The Acorn Roof House

I was very young when we lived in the big two story white house with an acorn shaped roof and even to this day I love those so, being reminded of this home.

It was a very large house and had an upstairs. There were sweet peas growing all along the fence so thick I could make me a little room inside them as I had where we lived when I was five to about seven or eight. I just had little brothers at this house and I don’t remember playing with them here at all and even though I had a sister she was a lot older and she was gone most of the time and my older brother too. I can’t picture him there at all.

There was about an acre that was our yard and we could barely see the highway and Frank and Dawson, the television guitar player’s house; who lived at the very end of our road.

There was a silver maple tree just outside the kitchen window and I loved to sit and stare at it, especially when there was a little breeze. It shimmered and each leaf twinkled separately. It was like God’s own Christmas tree to me; there is nothing more beautiful.

I could just walk across the field on the other side of the dirt road and go up a hill and down the other side to my friend’s house that shared boyfriends with me. I don’t know how that came about but of course we were neither old enough for boyfriends but we loved crushes and for some reason we decided to just have them together for the same boy. It was so much more fun that way. Her daddy had a lumber mill and they had seven kids just like my family and her two youngest brothers had the same name as my two youngest brothers!

I could also go by the highway but then I would go by the house a girl maybe a year younger than me lived, who wanted to be friends with me but Mom would not let me go to her house. Her parents were rough Mom said and they said bad words and this girl’s older sisters wore lots of make-up and flirted and went out with boys. That sounded like fun to me but I knew if Mom said it like that there was something about it I just couldn’t ask about and I couldn’t guess so I just tried not to go by her house and have to say no.

This girl was like the one my mamaw wouldn’t let me be friends with at her house. They couldn’t help about their families. It wasn’t her fault and I would never tell her why I couldn’t come to her house and play but I was sure she somehow knew. One day I did go though, maybe no one was home but her, I don’t remember anyone else being there, but she wanted to fry me an egg and put catsup on it and I said yuck, no, but she insisted and I really liked it.

We had lived way on up at the end of this road on a huge farm where deer ran through the fields and my brother had to shoot his only dog; that was older than my brothers and me. That was a very large two-story house too, with pine walls and floors and a balcony upstairs. That was the only two years I ever went to school with a sibling, the brother two years younger than me because somehow I was born right in the middle and it made me oldest of the younger five and sort of a second mother.

We really loved it there at the farm, but it was a such a very long walk for two years for my brother and me and we had to go to that tiny one room school that had four grades. When winter came it was a terrible walk and half the time we missed the bus and had to walk even farther. Then sometimes we would think we missed the bus and walk on getting to school before the bus. We didn't have watches like kids today, but even if we did the bus driver still did whatever he wanted to, and if we started walking and were not at our bus stop he would just pass us on by! I was never allowed to sass anyone but sometimes I sure wanted to.

Now a new family lived on that farm and they were very poor. The oldest boy was about, if not, as big as my oldest brother and when winter came they had to walk that long walk in the deep snow and they weren’t little children like my brother and I but I knew the sting of that cold snow when it was so deep and would go inside your shoe and bite against your ankles.

What made it even worse is they did not have the warm clothes that we had and the oldest one wore a woman’s head scarf. Maybe their daddy or mommy didn’t care about them, I don’t know. I would stand with Mom and watch from a window this pitiful young man with a headscarf on and it wasn’t a scarf like you wrap around your neck. It was triangular and I could swear it was silk, it didn’t look like it could help him at all, but he was pulling it tight as the wind whipped it, trying to pull it away.

I had a loving mother and father and so today when it is way too late I can’t ask anyone why we did not find or buy something for that boy. There was more than him but maybe the younger ones had something on, I can’t picture them, just him.

The only thing I can guess is pride. My mom and dad would not have taken a hand out from anyone so maybe they thought it would be insulting to offer. I know it broke Mom’s heart just like mine but as I was brought up to do, I never asked questions and to this day I can still picture that boy with the wind and sleet pushing against him; hanging on to that scarf.

I was a tom boy who loved to climb trees, walk barrels, play in the woods and even play with frogs; and I never liked dolls but no one ever knew and always bought me one. This year was fifth grade and the last Christmas I got a doll but it was a beautiful bride doll that I put in the middle of my bed. Being the only girl at home I always had a room to myself. This time I had the prettiest room with dark cherry, shiny wood walls and floor. The bride doll made it even more beautiful.

Now I got to go back to the school I started in and would ride the bus there with not far to catch the bus at all. Getting off the bus almost every day I could smell Mom’s wonderful cooking. I would always breathe it deep and my stomach would growl. I was always ready for supper. Dad never got home until after midnight so Mom always had to save him some. We rarely saw Dad growing up because of the hours he worked and slept.

I loved the years I lived here and all the memories are good or funny. From the bus I could see the funny shaped roof and that upstairs window on that side that reminded me of fairytale books and made me smile inside. I was proud hurrying home from the bus of that big white house with an acorn shaped roof!