Aunt Lucy's house was wonderfully lived in.   On top of the hill, up a concrete drive from Aunt Bell's,  a spacious front porch went halfway around the entire brick house, decorated with "gingerbread", or carpenters' gothic finishing.  There was a gazebo like expansion at the corner of the porch.  There was a domed turret above, as well I remember.  Inside, a large hall way with the obligatory mirrored coat rack and stairs that led up the the second floor and attic.  The room to the left was a formal parlor with grand piano that no one played, and was never used, had a colder, dull feeling, full of understated elegance.   Flowers for parties would bring it to life, no doubt.    It was dark and cold looking in comparison with the rest of the house.   On the right, a bright living room with lots of comfortable furniture, and behind that a family room for romping and playing.   Across the hall was the dining room with a long table that was quite sturdy.   It had to be because of the enormous meals that were served there.

        The Bernhardts believed in food.  There was an institutional size refrigerator in the kitchen behind and at least two busy cooks stirring huge pots on the six burner range, with Aunt Lucy in charge on a daily basis at that time.   The noon meal, called dinner was the main attraction.   And what a meal it was with at least three platters of meat, and six or seven steaming serving bowls of vegetables, whatever was in season.  Tons of mashed potatoes. Huge pile of corn on the cob.  Not uncommon you could pick from chicken fixed in two or three ways:   fried, baked, stewed with dumplings,  broiled with barbecue sause.  Or maybe you wanted pork.   There was always sliced ham, and  grilled pork chops in gravy and maybe ribs.  Plates of sliced roast beef.  Fresh rolls, hot from the oven,  made of course the real way.  Biscuits, flaky and ready for gravy or to melt butter.  No margarine in this house.     Pitchers of cold milk, from mountain cows, with the cream rising to the top.  Homogenization was years in the future.  And a sideboard full of cake and pie.   Ice cream, often homemade! Bowls of banana pudding.  Plates of cup cakes.  Cookies.  For the hungry men in the family working hard to keep things going,  growing,  and glowing!!!! The table sagged and groaned.  A few stomachs also.

    One of those cool June mornings, after two breakfasts of sweet rich buckwheat cakes, apples, milk and no telling how much egg, ham, steak, grits, juice...probably oatmeal too!..I had so much energy I went running around that big old house,   found myself jumping up and down on the pump platform, idle now since running water was city delivered those many years back, but I think, still workable over the well.  I kept repeating the dirtiest word I allowed myself to say:  "hockey".  Completely lost in joyous self-absorption I was jerked back to reality to see Aunt Lucy looking out that bayed dining room window, smiling.  Embarrassed, I was glad the window was down, and unless she read my lips, she remained blissfully unaware of my pre-pubescent vulgarity.

    One night, probably after or during the monopoly game that went on among the youngsters and Woots,  I discovered a children's book among the piles of books and teddies in the back "sitting room".  It had a hole in it from cover to cover.   It had been a favorite of Lenoir youngsters for a couple of generations.  The protagonist shot by accident a projectile somehow, and that bullet went around the world, through a variety of countries on its path to come back and hit the shooter.  I was fascinated, but my blasé cousins thought I was backward, not knowing about the "hole" book!

    And down the hill from Aunt Lucy's, the walk circled by way of Matt's house to the beginning of College Street, which led to town.  Another story follows.
 

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