Heart of Gold

The still-bare branches of the trees showcase the antics of playful squirrels as they leap from branch to branch and tree to tree. I was noticing them while we sat in the back yard late this afternoon. It was a little before sunset, and the golden glow of the sky set them off in sharp silhouette for our viewing pleasure.

Seeing the squirrels reminded me of something that happened when I was little.  My sister's boyfriend, whom she would later marry, loved to go hunting in the woods in back of and around our country house. I'm not sure how it happened, but it seems he found a nest of baby squirrels, gave them to my brothers, and showed them how to feed and raise the foundlings.

When the squirrels got a little bigger, the outdoorsman made a cage for them by nailing an apple crate to a tree, putting screen wire over it and giving them things like stale biscuits and cornbread to eat.  As a five-year-old, I remember the chickens clucking around under the tree and pecking at the crumbs that fell. The squirrels became tame, but one night a storm came and blew their cage down.  The resident dogs chased them off, and in the process, injured the leg of one of the squirrels.

Mama had a soft spot for animals, wild or tame, so she rescued and cared for the lame squirrel.  It stayed around the house a long time, until finally it began to venture into the woods and she gave it up as gone wild again.

One day Mama heard kids' voices yelling from the blackjack woods and went to investigate.  She found a couple of schoolboys throwing rocks up into a tree.  "What are you boys doing?" she demanded. They replied that they were throwing rocks at a squirrel.

"Wait!" Mama said.  "I think you may be throwing rocks at my pet squirrel."  The boys laughed and ridiculed her, saying, "I think we already hit it with a rock and hurt its leg."

"No! It has a little crooked leg where some dogs got hold of it once," she explained.  The boys looked skeptical and said, "Prove it to us that it's your pet!"

"Here, let me call him," Mama said.  "Here, Squirrely, Squirrely, Squirrely," she called, while the boys laughed.  Just then, the squirrel's head popped up over a tree branch, looking steadily at her for a minute, then it ran down the tree toward her feet!

"See, I told you!" my mother exclaimed. The boys apologized and said they meant no harm to her pet.  As she walked away, in her words, "The squirrel took off for home as hard as it could go!"

Mama didn't just have a soft spot for animals, she also loved people.  Friend or stranger alike didn't leave her house until they had been properly fed.  If someone pleaded that they weren't hungry, her command was, "Eat to keep from getting hungry!" She could always make room for one more at the table or find a bed for one to lay a weary head.

When she was old and widowed and my large family would descend on her in the middle of the night, exhausted from our 500-mile drive from Mississippi, Mama would magically produce mounds of pillows, comforters and blankets, spreading sofas and pallets for the kids and a dreamland of a bed for us.

We drifted off thinking of morning when we knew the aroma of bacon and coffee would wake us, and we would find her sitting at the table with her open Bible, ready to slip a couple dozen eggs into the waiting sea of bacon grease in her huge iron skillet.  She would share not only her golden biscuits, but also the Bread of Life as we lingered late into the morning at her table.  We were safe at home!