2. My Mama

Now we were at the shaky little wharf, had tied up the boat, put on our shoes, scrambled up the bank, trudged through the sandy potato patch, and were (Uncle Worth was) dexterously cleaning our catch.

“Want to go with me to prayer meetin’ tonight, son?” Uncle Worth would inquire, rather diffidently, without looking up.

Of course I wanted to go anywhere, so long as I could be with Uncle Worth, though prayer meetings were not my favorite form of entertainment. My idol would draw a slow smile of appreciation. He couldn’t help knowing that I worshiped him, and it may be surmised that not many candles shone on his lonely shrine.

Soon the flour-coated fish would be sizzling in the big iron spider (skillet to you, no doubt). Grandma would be tending them, with an eye on the country-fried potatoes in an adjoining pan. Mama, an excellent cook, would be at the kitchen table, crafting an appropriate salad made offender lettuce leaves to be served with a warm, sweet-sour dressing well loaded with slices of hard-boiled eggs and diced bacon. Uncle Worth would be tenderly nursing a little kettle of freshly picked peas.

I would be pacing about like a tiger at feeding time.

“You might fill the wood box,” Grandma would say, to get me out from under her feet.

And now—at last—it would be time to eat, almost. We suddenly became silent and sad. Uncle Worth would glance inquiringly toward Grandma; and, getting no response, would murmur, “Jen, will you ask the blessing.” Mama, propping an elbow on the table and shading her closed eyes with her hand, would clear her throat and offer a brief prayer, thanking God for our blessings, “both temporal and spiritual,” asking for an extension of our good health, putting in a friendly word for “our absent loved ones.”

Now the gloom lifted as Mama whispered, “For Chrysake—Amen.” Now we could eat. Everything was on the table, ready to be passed, all but the strawberries and cream, which would come on in due time.

Never, at least never in my experience, did fish taste like these.

Ummm-mmm! Good!… Uncle Worth would chuckle happily over my applause. Blue-gills were an old story to him He concentrated on his peas… Ummm! Good!

Just now I ejaculated these words aloud so I might type them at their full value, and my Ummm-mmm! Good! startled me back to the present moment, for I sounded precisely like the typical commercial plugster, in an agony of ecstasy over his merchandise. I wonder what my gentle, long-gone Uncle Worth would think or say if some strident voice had shattered his quiet little world with:

“Ummm-umm! Good! Our Peas! Garden-fresh! Mouth-wateringly de—licious!… After a nation-wide survey!… Endorsed by medical profession! Our Peas! Get ’em tomorrow! Get ’em tonight yet! Our peas! That’s spelled O-u-r P-e-a-s. Coast to coast! Three out of four! Nine out often! Prefer Our Peas. Remember! Get O-U-R Peas!”

Doubtless the soft-voiced old bachelor would suspect that he had been misdirected to another world than the one he had left behind.

But we can’t stand still, Uncle Worth. We have come into a new era, an era of progress. You’d do well to get back to wherever you were. You wouldn’t like it here. It’s pretty noisy now.

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