not a Walton family tale. Therefore, I didn't write a factual story. Just one with versions of Grandma's stories that reflects what it was like to live near Riner, Virginia in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

  Prologue

  Bess Bishop Thompson drove her car as close as she could get to the rubble. She climbed out, leaning heavily on her cane. She had to pick her way carefully through the shaggy brown grass and waist high weeds to keep from falling.

  Ahead of her was a termite infested wood pile that used to be the Bishop family log cabin. The rock fireplace, covered with wild honeysuckle and moss, stood in the middle of the rubble, a monument to days long gone and age old memories. Bess plopped down on a tree stump, the remains of the yard's mulberry shade tree that she used to play under.

  She shivered when the northerly breeze hit her. Pulling her shawl tighter around herself, she rubbed away the goosebumps on her arms. She should get back in the car where it was warmer, but a melancholy urge tugged at her to stay put just a little longer. After all, she hadn't come all this way to leave so quickly.

  The trees, in full dress on the ridge, were a vibrant color palate of reds, oranges, and yellows. Bess remembered that vivid sight so well. Just one of the many reasons she loved living on the ridge. Moments, memories and sounds flickered through her mind like the reel of film at the movie theater.

  She could hear the laughter of her brothers and sisters coming from the cabin heap. Her mother calling loud and clear above the ruckus for the younguns to settle down. Her father's baritone voice mixed into the din as he read a story to the children near the warmth of the stone fireplace.

  Bess decided it was just as well way back then in 1903 that she and her family didn't know how the year was going to play out. Not that every moment of the twelve months were that bad, but the way January started out should have been a warning to the Bishops if they had been paying attention to bad omens.

  Chapter 1

  The Brown Woolen Scarf

  One January morning in 1903 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Montgomery County, Virginia, Bess Pope shivered as she listened to the north wind’s mighty roar. With a sound akin to the wail of a prowling panther, the wind announced a snowstorm's approach to the hollow before it pounced on the log cabin. A constant tap - tapping of sleet mixed with wet snow began to drum on the cabin’s tin roof. By lunch time, Jacob and Nannie Pope and the other ten children realized as Bess did that the blizzard had arrived on their portion of the ridge.

  Six years old Dillard gulped down the last bite from a stewed rabbit leg, and tossed the bone on his blue and white enameled plate. Then he slid off the handmade, wooden, ladder back chair and ran to the only window in the combination kitchen and living room. Standing on tiptoes, he flattened his nose against the pane. His blond hair, curled like tightly coiled springs, created Os on the frosty glass where he pressed his forehead to peek through a clear slit near the top of the window.

  He stared beyond the ripples of drifting snow banked on the porch that grew larger each time he looked. Dillard daydreamed of playing in the snow. In his imagination, he saw fierce snowball fights and making snowmen in the front yard with his brothers and sisters when the storm finally ceased.

  Bored, he declared, “Still snowen,” Anxiously waiting for the snow to stop, he continued to watch the haze of snowflakes swirl across the yard.

  “We know that without ya tellen us, Dillard,” five year old Veder snapped at him, ready for a fight. She didn’t like being housebound in the winter anymore than he did.

  “Cass, Bess, and Alma, stack the dishes, and I'll heet the water,” ordered their dark haired, chunky mother, Nannie. She leaned her wide hips against the kitchen work counter for a moment and wiped her forehead with her faded cotton, work dress sleeve.

  Ten year old Bess, who resembled her mother in many ways, studied Nannie when she spoke and noted the fact that her round faced mother paused to rest at the counter. Nannie looked tired, and that worried Bess. She wondered if any of the other children had noticed their mother didn’t look well. With all the work Nannie did for her large family, it was no wonder she seemed tired. The work appeared to be too much for her of late.

  Bess intended to say something to Cass when they were alone. Born in between the older boys, Cass, twenty years old, worked along side her mother. Mama told her things she wouldn't mention to the younger children. Cass would know if Mama wasn't feeling well. Bess picked up the tin plates one by one and scraped the rabbit bones and scraps of food all on one plate. One of the boys could take the scraps to the coon hounds to chew on later. She stacked the rest of the plates and carried them over by the dish pan.

  Cass made several trips with the tin cups to set them on the work counter. Tall, slim and plain looking with a wide
mouth and no chin, Cass's pleasant, but bashful, wide smile took up most of the lower half of her face. As the Bishop family enlarged over the years, Cass, one of the older children, proved that she wasn't afraid of hard work as she worked along side her mother.

  Pretty with honey colored hair, nine year old Alma did her part by walking around the table to gather up all the silverware then carried it to the work counter.

  Holding the long handled, aluminum dipper to one side with her thumb, Nannie tipped the wooden bucket to pour water into a large, tin dishpan. Carrying the pan carefully so she wouldn't spill the water, she placed it on one of the round lids on the wood cook stove's hot, black surface.

  “The rest of ya younguns, let's get out of the women's way. I'm goen to sit next to the fire fer a spell.” Their father, Jacob, picked up a small kindling stick and stuck the end into the fireplace flames. He lit his pipe, threw the stick in the fire and puffed away as he eased his short, stocky frame into his rocking chair close to the crackling, red and yellow flames dancing over the logs in the large, rock fireplace. He combed his fingers through his thick, dark brown hair to flattened it. Then he leaned forward, extending his calloused palms toward the fire’s warmth.

  The younger children rushed to position themselves on the floor near their father, squealing and shoving to move each other out of the way.

  “Ifen ya younguns don't have anything better to do than fuss with each other, that Christmas tree needs took down. It's turnen brown and droppen needles all over the place,” suggested Nannie. She figured it was best to keep her restless younguns busy so they wouldn't be squabbling with each other. Lately, the racket got on her nerves.

  “It's sticky, Mama. Do we have to take everythin offen it?” Lillie's light, brown pigtails stretched down the back of her faded, blue dress when the plump, eight year old frowned up at the tall, cedar tree standing in the corner of the room.

  “Leave the popcorn strings on it fer the birds. They will be glad fer feed they don't have to hunt when it's snowen like this. Take off all the tinsel and the star. Stick em back in the Christmas box fer next year,” instructed Nannie.

  She spread a Red Rooster feed sack, dish towel over the bowls of leftover fried potatoes, turnips and green beans she'd placed on one end of the long, wooden table. “Well fer once supper won't take too long to fix with all these leftovers,” she said to Bess. It wasn't hard to hear the sound of relief that filled her mother's voice. Nannie wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time standing over the hot stove cooking the next meal.

  Surrounding the cedar tree, Lillie, Veder, and three year old Lydia, stood on tiptoes with arms stretched up, gingerly pinching off all the silver tinsel they could reach without getting stuck by the tree’s needles. Twenty two year old Sid, eighteen year old Tom, and sixteen year old Don, picked off the tinsel higher on the tree, and thirteen year old Lue, being the tallest, stretched his lanky frame on tiptoes to lift off the gold foil star on top the tree.

  “The tree's cleaned off, Pap,” Don announced, dropping the last piece of tinsel from his chubby fingers into the wooden box marked, Christmas.

  “Good! Reckon I'll drag it off when I go check the cows,” drawled Jacob.

  “Snow's still comen down good, Pap,” Dillard forecasted from his post at the window.

  Dillard felt a cold dampness ooze into the soles of his heavy woolen socks. He looked down and frowned at the sight. A trail of water trickled along the wall from the line of tallow slicked shoes that sat beneath the row of winter coats. The small stream pooled under his feet.

  No one had overshoes or boots in those days so animal fat scraps were rendered by heating them until the lard melted out. Tallow was spread on the one pair of shoes Pap made each of them each year. That coating kept the shoes water proof and softer.

  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 sc
arves 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.”