Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

Editor’s note: in order for her readers to better relate to her story, Rena is using the West Virginia mountain dialect she was familiar with when she was young.

Us borned and raised mountain people just have to go berry pickin’. Now, I don’t need to preserve chokecherries this year, for we picked enough for two years last season, but as I drove by my favorite bush coming home from my morning walk I could see it was loaded and the berries were already ripe. Maybe this dryness and heat made them ripen early this year. I even tried to go on home, but in my driveway I turned around and went back to see if what I thought I seen was right. Sure enough, they were just ready for harvest. So back to the house I went to put on my usual garb for the occasion. I got my small buckets and off to the patch I went by myself this year.

I just had to, why; you never know next year we might not have enough of these berries to make the most delicious jelly. My little bush is spreading out and I found the best berries on the new branches coming up on the outside. As I walked around to the west side of the bush, I stepped in large hole that made me fall with a jolt. But, that bruise on my leg didn’t stop me. So, up and out of the hole I got and I picked on, til’ my hands were purple. I shivered when I ran into my first Painted Lady caterpillar. She not only eats your soybeans, but also my chokecherry bush. But as I watched closely, I could see she wasn’t eating the berries, just the leaves. So, on I picked right around her and left her the leaves. I picked on til’ reality caught up with me, knowing I had an unreasonable amount of berries to put up in one day. It’s not the picking that takes the time; it’s the cooking and canning the juice that requires lots of time. It was so hard to quit and leave some behind.

Only one day a year do I do this fun job, and I think of that hot July day each time we eat chokecherry jelly on homemade bread, or corn bread on a cold winter eve.

Pickin’ chokecherries in Nebraska is not too much different than pickin’ black raspberries or huckleberries in the Boone County Mountains of West Virginia. In about 1950, when I was 6-years-old, we moved from the town of Maxine that I write about so often, to a place just about a mile and a half, down High way 3 and up Joe’s Creek. We lived in a much better house there and it was painted white. On a hot July morn, my grandpa would rise early, and I knew where he was going; to the berry patch. Once, I went along with my own little pail on my arm. My grandpa would be dressed kinda like I am when I go berry pickin’ here on Cottonwood Creek. He always wore blue jeans and a blue chambray shirt. Of course it was long sleeved, just like mine. Well, those black raspberries were thick in the hills; they grow over everything, and its so hard to get through them, but deep down among the thorns that make you bleed, are the biggest, most sweetest berries I have ever tasted. I swear those berries were as big as half my thumb. Being a little girl at that time, I think I ate more than I picked. We picked and picked and filled our lard buckets and other containers. As the sun grew high and the heat and humidity became unbearable and chiggers were everywhere, we left the patch at the head of Joe’s Creek and returned to our home down the lane from Thompson’s store. On the long front porch of our modest home at the foot of the mountain sat those soft berries, and I ate some more. Grandpa wouldn’t fuss much but just say, “Rena, if you don’t stop eating, we won’t have any to can.” After canning, they never tasted as good as they did straight from the patch on that special day.

My grandpa was a quiet man and never said much, but like me he loved his berries. With those canned black raspberries my Grandma Susan made the best black raspberry dumplings. I used to watch her stir up those light dumplings and drop them in to the steaming berry juice, to which extra sugar and butter had been added. I observed and took this all in while perched by the flour bin on the old white kitchen cupboard. As my feet dangled down not reaching the floor, I thought life was about perfect; loving grandparents and lots of good mountain food. There was no other place I wanted to be at that time in my little life. A few years later, I went through the awful experience of losing my grandmother to cancer and I went to live with my father in the Colorado mountains. We returned home to see my Grandpa a year later. The mountains never looked so good. You will never know how glad I was to see my grandpa, Lummie Walker. The only thing he asked me was to make him blackberry dumplings grandma’s way. At that time, I was only about thirteen-years-old and lacked the cooking skills that my grandma had, but since I had watched her so many times I attempted to make his favorite berry dessert. He ate and ate and said it was wonderful. So, for one more time, he got to enjoy a mountain food that made him happy.

Our visit was short in the hills and we left for the Colorado mountains about a couple of weeks later. The night before we left, I lie on my grandpa’s bed and cried, for I so wanted to stay with him and take care of him. When I walked out of the front door of a house filled with love, that summer day at just about blackberry pickin’ time, I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see him. He died a few months later in the wintertime.

Grandpa never liked cats. I had a big old yellow tomcat that I had left behind when I went to live with my father in Colorado the same year my grandma passed away. Our neighbor up Joe’s Creek told me that Grandpa got so attached to that cat and it followed him everywhere he went. Losing my grandmother and me at the same time must have been so sad for him. I had lived with my grandpa and grandma since I was 1-year-old, basking in their wonderful love. I received guidance that would last me all my life.

In a matter of three years I lost both my grandparents that I loved so dearly. I never expected this to happen, but the Lord had a better plan. At the age of 13 my life completely changed: new parents, new surroundings, new school, new friends, and a new lifestyle. I didn’t want this change, so it was extremely hard on me. I did not accept it graciously. So…don’t ask me why I don’t like change. I hang on far too long tight to life, as I know it now today. I am happy here on Cottonwood Creek. Franklin County, Nebraska is just where I want to be. I don’t know how life could be any better. On this past July Monday, I was transformed back in time: I felt the same West Virginia sun on my shoulders and I seen once again my grandpa with his blue and white lard bucket in his hand. I seen the sweat on his blue shirt and the twinkle in his eye thinking tonight we will have hard earned blackberry dumplings. I felt grandpa’s unconditioned love hug me tight, and I sensed his reassurance that my life here in the country is where I belong, for the Lord’s better plan had been fulfilled.

It’s half past eight o’clock and the sun is rising. I’ve got a bucket in hand, out the door and down the road, for it’s once again berry pickin’ time and I just have to go.

The higher up the berry tree, the sweeter grows the berries.
The more you hug and kiss the girls, the more they want to marry
Old Mountain Folksong

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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