A Visit From Relatives

It was the first day of summer and light was streaming into my bedroom. It was daylight! Mama’s sister, Agnes, husband, George, and their daughter, Marlys, would arrive this morning. They were motoring down from Waterloo, almost two hundred miles away. I was ten, almost eleven that summer and had not seen them since I was seven when Mama had taken my youngest brother and me with her when she went to help care for Grandma. The excitement was almost too much to bear.

Aunt Agnes and Uncle George always sent the most expensive Christmas gifts and the hand-me-down clothes from my cousin were from Mays Company where my aunt worked. They weren’t made from feed sacks like all of my clothes. There was sure to be another box coming with them as Marny (as we called her) was two years older than I.

Breakfast was a hurried affair with a flurry of last minute cleaning and preparations for a midmorning coffee and dinner. Keep in mind midmorning coffee meant sandwiches, yeast rolls, and/or cake and cookies. Dinner meant what today is called lunch. There would be chicken, fresh corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, gravy, tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers from the garden. Bread, jams, jellies, butter, canned fruit (all put up or made by Mama), and dessert. Yes, we churned our own butter.

At nine or nine thirty they drove up the lane, the car horn honking away and my cousin leaning out the window waving. Papa had taken some time away from the fields and everyone hugged, kissed, asked about the trip, and went inside. Mama finished putting out the makings for sandwiches, the men brought in a box which I knew had to be for me, but politeness dictated we wait with seeing what was in there until after everyone had their “coffee.” Of course, the children had milk, water, or Kool-Aid. At least for company Mama had used the right amount of sugar instead of cutting it in half as she normally would.

Everyone talked at once and we children were finished more rapidly than adults that lingered over coffee and conversation. We asked permission to leave and headed outside.

Marny was the kind of cousin it should have been easy to hate. She was an elfin creature with beautiful blonde curls. All Agnes had to do was wash Marny’s hair and wrap the tresses around her finger. The Shirley Temple curls would remain all week. Instead of the blue, grey, or green eyes that most of us possessed, Marny’s eyes were brown like her father’s. She wanted to see everything about the farm.

The biggest draw was the lambs. The one ewe had thrown twins and one was a runt. Unlike the other lambs instead of white with black stockings, he was grey. He was too small to sell and his wool was the wrong color for selling. We named him Shorty even though we knew full well he was destined for our table later that fall.

Marny fell for the lamb that followed us and scampered around us. We didn’t have the heart to tell her the other sheep didn’t really want him around. He was different. Marny held that lamb when they tired of playing until we were called in for the noon meal.

For once I did not need to help with the preparation or cleanup. Aunt Agnes was doing that and we were shooed outside again. The adults wanted to talk. Of course, we went back to where the sheep were kept.

It must have been about two or three o’clock when the call came for us to return as they were preparing to leave. Mama had fresh eggs packed in a box for them to take, plus a supply of cookies to sustain them on their way. Marny hugged Shorty one more time telling him goodbye and how she would come back to play with him.

My brother was one year younger than I and blurted out, “But he’ll grow.” I shook my head at him not to say anything more. We were farm children. Cattle, hogs, and sheep were livestock; a fact we always knew. Horses worked, but they could be viewed as pets just like our dogs.

Marny smiled at us and replied, “I know, but I’ll still play with him when I come back. Promise you’ll take good care of him.”

My brother was red-faced and sputtering. Of course, we would take good care of him and feed him quite well, but our reason was different from her reason.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ll make sure he gets extras when I feed him.”

Marny looked relieved and hugged him one more time before running to their car. Uncle George was beating on the horn as he was impatient to start the long drive home.

I did not see Marny again until I was almost seventeen and one of my older brothers drove us up to Waterloo. I had long outgrown her and her lovely clothes had not fit me for years. It was the time of the poodle cut for women and all she did was wash her hair and scrunch it. My hair was long as there was no way my hair would hold a curl that long. She did not ask about Shorty as she was into Gene Kelly at the time. I thought that quite silly as I was into Science-Fiction and history books. We never told her that Shorty had been our dinner for quite a few meals.