THE GUMDROP TREE (Brenham, Texas 1951)

The Gumdrop Tree

(Brenham, Texas 1951)

           

     “He told me you’d come, and Lawd, here you are, Child!  I’ve been waiting out here for you!  I made you this pretty gumdrop tree!”   It was small white limb from a tree that she had cleaned off and stuck gumdrops on the end of each branch and twig.  It was beautiful and very alluring to any child!

            I must have been 3 years old.  Dad was a salesman for Corning Glassware, and he had been transferred to Brenham, Texas.  I remember the old house as plain as day; a white Victorian style built on a rock bed summit.  The road in front to the house was graded.  There was an old black man everyone called Sargent that rode his horse down the graded road, and pulled a pony behind him for any child to ride for a nickel.  He also whistled a tune, but I don’t recall what it was.  I got to ride the pony once after I’d pestered Dad to ride so many times.   That was my very first smell of horse.  He actually made a big production out of it, pulling and squeezing his nose until a nickel fell out.  “You kids are going to drive me to the poor house!”    

  

             I climbed the wooden steps up to the old woman’s front porch.  She chattered happily and handed the gumdrop tree to me, which I gladly took and started eating the gumdrops.  I couldn’t believe that this woman was giving me candy on a tree!  I sat on that old woman’s front porch and talked to her until she told me that my mother was probably worried about me.  The old woman cautioned me not to eat too many gumdrops, that it would spoil my appetite before for dinner.  I scooted down the wooden steps on my bottom with the tree in my hand, and skipped back up the graded road to the house happily carrying the gumdrop tree high in the air.  I was eager to show it to my sisters and Mom and Dad.  I was greeted with an admonishment from Mom, who was in tears and very angry with me.  “I had no idea where you were!”  “Where did you get that?”  “I’ve told you never to talk to strangers!”  I tried to explain that a nice lady gave it to me, but she cried and fussed even more; and the gumdrop tree was taken away.  “Who knows what’s on it?   My young world was forever changed.  I will note right here that I do understand why she took it away.  Polio was rampant at that time, and Mom sterilized everything.

            
             There were two women that came to the house two or three days a week to help Mom with the laundry, housekeeping and managing 4 children.  She was pregnant with number 5 and it was hard to keep up with that many and see to the upkeep of the family and house.  They were Dozzie (for Dorothy) and Marie .   I remember too, we all went barefooted playing in the yard.  We were cautioned stay in the yard and not too close to the graded road.   I remember going to the edge near the road.  I’d stepped in a big red ant bed.  Dozzie came running out to rescue me.  She started gently swatting the ants off of me.  I thought she was mad at me and started crying.  She carried me in the house, and dotted my ant bites with Calamine Lotion.  Though I was just scared, Dozzie soothed me and told me to stay closer to the house where she could see me. 

           
              Dozzie and Marie had 2 milk cows that they often brought to graze in our yard.  I remember them drinking water out of our big square, galvanized tub that they sometimes bathed us in.  Dad managed to squeeze three of us (Joanie, Ann and me) in that tub for a picture.

           

              I think about this part of my life often, though it was about 64 years ago.  I believe it’s a gift that I can remember things so distant in my childhood so vividly.  I have many, many memories like this, and I wish my older sister, Joanie was still here to reminisce about these old memories.