Page 160 - my-people-abbie-harris-beck

Lucy Anne Weeks Dowdy played games with us occasionally, but when Lucy came over
we usually played with our dolls or paper dolls, and the boys finished the games.
When we tired of sitting, we played cowboy and Indians. I liked to be Lash Larue
or the Black Whip. We used vines for our whips. If we hurt anyone we got the switch.
In the grass between our house and the Baptist church, Indian cane grew. We would have
chews every now and then. We had big elephant ears growing by that side of the house
and for sure we got in trouble if we got into the flower beds.
Sometimes we played hide and seek and we would dash into the church. The
church was never locked and we hid between the pews and sometimes down the stairs by
the office. Once we started up to the Jr. Dept., but it was dark and the lights would not
turn on. Brother Holmes would sometimes be in his office side of the church and tell us to
be reverent. Sometimes we would stand in the choir and pretend to be Mr. Phillips and
make faces singing, like he did .
Mary Strickland came over and we played dress up and dolls. Sometimes looked
at books and talked and rode our bikes.
In the summertime after the kids went to their homes for lunch, I would wait for
daddy to come home. I tried to climb up in the Crepe Myrtle trees and watch. When I
got tired of th at, I walked down passed Mrs. Griffen's house and sat on the curb. And I
waited. It was a thrill when I saw daddy leaving the post office and him walking across
the street and his tie swinging in the breeze. We could never eat before daddy came home.
Grandmother Harris had chickens in the cages by the pet animals. I loved to be
allowed to collect the eggs. This particular time I had gathered the eggs and had an arm
full. I started up the high back steps. They were concrete, very narrow, but high. They
also were slanted and how we ever made it up with out falling is a miracle. On this day I
got to the top step, which was slanted and could not get to the door and fell with all the
eggs. I was so worried about the breaking of the eggs I could not think of my injuries. I
cried and remember the miserable feeling.
Occasionally, mother or daddy would kill a chicken to eat. I watched them ring
the neck but never got used to it. One day they had gone inside and I was playing mud
pies, which I played often. My birthstone ring I had gotten for Christmas was all muddy
and I put it on the back steps and one of the chickens came and gobbled it up. I cried for
days. Never liked chickens again. On my birthday, I got another ring and have the
mounting to this day. I lost the set out of it. It was a purple stone. It is very special.

Christmas in our home was a very special time. Daddy and mother would put me
and the boys in the car, a Plymouth, and we would go to the woods to find the biggest
tree around. It had to be a cedar. There was so much excitement to get the tree and then
the waiting for daddy to get it to stand up in the living room. We had 12 foot ceilings and
no problem of a tree reaching it. Of course George and I wanted it to touch the ceiling.
That was the measure of a "good" tree. Then mother and daddy would put on the lights
as we watched or played in the living room which was a treat. We were not allowed to
play in the living room. It was filled with all the good furniture and an upright piano that
was my mothers growing up. After the electric lights were on and trying to get them to
burn, mother carefully placed the glass ornaments on the tree and then our part. We got