Ain’t No Cokes In Hell!
Part two
Every farm on the creek had its own orchard in those days. The seedlings were commonly purchased from a salesman traveling around selling trees for a nursery. Down here on the creek it was usually the Stark Bros. Nursery from Louisiana, Mo. Many times the peddler traveled by horseback to take the orders for the fruit trees in late summer. The seedlings arrived in late fall with the mail carrier and were promptly planted. They always produced as represented.
I spoke earlier of Great-grandma’s stone canning jars, which brings to mind the large stone jars that my Aunt, my Grandmother and my Mother utilized to pickle cucumbers and process kraut. My Aunt and my Mother transferred the pickles and the kraut into glass mason jars but Grandma Laura almost always preferred to leave hers in the large stone jars, and just take out what she needed to cook that day.
What cabbage that was not processed into kraut was kept in a hole in the front lawn of this house. It was covered with soil and hay to prevent it from freezing and was unearthed when needed for the winter table. A few summers ago I had some landscaping done in that area, so the indentation is no longer visible.
A favorite family folklore story (every family has them) concerns my cousin Norma and her Mother’s (my Aunt) large stone canning jars. It was late fall and the canning season was finally over. My Aunt had washed her precious jars and turned them upside down on the back porch to air.
Now picture my impish little cousin, “Tootie,” as we all still refer to her,with a “hickory nut” and Tootie had secured possession of a hammer from somewhere. The top of the crock was about the right height for her “cracking” purposes. So, she rested the hickory nut upon the first jar in order to strike it with the hammer and reveal it’s wealth inside.
When the first jar split neatly apart, not to be deterred, she just picked up her hickory nut and proceeded to move to the next jar. Another bit the dirt! And another! And another! But little Miss Tootie didn’t cease until she had reached the end of the row. And I’m sure that if I recall the proficiency my wonderful Aunt had with a peach tree limb, little Miss Tootie sat down carefully for awhile.
I spoke earlier of the wash house in every back yard on the creek. That was a way for the women to keep the heat of canning, cooking and laundry from the main house. They had their own wood fired cook stove which were never as grand as the range that was in the main kitchen inside the house. Grandma Laura, here on the creek, had a plain Jane black one in the wash house out back. Inside the house she had a white enameled model that she kept polished and shined as if it were 18 carat gold. My Mother had a modern, latest in technology, electric range as soon as the REA (Rural Electric Association) made that possible. My Grandmother resisted for many years before succumbing to a gas model. Little by little she realized the benefits that came from less heat in the house.
I don’t exactly recall the lengths of time that all those canning pots had to process atop that old wood burning stove but I do know that the combination of a wood fire and steam, on an already hot summer day, made you think seriously about what was preached from the pulpit on Sunday. It gave you a prelude to what after life down below would be like. The preservation of the family’s food in that old washhouse made me know, as the old Evangelist said: “There ain’t no fans, not no rest and brother, there ain’t no cokes in hell!”
