Page 48 - memories-of-golde-dicks-markham-(1996)-golde-dicks-markham

Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 33/125

was playing with the boys by the woodpile—actually they were in their late teens. A few
days earlier, Pa had bought a load of wooden barrels full of glass bottles to use for that
year’s crop of syrup. But one of the barrels was empty.

I looked up and saw Ma coming with a switch.
I said to the boys, “She’s going to whip me!”
Uncle Press answered, “No she’s not!”

He picked me up and put me in the barrel and then sat down on top of it. She couldn’t
see me—let alone whip me. So she whipped her brother-in-law, Press. She was so mad with
him! He sat there, letting her whip him, and laughed and laughed at her the whole time. She
finally got tired, turned around and went back into the kitchen.

Uncle Press got off the barrel and lifted me out. I do believe they thought as much of
me as I did them. I just worshiped my uncles.
Grandpa Dicks would send his sons into the woods close to our house to cut down

huge pine trees. Then they sawed them into blocks the length of the firebox on the cook
stove. The bottom end of the tree was real fat where the tree had been scraped and cupped
for turpentine. These fat ends were used for the fireplace.

I liked to go down into the woods and watch them, saw and split the wood. Rabbit
tobacco grew in these woods which the boys picked and rolled into cigarettes for me. They
lighted the cigarette and had laughing fits watching me smoke. When I 'heard Ma calling me,

they gave me chew-green pine straw so she couldn’t smell the smoke on my breath. I don’t
think I ever told my parents that I smoked rolled cigarettes from rabbit tobacco.
When talking to the boys, I addressed them “Uncle Walter,” “Uncle Henry,” “Uncle

Press.” They would always laugh fit to kill. Then I got the idea they were making fun of me.
I went home and told Ma I wasn’t going to call them “uncle” and say “yes sir,” “thank you,”
and all of those other niceties that she taught me because they liked to laugh at me.

Once I heard my mother telling Pa, “I wish we lived one hundred million miles from
your family!”
“Why, Pearl?” he asked, not understanding this sudden outburst.

“I try to teach Golde good maimers, and your family laughs and makes fun of her.
They undo everything ! teach her!”
Those were good times with the boys. We would to go into the woods between their

house and our house and make something called a “flying Jenny”—a perfect name for it.
They put a two-foot bolt in the center of a stump and put it through the center of a twelve­
inch-wide board. Two persons about equal size sat on each end of the board. Roy and I were

about equal weight, and we played and spun around on that flying Jenny for hours at a time.
First we would spin going one way, stop and go the other way. We had to alternate direct

33

www.LakeCityHistory.com LCH-UUID: C15F5985-B57F-498C-9C99-F425FA07E049