Onc’t they was a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers—
An’ when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His mammy heard him holler, an’ his daddy heard him bawl,
An’ when they turned the kivvers down he wasn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the celler room an’ cubbyhole an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue an’ ever’where’s, I guess
But all they ever found was thist his pants an’ roundabout!
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll get you . . .
Ef you don’t watch out! . . .
An’ little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,–
You better mind yer parunts, an’ yer teachurs fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you
Ef you don’t watch out!
James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie” is stored in my mental attic’s trunk. I don’t believe that any poet has done better than Riley at setting a mood as he did in the first four lines of the last stanza quoted above. He was also a master at crafting the speech and images of the people of his era. I can just imagine the servant girl, Annie, telling stories to wide-eyed, shivering children.
Thus, do I picture in my mind’s eye and ear old Granny telling stories in her inimitable way while I sipped weak coffee loaded with milk and sugar into which I dipped graham crackers. (Mother called her coffee “pee water.”) Granny stroked her chin meditatively and said, “Did I ever tell you about the séances we used to have when your Grandpa and I lived up on Morgan St.? Your uncle Ivan was a medium, and your aunt Nola, your mother and I would turn off the lights and sit around the dining room table, hold hands and have a séance.”
She paused to fit a cigarette into her holder and then continued, “Oh, strange things happened, especially around Halloween! One time it sounded like rats were gnawing under the floor, and your aunt Nola stomped on the floor and told them to go back to Hell where they’d come from.” I was spellbound by her tales of slamming doors, inexplicable bangs and rattles. (They eventually decided that the séances were the work of the devil and stopped them.)
Oh what delicious shivers and shudders I had when she described the resident ghost! “There was the ghost of a woman in that house. l tell you, even your dad was scared one time, and he didn’t believe in spirits and séances and such. She had on a taffeta gown that rustled — swish, swish, swish! — when she went up and down the stairs. Yes siree! One time Earl was halfway down the stairs, and here she came a swishing and a-rustling back and forth past him, and he couldn’t move a muscle!” Daddy swore he felt her gown brush against his leg!
Many years later, an older guest at a Halloween party at friend Sarah’s house asked me, “Did you hear about the séances that your grandma and others had where all sorts of strange things happened?” “Yes, they decided that it was the work of the devil.” “Well, it was the work of E. O. Kelly, that’s who. Your grandpa Kelly was an old rascal. He told me about a contraption that he’d rigged up in the attic that he could use to create various sound effects.”
As I’ve aged, I’ve come to visualize life as a continually growing and rich tapestry of interwoven experiences. My old granny was a unique original whose stories enhanced the many-colored tapestry of my being. wclarke@comcast.net