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Authors: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
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eyebrows have turned gray like his hair, and there’s not much left of that, but he’s got a strong chin. It’s his eyes I like, though, because they’re always smiling, even when his mouth isn’t. The little crinkles in the skin at the corners fan out when he smiles, like his lips and his eyes are connected by the same string. He’s got the biggest hands and feet of any man I ever saw.
What I learned from Papaw is that every single thing you can learn to do makes you feel that much better about yourself, even something as small as frying an egg.
Papaw stays busy, whether he’s at the mine or not. He used to take Howard and me out in the woods to dig roots—bloodroot and ginseng. Taught us how to dry it so we could sell it when we got a pound. Taught us how to plant corn and beans on the new moon, and to catch crawdads in Thunder Creek.
Here are some more things I’ve learned to do: skin a squirrel if I have to, shoot a rifle, build a fence, sew a quilt, tell starroot from stoneroot, make corn bread, feed Grandmommy, wash clothes, cut hair, change babies, and name the books of the Bible. If I was to find myself alone in the mountains for a year, I could take care of myself.
“Learn to do for yourself, because that’s all you can really depend on,” Papaw says.
I wonder sometimes what Papaw thinks about when he’s in the mine. If it wasn’t that he’s helping support my family back at the house, he and Mammaw would have an inside toilet and maybe even a bathtub by now. “We don’t have much, but we’re rich as the Lord wants us to be,” he says.
Papaw also says the secret to life is wanting what you have. The thing is, when you grow up without knowing what you don’t have, you don’t miss it. Once you know about it, though, you keep remembering. I do want what I have, but if you don’t reach for something more—I don’t mean things, I mean more from yourself—how can you grow? And you won’t ever reach for it if you don’t start wanting it in the first place.
Papaw is the person who has influenced me most, because he sees in me what I can’t even see myself. He knows what I can do before I learn to do it. I guess that gives me confidence—enough to come to Lexington and see how other people live. And he’ll be the first one I tell about it when I get back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was one two hour art class each week at Buckner, and it met on Wednesdays. Ivy June had been secretly looking forward to this class, eager to have someone outside of Thunder Creek recognize her talent. When she followed Catherine into the studio, however, and looked at the sketches and paintings there on the walls, she felt she must have walked into an art gallery.
There were drawings of faces so real that they looked like black-and-white photographs. Paintings of flowers so feathery that she didn’t quite see how a brush could make such a mark on canvas. There were still lifes of apples and pears, each done in a different artistic style, so that while you were looking at the same plate with the knife and the fruit and the cheese, you could tell that each artist saw a different image in her mind.
Miss Lorenzo greeted Ivy June warmly and asked the girls to arrange themselves in a circle around a small raised platform. When the desks had been noisily rearranged, she asked if one of the girls would volunteer to be their model.
“Do I have to take off my clothes?” Mackenzie quipped, and everyone laughed, including the teacher.
“No, I’d just like you to sit in a relaxed position—one arm thrown over the back of the chair, maybe,” the teacher said. “Try that, see if it’s comfortable. See if you can hold it for an hour and a half.”
While Mackenzie tried out different positions on the platform, Miss Lorenzo talked about how each student would be drawing the model from a different angle. The same girl, in the same chair, but each artist would see her from a different perspective.
As the teacher moved
What I learned from Papaw is that every single thing you can learn to do makes you feel that much better about yourself, even something as small as frying an egg.
Papaw stays busy, whether he’s at the mine or not. He used to take Howard and me out in the woods to dig roots—bloodroot and ginseng. Taught us how to dry it so we could sell it when we got a pound. Taught us how to plant corn and beans on the new moon, and to catch crawdads in Thunder Creek.
Here are some more things I’ve learned to do: skin a squirrel if I have to, shoot a rifle, build a fence, sew a quilt, tell starroot from stoneroot, make corn bread, feed Grandmommy, wash clothes, cut hair, change babies, and name the books of the Bible. If I was to find myself alone in the mountains for a year, I could take care of myself.
“Learn to do for yourself, because that’s all you can really depend on,” Papaw says.
I wonder sometimes what Papaw thinks about when he’s in the mine. If it wasn’t that he’s helping support my family back at the house, he and Mammaw would have an inside toilet and maybe even a bathtub by now. “We don’t have much, but we’re rich as the Lord wants us to be,” he says.
Papaw also says the secret to life is wanting what you have. The thing is, when you grow up without knowing what you don’t have, you don’t miss it. Once you know about it, though, you keep remembering. I do want what I have, but if you don’t reach for something more—I don’t mean things, I mean more from yourself—how can you grow? And you won’t ever reach for it if you don’t start wanting it in the first place.
Papaw is the person who has influenced me most, because he sees in me what I can’t even see myself. He knows what I can do before I learn to do it. I guess that gives me confidence—enough to come to Lexington and see how other people live. And he’ll be the first one I tell about it when I get back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was one two hour art class each week at Buckner, and it met on Wednesdays. Ivy June had been secretly looking forward to this class, eager to have someone outside of Thunder Creek recognize her talent. When she followed Catherine into the studio, however, and looked at the sketches and paintings there on the walls, she felt she must have walked into an art gallery.
There were drawings of faces so real that they looked like black-and-white photographs. Paintings of flowers so feathery that she didn’t quite see how a brush could make such a mark on canvas. There were still lifes of apples and pears, each done in a different artistic style, so that while you were looking at the same plate with the knife and the fruit and the cheese, you could tell that each artist saw a different image in her mind.
Miss Lorenzo greeted Ivy June warmly and asked the girls to arrange themselves in a circle around a small raised platform. When the desks had been noisily rearranged, she asked if one of the girls would volunteer to be their model.
“Do I have to take off my clothes?” Mackenzie quipped, and everyone laughed, including the teacher.
“No, I’d just like you to sit in a relaxed position—one arm thrown over the back of the chair, maybe,” the teacher said. “Try that, see if it’s comfortable. See if you can hold it for an hour and a half.”
While Mackenzie tried out different positions on the platform, Miss Lorenzo talked about how each student would be drawing the model from a different angle. The same girl, in the same chair, but each artist would see her from a different perspective.
As the teacher moved
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