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| A Story I learned when I was quite young that there was only one thing my Daddy was really afraid of, and of all things it was mice! Now you need to understand that his parents both died when he was very small and the woman who kept him for several years was very abusive. She used to lock him in the root cellar for what he later swore was days at a time with no lights but lots of scurrying creatures. So I assume this is where his fear came from, but he would never discuss it. The first time I ever saw evidence of his fear was when I was about 10 years old. He was working in his shop when a little mouse ran across the floor. He yelled and jumped up on top of his work bench yelling, Kill it, Kill it now! Take that broom and get rid of it! I just stood there laughing. I laughed so hard he threatened to kill me when he could reach me. Mom heard the commotion and ran in, grabbed the broom and chased the mouse out. I got out quicker than the mouse. Later Mom explained about his fear. I never forgot it. But I never realized till many years later just what he had gone through. Like the ornery child that I was, I just knew I had something to get back at him with. Sometime later my brother and I got a rubber mouse from somewhere and put it on that same work bench under something so that when Daddy picked it up, there that mouse was. Leon and I were hiding and watching him. We nearly laughed ourselves sick. He had a hammer in his hand and he was hitting that poor mouse and it's jumping and he's yelling and that hammer is knocking chunks out of that bench. Finally he realized what it was and he turns and sees us. I swear you never saw two kids move so fast, even if we were still laughing. He was threatening to kill us. Soooooo funny. Or so we thought back then. When I was about fourteen we were out in the cotton fields. It was after work was over and Daddy was standing talking to some of the men. He and I had an argument earlier and I was still mad at him. He always had to know what I was doing and always thought the worst of me. So I walked up near him, holding my closed right hand in my left hand. Of course he wanted to know what I had in my hand. I said 'Nothing' and put my hand behind my back. When I still refused to show him he got mad and demanded I show him. Which of course I had known all along he would do. So I held my hand right up in front of his face and opened my fingers. There lay the cutest, pinkest, wriggling little baby mouse you ever saw. He yelled and hit my hand so hard the poor baby went flying in one direction and believe, me I flew in the other direction. He was screaming, threatening to kill me. The guys caught him and calmed him down. They didn't know he really wouldn't kill me. Boy was I laughing. Momma just did not understand, for some reason she did not find it funny at all and she grounded me even though I tried to convince her the huge bruise covering my hand should have been punishment enough. She didn't seem to feel the least bit sorry for me. I had a teacher in 6th. grade who bruised my hand over a spider, but that's another story. |