Slugs and Chickens

June 29, 2008

Kate planted ten sunflowers in her California garden. Only four are surviving. Slugs killed the other six. She threw the slimy things off her property, but they kept coming back, bringing hungry cousins with them. So, Kate bought poison, and slugs are now a thing of the past. She's happy to have four healthy sunflowers left, but sad she had to stoop to slugacide to save them.

She trapped a spider inside her house and carried it outside to set it free. She's hoping that act of goodness will counteract her slug-killing badness and keep the flames of hell from getting too close.

I'm smiling.

Gently.

Kate is a lot like my father ...

During the final days of his life, when he prayed for God's mercy, Daddy wasn't concerned about sins in general. He had two specific wrong-doings - almost three - weighing heavily on his conscience.

Number one: He worried about the amount of whiskey - both homemade and storebought - he had consumed in his lifetime. There was, he seemed to think, no excuse for that sin. Further discussion was useless.

Ken and I, standing silently beside our father's bed, judged the man far less harshly than he judged himself. His drinking had never caused him to miss a day's work ... His drinking never deprived his family of material needs ... and he was never mean.

God would be merciful.

Sin number two: The theft of two chickens. Daddy would have been about 41 when this crime took place. The worst of the great depression fell upon our family in 1937. Two years later Daddy was still doing hard menial labor for 50 cents a day and believing the economy couldn't possibly get worse when, without warning, our country took another nosedive and my daddy, along with millions of daddies like him, could find no work at all.

The great depression was half-a-century behind us when Ken and I heard our dying father say, "Lord, you know I wouldn't have stole them two chickens that time, but my kids was hungry."

God would understand.

Sin number three: The "almost" sin. The one that didn't quite happen but came close. Daddy almost whipped Ken. In order to grasp the heart-stopping magnitude of this non-event, you have to first know that my father did not believe in spanking. A man could hit another man if he had good reason, or, well, if he just plain felt like it, but women and children were off limits.

Mrs. Picket was a widow who lived off the land. Home-canned garden vegetables fed her year-round. Apples from her orchard were carefully dried and stored for winter use. More importantly, apples were sold by the bushel, providing cash for flour, sugar and coal oil.

Ken and I didn't trouble our young minds with these facts. We only knew that right across the road and over the fence there were limbs sagging beneath the weight of golden, sun-ripened juicy treats.

One day, Mrs. Picket, walking softly, happened upon a burglary in progress. As the peaceful countryside exploded with the lady's threats and screams, half-a-dozen thiefs in short pants fell out of trees and scrambled across fences. Too late. Her sharp eyes had recorded every nose, ear and freckle. Before sundown certain little boys would be meeting in woodsheds with angry fathers.

In no time flat Daddy and nine-year-old Ken were facing each other in the front yard. I, only six with no hope now of reaching seven, remained glued to my brother's side. Too scared to stay. Too scared to run.

"Son, were you in Mrs. Picket's orchard today?" Daddy asked.
"No Sir, I was not." Ken answered.
"Let's go," Daddy said.

Up the hill and around the curve my men marched toward Mrs. Picket's house. Ken, taking three steps to match Daddy's one ... Me, running.

Mrs. Picket opened her screen door and met us on the porch, apron around her waist, broom in her hand. Daddy held his hat flat against his chest, gripping the brim with both hands.

"Mrs. Picket, Was Ken one of the boys in your orchard today?"
"No, Mr. Pearson. I didn't see your boy. He wasn't there." she said.

We were halfway back down the hill before I began to believe we weren't going to die.

What Daddy never knew ... what he didn't ask and no one, thank God, ever told ... is that while Ken honestly was not in Mrs. Picket's orchard, he was on the ground just outside her fence, receiving stolen goods. As the other boys threw apples over the fence, Ken's job was to put them into a burlap bag. He did his job well.

That was sin number three. The "almost" sin. Daddy, a man who didn't believe in whipping even a guilty child, had come very close to whipping his "innocent" son.

Almost asleep ... drifting toward the coma from which he would never awaken ... Daddy opened his eyes and asked clearly, "What was the name of the woman that saved Ken from getting a whipping that time?"

Ken and I, knowing exactly who he meant, answered, "Mrs. Picket."

Daddy said, "I want to say a prayer for Mrs. Picket."

Even in times of greatest sorrow, a light-hearted moment comes peeking through. Across Daddy's bed, Ken and I shared a smile ... remembering.