Fetching The Buttermilk

 

      When I was a little girl, we lived way out in the sticks. There won't nothin 'round our farm for miles, but trees. The nearest neighbor lived a mile away. We didn't go to the food market 'nor the farmer's market very often. We only went when we was out of most everything we couldn't produce 'nor barter with a neighbor for. We had one cow, her milk had to be used for drinkin and cookin, There was none left to churn butter and buttermilk from, so we traded for, or bought, our butter and buttermilk from an old, neighbor widow-woman, Miss Cora.

      Bein an only child I was the one who was sent to fetch the buttermilk. Mama and Daddy liked buttermilk, I even liked it with greens, so I had to go about once a week to fetch the butter and buttermilk. I really liked goin to see Miss Cora. I'd been makin the one mile walk up the mountain since I was six years old. I think Miss Cora liked it when I came 'round. She lived alone since her husband died when at 23 she was still a young woman.

      She told me stories about when she was young and she let me pet the old mule out in her pasture. She gave me grain and apples to feed him. There was always a few kittens hangin around her old farmhouse and barn, and I did love kittens.

      Miss Cora didn't look strong enough to be a farmer. She was a tiny woman who wore tattered clothes she must have owned 50 years before. She had long salt and pepper hair twisted up into a bun. Her hands were work worn with rough skin and brittle nails. Her wrinkled face was a map of the years and the hard times she'd been through. 

      When it was time for me to leave, she'd give me a pound of butter wrapped in wax paper and a gallon of buttermilk in a jug. I'd give her the money or whatever Mama sent to trade with her and I'd soon be on my way back down the mountain, so I'd get home before dark. It was a mile of walkin but at least it was downhill. On the way I had to pass an old abandoned church and graveyard. Mama and Daddy didn't believe in ghosts but I'd run past that fallin-down church and the overgrown graveyard. I guess I musta believed in ghosts, no matter what my parents taught me.

      Miss Cora was easy to talk to. She used to tell me, “Iris, make sure you know how to make a livin on your own. Don't grow up expectin a man to take care of you. Men die young sometimes and I hate to tell you this, sometimes they leave. Learn how to take care of yourself. That's what I've had to do all these years. Farmin aint easy and I get plumb worn out.”

      I told her about how the old church and graveyard scared me. “Miss Cora, I'm so scared when I pass by that old church. It's so creepy with that old, overgrown graveyard beside it. I wanna run every time I pass by it. Mama and Daddy say there aint no such thing as ghosts but I believe there is. Why else would I get chills every time I walk past there, I mean, run past there? I run, Miss Cora, 'cause I'm too scared to walk. Do you think I'm silly to feel that way?”

      “Why, no, Child, there aint nothin silly 'bout listenin to the feelins God put in your heart and body. You keep listenin, Iris. That's important, never stop listenin. Sometimes folks needs to listen more, 'cause God might be tellin 'em somethin important. There is ghosts, I know it for a fact. Don't tell your parents I told you that, it has to be just between you and me. But I can tell you from personal experience, there is ghosts. You know, there are some folks buried in that graveyard that won't good. There's a couple of murderers buried there and more'n a few folks the church wanted nothin to do with, 'cept to bury 'em. They says if'n you was evil or good in life, you'll be the same in death. Girlie if you feels like runnin, you run.”

      That was the last time I saw Miss Cora. The next week it snowed too deep to walk up the mountain The following week I was sick and Mama went to fetch the buttermilk. I'll never forget the look on her face when she got home. She had no butter or buttermilk in her hands but she had a blaze of anger in her eyes.

       “Where did you get it, Iris?”

      “Get what Mama?”

      “Where did you get the buttermilk for the past six months?”

      “I got it from Miss Cora.”

      “Girl, don't you lie to me, where did you get it from, 'cause I know it won't from Miss Cora.”

      “What you mean, Mama? 'Course I got it from Miss Cora, where else would I get it from?”              Mama, who never let me see her cry, stood there in front of me with tears running down her face.”

     “I can't believe you'd lie to your mama, Iris. I thought you respected me more'n that.”

     " I aint lied to you, Mama. I never lie to you. I got it from Miss Cora.”

     “You couldn't a got it from Miss Cora. When I went to fetch the buttermilk today, I found her laying on her couch. She was dead, Iris. I mean, she'd been dead a long time. Won't nothin left of her but a skeleton. The ole mule must'a been eatin nothing but grass for months, he's skin and bones and there's lots of mouse bones everywhere, that the cat must'a left there. Now you go on up to your room and there won't be no supper for you, Missy. I don't  know where that buttermilk came from but it most surely won't from Miss Cora. Don't you ever lie to me again.”

     ”Yes, Ma'am. I won't never lie to you Mama, and that's the truth.”

     Won't no need to argue with Mama, I wouldn't never have won. So I just let it rest. Mama never mentioned it again. I'll always remember what Miss Cora told me,

    “If you feels like runnin, run.

    ” Yes, ghosts are real, just like Miss Cora told me.... and she knew it for a fact!