The Dainty Lady's Hanky

If I can find a subject to write on that allows me to open with a quote from Gone with the Wind it always seems like a winner. Well, here goes…

Rhett Butler says to Scarlett as he tries to tell her he’s leaving, “Here take my handkerchief.  Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.”

Not long ago at all, men always had a handkerchief to lend to a weeping lady.   But a lady had one too – Scarlett O’Hara being the exception to lots of these rules.  In Victorian days – when a lady always wore long sleeves during daytime hours – you could tuck your hanky in your sleeve.  At home you could always carry one in your apron pocket (as we established last week, aprons were a regular part of a lady’s attire) or of course you could carry it in your reticule. 

A ladies handkerchief was often a beautiful creation.  They were a means of showing off your skill with a needle, a delicate yet practical accessory that could be matched to your clothing, and even an olfactory shield.  Hankies were often scented by storing them with floral sachets or perfume if you could afford it.  Then whenever you passed by particularly unpleasant odors you could just gently hold it up to your nose and inhale those sweet smells instead of the world around you.  Now remember that our ancestors didn’t bathe nearly as often as we do, had fewer products for odor control and cities actually had open sewage running beside their streets. 

All of this came to mind when an elderly aunt passed along to me some of her hankie collection.  A couple were modern creations with commercially printed flowers or pictures.  A couple had beautiful floral embroidery – whether by hand or machine I can’t tell.  My favorite in the collection has a tatted edge around a simple white square.  This one has received a lot of use and is actually worn through in 3 different places.  But I just love it!  Maybe it’s the hand-made edging (for I don’t think you can tatt on a machine, can you?) or maybe it’s the simple elegance of white and lilac.  But I think it’s probably my favorite because my sweet little aunt chose it again and again until the center wore completely out.

Do you have memories of your mother or grandmother with a hankie in her hand?  Do you remember those scenes in the old movies when an elegant leading lady waved a hanky to her departing lover or whipped one out to catch a falling tear?

Aprons - fashion and utility

It wasn’t too many years ago that every woman doing any kind of domestic work wore an apron.  Clothes were scarce, laundry difficult and household chores were often quite messy.  Aprons were such a practical part of femininity that grandma’s apron was just a part of her – no one questioned it.  They wore them until they were threadbare, adding patches to places that gave way to a burn or constant rubbing – whether on tables or the wash board.  And they were beautiful.  Aprons were made from sack cloth or leftovers – although I’ve rarely seen one made out of patchwork except the modern versions.

A Modern Apron Creation - quilted patchwork

We don’t wear aprons too much anymore.  Of course we don’t cook quite as much as previous generations did either, do we?  And we have so many modern conveniences that maybe we are able to be a little neater in the kitchen (well I’m sure you are all neater in the kitchen, can’t really claim that myself!).  And, I suppose that the ease with which we launder clothes, and the number of outfits we have hanging in our closets make us a little less concerned with spills and spots.  But can you imagine how valuable the scrap of fabric tied around your waist would have been to previous generations?

In Replacing Ann I opened with Winnie in tears because she’d torn her only decent dress – and it was a pitifully faded rag.  This is the very kind of garment you’d want swathe in a protective layer.  

We’ve often talked in our stories about how rare and precious pictures were to earlier generations so women would usually have on their best clothes and certainly not their working apron when they posed for a photographer.  Therefore it’s sometimes hard for me to get a good image of the aprons.  But some of them got handed down – and mothers made aprons for daughters both while they were at home and when they moved to their own homes.  So some of those aprons have survived – and what treasures they are now.

Recently my 102-year-old Great Aunt Willie gave me a little apron she’d made – and used – many years ago.  As she did she said, “Grandmother Livesay always wore an apron.”  Willie may have forgotten how often I saw HER in an apron.  And when my little Ruthie wrapped up in this one it made reminded me that this humble accessory needed to be documented.

My Aunt Roberta kind of collects aprons and it was her collection that supplied the pictures for today’s article.  She has old aprons, “Mom may have made this one,” she noted as we looked through the stack.  And she has aprons she’s made recently which of course she shares her with all of us.  And so the tradition continues I suppose.

Two Fellers Under One Sled

This article will bring us to the end of Callie Melton’s book “Pon my Honor”.  I hope you’ve enjoyed them as much as I have. 

Old man Johnson had a boy named Henery that was a might funny.  He was a big raw-boned and slow-footed boy.  And to make matters worse, when he got to the age for his voice to change it started and then stopped smack dab in the middle of the process.  So Henery always talked two ways.  He’d start out in a fine little boy’s voice, then he’d wind up in a big coarse man’s voice.

Folks would always have a heap of fun about the way Henery talked.  But it was all good-natured fun and not making light, for everbody knowed that it was a sin to make light of anybody’s afflictions.

One day his Pappy started Henery out in the sled to gather some nubbins for cow feed.  On the way to the field, Henery had to go down this little steep place, and the old mule got scared when the sled bumped his hind legs, so he just up and run away.  He run so fast that he run over a big rock and turned the sled over on Henery.  Then he broke loose from the sled and just kept right on going.

It knocked all the wind out of Henery when the sled turned over on him, but as soon as he could get his breath back, he started hollering for help.  He just wore hisself out, so he had to stop to rest.  While he was resting he heard somebody coming down the road, so commenced hollering again.  “Help! Help!” he yelled in his fine little boy’s voice, and then “Get me out! Get me out!” in his big coarse man’s voice.

Now the man who was passing by the sled was a stranger in these here parts, so he didn’t know about Henery and his two voices.  The man listened a couple of time, looked at the heavy sled, and then said, “Well, iffen two o’ ye’ can’t lift that sled, what do you’ens ‘pect me to do?”

And with that the man went on down the road, leaving Henery hollering his head off.

The Preacher and the Old Woman that was a-livin’ in the Dark

Callie Melton includes in “Pon My Honor” a section she calls ‘One for the Road’ and this story falls into that section.

Up here there’s always a whole passel of jokes and tales going around about preachers.  But they are always good-natured jokes and tales, for we are very careful to tell them on our own denomination.  This is done for two mighty good reasons.  First, we just don’t joke with anybody or about anything that we don’t think a right smart of.  Then, too, we all hold mighty strong with what we was brought up with.  Why, it’s just like family.  You can say anything you want to about your own blood and kin, but you just d-double dare anybody else to open his mouth about anybody that’s a-kin to you, no matter how far off it may be.

So, since I was once a member of that church, and still have mighty strong leanings in that direction, I’ll tell this one on the Campbellites.

Picture courtesy of Jane Ashburn

One time there was this here Campbellite preacher who went away back up in the mountain to Walker Holler.  Now don’t ask me where Walker Holler was, for if I told you, you still wouldn’t know… so let me get on with my story.  He was wanting to hold a protracted meetin’ up there if he could find enough people and a good place.  From what he’d heard about Walker Holler, them poor people didn’t get much gospel up there.

So, one day he’d just put his Bible and his song book in his saddlebags and had started out.  He rode, and he rode, and he rode till finally he’d gone about as far as he could go when he come to this house.

He hollered the house, and this old woman come to the door.  He told the old woman that he was a stranger in them parts, and he asked her for a drink of water.  She told him to get down and come in.  So he got down, hitched up his mule and went in to get his drink and to visit awhile.

Him and the old woman talked about the weather and the crops, and then the Preacher told her that he was trying to find out if there was any Campbellite in them parts.

“Why, I don’t know,” she told him.  “My old man hunts a powerful lot, so you kin go out to the smokehouse and look amongst his hides.  You jest might find one o’ them varmints.”

The Preacher just set there and looked at her for a minute with his mouth open.  He was might nigh dumbfounded at what she’d said.
Then he asked her, “My good woman, don’t you know that you are  a-living in the dark?”

Picture courtesy of Jane Ashburn

“Oh! I shore do,” she said, “and I’ve been a-tryin’ fer quite a spell to git the ol’ man to cut us out a winder.  But you know he holds that it’s bad luck to cut out an openin’ atter the house is done built.”

The Preacher was plumb flabbergasted at this, so he just said, “But don’t you know that there’s a Judgement Day a-comin’?  Don’t you want to go?”

The old woman fingered her apron for a minute, then she said, “I hadn’t heerd about hit, but I wouldn’t git to go anyhow.  Hit’ud be too fur to walk.  And you know we don’t have but one ol’ mule and the ol’ man alllers has to ride him.”

Now the old woman just about had the Preacher up a gum stump for something else to say.  Finally he asked her, “But don’t you know that Jesus died fer you?”

“Oh! Mercy no!” she said.  “Why, I didn’t even know that the pore feller was ailin’.”

At this the Preacher just got up and went out and got on his mule and took off home.  When somebody asked him later how he made out up in Walker Holler, he shook his head and went on mumbling to himself, “I wouldn’t a-believed hit iffen I hadn’t a-heard hit with my own years.”

The Boy and The Big White Haint

Well I’ve kind of gotten on a roll with the ghost stories – and I think this is one you’ll really appreciate since it’s a good reminder how we can let our imagination, or our fear, get the best of us.

From Callie Melton’s “Pon My Honor”:

Another favorite haint tale Grandpa told us was the one about the time Old Man Phillips sent one of his boys to the cotton gin.

When Grandpa and Grandma lived in the little settlement called Stockton’s Valley, everybody raised a cotton patch …not only for making bats for quilts, but for making other cotton things like mmeal sacks and summer clothes.  Every family seeded their cotton by hand, but that was a slow, hard way.  Finally, somebody set up a little one-horse, home-made gin nearby, and people started taking their cotton there to be ginned.

One time Miz. Phillips was in a hurry for some cotton for spinning and weaving, so old man Phillips sent one of the younger boys to the gin with a big sheet full of cotton.  Like the miller, the ginner didn’t work every day, so on the days he did work, there would be several folks with cotton, so each one had to take his turn.

The Phillips boy had got to the gin late, so he was the last one to get his cotton ginned.  When he was ready to start back home, it was getting dusky-dark.

The road home was through the woods, and to tell the truth, the boy was about half-way afraid to be out by himself after dark.  So, when he got a little ways form the gin, he started to run his horse.  He had raced down the road for a good piece, when something made him look back.  The boy almost fell off his horse, for there in the road right behind him was something big and white.

This really scared the boy, so he hammered his heels in the old horse’s ribs, and off they went faster than ever.  Again the boy looked back…and this time there were two big white things following in the road behind him.

This time he doubled his speed as he went tearing down the road, and every time he’d look back he’d se a big white thing or two coming right on down the road behind him.

When he got close to home, he started yelling as loud as he could.  When he rode up to the house the whole family was standing outside waiting to see what in tarnation was the matter.  The boy just fell off his horse, and when he could talk he told his pa that there were haints trying to catch him… that they were big and white, and was following him right smack in the middle of the big road.

Old man Phillips didn’t exactly believe in haints, but he could see that something had just about scared the daylights out of his boy.  So he got on his horse and started down the road to see about this here haint business.

Sure enough, he hadn’t got very far when just ahead of him he could see something big and white right smack dab in the middle of the big road.  His hair about stood on end, but he kept on going, and when he got close enough he could see that the thing wasn’t moving… it was just waiting there in the middle of the big road.  His horse started to snort and cut up, so it took all the courage he had, but he got down and lead the horse, and he just walked right up to the thing.  When he got up close to it… he saw what it was… a big pile of fresh ginned cotton!

The old man got back on his horse and rode on down the road, and soon he saw another big white pile of cotton in the middle of the road.  Then he knew just what had happened!  When the boy was riding so hard, one corner of the sheet had come loose and a wad of cotton had tumbled out and landed in the middle of the road… then, the faster he rode, the more cotton had tumbled out.

Old man Phillips gathered up all the cotton he could and went on back home.  When he got there, the family were all setting in the house trying to comfort the scared boy.  But, out by the gate where the boy had stopped, lay the empty sheet.  He put the cotton he had brought in the sheet, tied it up, and took it in the house.

“Here, son, is your haint,” he said as he pitched the sheet of cotton down at the boy’s feet.