Chapter 2

. . . Little Redheaded White Girl Melani April 12, 2008 (1199)

Chapter 2
Time with Sally
The girls said goodbye at Sally's house. Lena was relieved to see her own home come into view. She raced up the stairs, wondering if any new boarders had arrived with the train. She burst through the door, the warm smell of home and mother's biscuits enveloping her like a warm hug. She almost skipped to the kitchen.
"Glad you made it back, Lena," Martha White said without looking up at her daughter as she put the golden brown biscuits on a large platter. "Now help me set the table."
Lena reached out for a biscuit but at the scowl on her mother's face, she drew back her hand.
"Go on now, set the table."
Lena then picked up one of the big bowls to help her youngest sister, thirteen-year-old Oma, get the food on the table. The three railroad boarders had to leave in an hour for the evening shift this week and it was time to call them.
* * *
After supper was over for the boarders, the family sat down to eat. When they were finished, Lena stood and said, "You go ahead, Mother. I'll do the dishes. You and Oma did most of the cooking."
Alone in the kitchen, her hands immersed in lukewarm dishwater, Lena thought back to life on the farm. About the only time that friends and neighbors got together was when they attended the church on Mill Creek. The members there could sing shape notes, and she loved singing with them. She sang softly now as she worked.
Lena remembered, as a little girl, hearing a man ask "Who is that little girl?" pointing at her standing alone beside the steps. The preacher told him, ‘That's that little redheaded White girl'. Albert White is her daddy." She smiled again because she loved being the only child out of eleven to have red hair and fair skin like her father.
Reaching for a glass, her hand slipped and she dropped it into the soapy water, splattering her gown. She stepped back and groaned. She hated to look a mess.
When she finished washing the dishes, she went to the coal stove, picked up the kettle of boiling water and scalded the clean dishes. She filled the kettle and replaced it on the back of the stove, dried her hands and returned to her bedroom to comb her hair and twist it back up.
* * *
Following supper Lena wanted to talk to Sally some more before dark. "Mother, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a walk down to the river with Sally for a little while."
"You girls stay together and get back in a couple of hours. I don't want you out after dark," Mrs. White said glancing up from her knitting. Lena smiled at her dear mother, who was working on one of the many gloves she made her family every year.
Lena heard her mother's needles clicking quickly as she went out on the back porch. Sally Caldwell lived just four houses down and the tall dark haired girl answered the door to Lena's knock.
"Want to take a walk down by the river?"
"What for? We were up town all morning."
"Oh, I thought we might go sit and talk a while."
"Yes, I'd like that. I'm going to grab a coat," she said, letting the screen door slam as she stepped back inside. "Grandma, I'm going with Lena for a walk over to the river, but I won't be late."
Sally hurried down the three steps as she pushed her arm into her short blue coat. Her hair was long and loose and blew into her eyes. She grasped the length and held it as she attempted to insert combs on first one side and then the other.
The girls talked and laughed on their evening walk. It gave them time to be alone and catch up on the girl talk. Since her family only lived in town for six months, Lena appreciated having the friendship of the neighbor who was only a year younger than she was.
"Do you like living in town after growing up on a farm?" Sally asked as they strolled slowly up the dusty road along the railroad tracks.
"Yes, I do. It took a little while getting used to it, but I really like it now. We worked hard on the farm. It wasn't as hard for me, Homer and Oma because we are the youngest of eleven children. We still had to do our part though." Lena's dark brown eyes took on a far away look as she pulled her thin coat tighter against the cool spring wind.
"I remember one time me and Homer had to go out and harness the work horse. We were too small to do it like Daddy did. Homer climbed up in the barn and out on a pole, then dropped the harness down on old Abe's back. I worked around on the ground buckling the big collar and fitting the hams in place. We were hooking the traces just in time for Daddy to go to the fields to plow out the corn. It would take him five or six hours."
"I wouldn't have any idea how to harness a horse," Sally said, "Mother had a little jersey cow and a few chickens so we could have milk and eggs, but that was all we had. You ought to see me milk," as she gave several gestures of milking as she threw her head back laughing.
"I bet you could," Lena laughed with her. "I could too, but I was so slow and kept squirting at the cats so Mother wouldn't let me very often."
"Daddy's grandparents owned four and a half miles of Mill Creek, but it divided up every generation. Still, our farm was a hundred acres.
"It's getting late. We'd better get back toward home," Sally said, standing from the bench beside the river. "Did you ask your mother anything about the Ellis family?"
"No. I forgot about it," Lena said with her chin just a little too high and refused to meet Sally's eyes. Lena was ashamed that she was unable to talk to Sally about Joe after all.
"I asked Grandma and she said she had known them for years. Said Mrs. Ellis is kind and friendly and Mr. Ellis is a policeman. They don't sound so bad."
"It doesn't matter to me one way or another," Lena said shortly and stood to face the river. " Look. There is some trash floating past. It's still rising. They must have got a lot of rain last night upstream."
"Wonder if we'll ever get to follow this old river all the way down to the Ohio River?" Sally said longingly. "My parents rode the train down one time, but I never did."
"Some day, some how, I'm going to do just that. I want to see where it empties out into the Ohio River," Lena said with a final survey of the gently flowing Guyandotte River twisting though the tree lined banks on its journey to the north.


				*wvhorse.com* *Chapter 2*



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