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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 7/125

then had two doors. A man at each door gave everyone a brown paper bag which contained

an orange, an apple, a wax bag full of hard candy, and a bunch of dried raisins. The older
people were as thrilled to get those bags as the children were. For many that bag was the
only Christmas gift they received.

Pa had bought little Christmas items for these bags for years. He and Ma would bag
these fruits days before the Christmas program'. He bought the sweets from a five-gallon
bucket of candy. Candy was sold in those big buckets then.

After the Christmas Eve program had ended, everyone started to go home. The men
unhitched their horses. It was pretty cold that night so some of the men built a big bonfire in
the churchyard to warm themselves. Ma told me to wait in the wagon while she went back

into the church to get more things.
I looked over at the fire, which had died down but still had lots of red coals, and then
saw two men down scuffling and struggling. I saw shoes in the fire and recognized them as

Pa’s shoes. I put my doll down, jumped out of the wagon, and started running toward the
men, screaming at the top of my lungs. I thought Pa was burning up in that fire! Ma caught

me and held me back.
“Ma, Pa’s in that fire!” I shouted.
“No, that’s not true,” she answered.

“But aren’t those his shoes?”
“No, they’re Uncle Ollie’s shoes,” she said.
All the time she was trying to push me back to the wagon. About that time, the fight

seemed to break up.
I found out the next morning that one of those men was Pa. Uncle Ollie came to our
house and called Pa to say he had come down to finish up last night’s business.

Pa said, “Ollie, you’re drunk, and I don’t want to fight you while you’re drunk. Come
on in and let’s talk about this so I can find out what it’s all about.”

Ollie wouldn’t come inside the gate.
Ollie said, “I knew you would be a coward and use some excuse not to fight.”
He kept on daring Pa to come outside the gate. Pa finally got a mess of his insults and

attacks and walked out and told him if this was what he wanted, he thought he could accom­
modate him. Ollie told him that was the way he wanted it.
I don’t remember who passed the first lick, but in no time they were both on the

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