Chapter 9: Mary Potter

Mary Jean Potter had an unearned reputation. "She's a wild 'un, she is," opined Mrs. Edger, mother of Wilmer Edger and his older teen age brother Delmar Dean.

"Oh I do so worry she will get my Delmar Dean into trouble. Good Lord. Can you imaging having a young hussy like her for a daughter in law? I shudder to even think it. But what else can you expect of a young girl running wild and doing God knows what at all hours of the day and night. Remember her trollop of a mother and how she just up and left one day with that traveling salesman, never to be heard from again."

"I'm not so worried about her gettin' my Billy Jack in trouble as I am my little Billy gettin' her in trouble. Then you have to worry about there bein' an unplanned weddin' you well know you just wouldn't care to attend. You get my drift," her friend added. "Besides, with her drunken sot of a father around her all the time, what else could a body expect? Like begets like, as they say."

Ma and I sat in a booth inside the Bid A Wee Café. It was a nice little place where we many times ate dinner when we were in town on a Saturday. We were waiting for Pa.

It was shortly before noon and we had what little shopping we considered absolutely necessary over with and paid for. We were one of the few "cash families" some of the businesses had so we were always made welcome. Because of the times, too many of the farmers were living almost hand to mouth and because of the drought. More and more families had begun to walk away from their farms, abandoning all their hopes and dreams. They became a part of the steady stream of "Okies" headed for California.

A photographer for Life Magazine took the saddest picture I ever saw. It was titled, "Death Of A Dream." The picture was of our next door neighbors' house a year after the bank foreclosed. The empty farmhouse, front door ajar and the broken out two front windows looked to my young imagination so much like sad eyes and gaping open mouth of a corpse. Tumbleweeds and drifting sand completed the picture.

Mister Barger cried when they drove off, broke and broken, headed to California. Their two young children looked back at me from the rear window of their old Chevrolet sedan, their eyes showed their bewilderment as all they had ever known was left behind. Mrs. Barger sat looking out the side window in numbed shock. Truly their dream died on the day they drove away from their farm for the last time.

We were fortunate because we had reliable water. The northern end of our farm was all lowlands; a mile from the North Canadian River and not too many hundred years prior it had been a swamp. Now it was good fertile farmland with a six foot deep covering of rich, black topsoil. This was unheard of in most of Oklahoma. There was also good water just twenty feet down in the ground. Pa said we were blessed and that we should never forget Who gave us those blessings. I liked my Pa's way of putting things in perspective.

Our other bit of fortune came about because Pa closed out the family bank account of a little over two thousand dollars. We brought it home and hid it in a few secret places known only to him and to Ma and me. This was just a month before so many banks crashed, including one of the two banks in Woodman.

Pa read the newspapers and the Farm Journal. He felt our money would be safer at home. He was a real smart man in his own quiet way, or uncommonly lucky, one or the other. No matter which, we had ready cash when many of our neighbors had none...

The two old gossips were still going on about Mary Potter when Pa came in. He sat down next to Ma in the booth and gave her a one armed hug. Ma smiled her love back at him and they both picked up their menus and read them just like they did every time we came in.

It seemed they had to read every item on the menus and comment and ask each other if any of this sounds good, or how about this here? The menu never changed and neither did their words by very much. It was some sort of ritual with them. I never could understand what they got out of discussing food they weren't going to order.

I knew what I wanted when we first came in and sat down. I always ordered a hamburger with pickle, lettuce and tomato, what they called "California style." Next I ordered my usual side of French fries all covered with brown country gravy. Then I would put mustard on my hamburger, place a dollop on my plate beside the French fries and gravy, apply a healthy amount of salt and plenty of pepper to everything and dig in.

Pa always ordered the same thing, chicken fried steak covered with cream gravy and mashed potatoes covered with brown gravy. Even Ma's order never changed either. It was always the meat loaf plate. She always took a small bite and said, "Mine is better." Then she began to eat very slow and ladylike. Ma came from fine, well-educated people.

Her father taught high school mathematics and history. He also taught English after it came out how he spoke better English than the regular English teacher, who then began teaching history and shop. Because of her background, Ma always spoke a little better than the people around her. She never put on airs and most people accepted her as the real fine lady she obviously was.

Pa was from a long line of farmers who had been called commoners or serfs where his people came from. There was nothing serf-like about my Pa, though. He stood tall and demanded respect. He also gave respect where it was due. All in all, I look on them as being as perfect as any two parents could ever be. I guess we mostly all look on our own parents much the same.

Just as we commenced to eat a commotion started up in the booth next to ours. Unnoticed by anyone, Mary Jean Potter had come in and stood near enough to the booth to hear them gossip about her. She also must have been there long enough to get quite an earful. She lit into them in a big way.

"I would hope you two old hens would have the common decency to talk about me in front of my face and not behind my back. My morals are none of y'alls business. Whether I even have any is none of y'alls business. But for your information, I have never welcomed a boy's advances and I never will. Y'all are just jealous because I am pretty and dress clean instead of going around like some people I could mention who smell like they never take a bath.

"Now y'all both have husbands who have come sniffin' around me and I wouldn't have nothing to do with them because I have values. And what's more, Missus Edger, You tell that husband of yours to keep his hands to himself because the next time he touches me I am going to slap him up side the head so hard his ears will ring for a week. I mean it.

Mary took a deep breath and continued, "One last thing, your daughter Dorothy was mighty big lookin' when she got married last spring. We were all so glad her premature baby, little Edgar was so healthy. How much did he weigh? Something over eight pounds at birth, wasn't it? My, you are so lucky to have a premature grandchild born so well developed and big." She turned on her heel and stomped out, nose high in the air.

They started in again as soon as she was out of the café. "Why, how dare she?" Old lady Snyder started in.

Pa turned around and said to them, "Ladies, I would sure appreciate it if you would just please shut up. I am tired of hearing all of your gossip. Doesn't it say somewhere in the bible about how gossip is the Devils own invention? I do know what The Good Book says about a lying tongue. So, please leave my ears in peace."

He turned around and began to eat his meal again. The silence in the next booth was almost a physical thing I could feel. Ma reached over and patted him on the arm and I just grinned. Pa very seldom reprimanded anyone for anything, but when he did, they felt reprimanded. The two gossips got up and quietly left,

It was getting along toward wheat harvest and Ma usually hired a town girl to help her cook for the crew. We had all of six hundred acres in wheat that year and Pa usually hired a crew of six or seven men.

Our team of Belgian Draft horses could pull the threshing machine. Pa usually drove the big team himself. They were a matched pair and stood almost twenty hands high with broad backs and great powerful legs. They could pull our heavy old thresher every day throughout the whole harvest and never feel the strain. Pa's Percherons were his pride and joy as horses go, but those big Belgians were special, in a class all by themselves.

Pa gave fifty dollars for the pair when a traveling circus went broke just outside of Woodman. They were worth much more than fifty dollars and Pa knew it. They were colts, barely weaned when he bought them.

The circus owner pled for more money, but Pa held firm. "I only got fifty dollars I can spare without hurting my family. So this is what I offer. If you think you can find a buyer who will give you more, I'll let you board them at my place for free while you look for one. I'll have no man say I stole from him or took unfair advantage. As you know times is tough all over, especially here in Oklahoma."

The man sadly agreed and accepted the fifty dollars. It gave him barely enough to get the rest of his outfit to the big city, the State Capital where he could sell things off. But those Belgians stayed behind and kept growing. To a young boy not yet in his teens they looked even larger than they really were.

We had those great beasts of burden and where most farms had tractors, Pa knew horses worked the land a little slower, but a lot cheaper. Also, because of Ma's cooking, whenever we had a hired crew for harvest, the hands always wanted to come back the next year.

It seemed they worked harder for us than for other people. They were never cursed at or pushed too hard. No liquor was ever allowed on our property and smoking and chewing were frowned upon. So after some three or four weeks most of the men were paid off and headed on down the road. Two of the crew had returned to our farm every year since the year I was born...

We ate and Pa left the dime tip as always. Henrietta, our usual waitress, always gave us good service so Pa always let her know we appreciated it. Today you'd be yelled at if you left a ten-cent tip.

As we were leaving the café, Ma spied Mary Jean ahead of us. She had been crying. Ma called, "Mary, Mary Jean, wait up." She hurried ahead and asked Mary Jean if she wanted a job helping to cook during the wheat harvest.

"I don't know if y'all wants to hire me. Y'alls heard what people been sayin' about me." Tears started to roll down her cheeks.

"Dear," Ma told her, "I do not believe gossip. I believe my eyes and my eyes tell me here is a very pretty, very nice young lady who might need a job. If she is a hard worker and acts like a lady, then I shall be more than satisfied. What do you say, dear, would you like the job?" She looked up at Pa.

"One question, first," Pa looked down at the girl. "Maybe we ought to ask you, can you cook?" He said it so serious it even took ma a bit to catch on he was joking. Ma smiled her special smile she had just for him and shook her head slowly back and forth as if to say, "What can you expect from a man?"

"Oh Misses Hansen, ma'am, when y'all want me?" Her eyes grew big and round and a broad smile came over her face.

"Well, you might come out tomorrow. Since tomorrow is Sunday we'll be going to church. However, we'll be back from church by about two or so. It will give me a chance to show you the kitchen and your room and all." Ma patted her on the shoulder.

"Yes, Ma'am, I'll try my best to be there by two. If I get up early, I kin walk it in about six or eight of hours of humpin' it." Actually it would have taken her closer to ten hours to walk the distance to our farm, unless someone gave her a ride.

"Oh dear. We can't have you walking all the way out to our place. Maybe we should come pick you up after church. Will this give you time to pack?"

"Oh, Ma'am, I ain't got but one other dress to my name so I kin pack in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

Pa interrupted, "Well, if it is okay with your family, maybe we could take you out right now. Would it be a problem for you?"

"Oh, no sir. I can run and get my spare dress right now."

"Well, won't your folks want to talk to us? After all, we are strangers to them." Ma was always one for doing things proper.

The girl hesitated. She seemed a little uneasy as she said, "My Pa is ill. They is only him an' me. Ma took off." She looked down at the sidewalk.

Pa interrupted, "Oh, what's wrong with him? Is there anything we could do to help?" Pa was always the first to offer help to people if they needed it.

"Oh," she hesitated, "Oh ... my pa is a drunk an' this early he's still passed out cold from last night." She put the palms of her hands to her face and began to cry again as she started to walk away.