People

This is a story about the neighborhood and Maggie.

By Connie Arnold

Memories from my childhood neighborhood have followed me through the years. Some of these memories have become more defined later in my life. Scenes from long ago have taken on a sharpness that was missing when I saw them through a child’s eyes.

Few things changed in the neighborhood where I lived until I married and moved away. Friends were the same only our activities became different over the years. Early on we rode our bikes in the road, warning one another of oncoming cars. Baseball games were played in the same road, again sharing with infrequent cars that traveled on our road. Climbing trees and sitting on our favorite branches while we chatted away on our favorite topics of conversation that are now lost forever.

One girl was the daughter of a preacher. She and I would climb up into their barn loft and hold church services. We’d take turns being the preacher or the song leader. We both wanted to preach, trying to remember the sermon we’d heard the Sunday before.

Her father held services at a small, country church on Wednesday nights, and we’d go along to bolster the tiny congregation. We also supported the services by playing the piano. The instrument could keep the tempo as it was played, but the strings had long ago given up holding a tune. But all the songs were familiar and no one noticed the lack of tonal quality, and the congregation sang loudly and long. Our efforts were in earnest and prepared us for a life-long participation in all the churches we’d ultimately attend.

My sister and I would visit our closest neighbor. She had only one grown son, and she loved children. Her husband, not so much. We had no TV at the time, and she invited us to her house one evening to watch Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin. This was a special occasion as we didn’t visit our neighbors inside their houses.

The quirky neighbor. Every neighborhood has one. Perhaps we don’t know enough about our neighbors in this present day to label them as ‘quirky’, but Maggie was quirky. She and her family moved from Kentucky into a small log cabin across from our house shortly before I started going to school. She called her husband ‘Old Bill’; I don’t remember much of his features; except he remains in my memory as being gray all over, and he went to work every day. I knew he was old because she had a stepdaughter older than she was. She and Old Bill had three sons: one fancied himself a ladies’ man; one was a happy-go-lucky, likeable fellow; one son was youngest in our group by a couple of years. She’d had a daughter to die very young, and she kept a framed picture of her body in the casket hanging on her wall.

She’d laugh at all her sons’ antics: Johnny’s many lady conquests; little Ralph’s misdeeds were smoothed over by saying, “hit don’t know no better.” She invited all the neighbors to stand out by the road and wave goodbye to Bobby as the state police picked him up from their house and escorted him off to begin his two-year incarceration at the state detention facility for young men. I don’t remember what his violation was, but I don’t think it was very serious by today’s standards. We all waved as they drove off, and he waved back.

Maggie came to our house nearly every day as soon as my dad left for work. She’d settle in a chair at the kitchen table, cross her legs, and twist her ankle, popping her knuckles as she talked. Mother would continue with her housework, listening to Maggie unburden herself. She admired my Mother’s clean house and was in awe of the many dresses that Mother washed, starched, and ironed for us two girls. She admired my Mother’s work ethic but never copied it. During every visit, somewhere in her conversation, she would always say, “Violy, the Lord has somethin better for me.” Her walk with the Lord wasn’t evident, but she attended the small chapel in our neighborhood some Sundays.

On rare occasions when Mother would cross the road to Maggie’s house for a specific reason she’d knock at the front door. Maggie would hurry to the back door of the house and wash the chewing tobacco out of her mouth before answering Mother’s knock while swiping the back of her hand across her lips. She was chagrined, but her chewing-tobacco habit was never mentioned.

Old Bill died, and Maggie had to find work. Her older sons were gone from home and in no position to help her. Her youngest was in middle school now. She sold her log cabin and moved to a nearby town where she found a job cleaning rooms in a boarding house. The last thing she said to my Mother before moving was “Violy, the Lord has somethin better for me.”

After many years, Maggie finally realized her better circumstances. The old gentleman who owned the boarding house became very fond of her, and they married. Her new husband was financially well-off, and she could now hire someone else to clean the rooms. The last time Mother saw Maggie, she was cleaned up, dressed up, and enjoying her ‘somethin better’.

“Therefore, I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall…” (Mark 11:24 KJV).