In the Midst of Innocence by Deborah Hining

Author:Deborah Hining
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: tennessee;1930s;thirties;Great Depression;racism;discrimination;interracial friendship;biracial;african american;jim crow;Appalachia;southern fiction;lee smith;olive ann burns;blue ridge mountains;diary;letters;Epistolary;Christian fiction;historical fiction
Publisher: Light Messages Publishing
Published: 2018-01-31T05:00:00+00:00

January

January 1, 1932!!! Happy New Year! 1932 is here at last! It snowed again last night, so we got to go sledding down Pap-pa’s big hill. Everyone but Darlene, Beryl, Ruby, and I went home to tend to the chores, so it was just us girls with Miss Janey Jo all day long. She dug out Mam-ma’s big work boots for me to wear so I would not get my new shoes wet. They were way too big for me, but I put on four pairs of socks, and although I was very clumsy walking around in them, I was fine once I got on the sled. She also found a pair of mittens for Darlene, which she said Darlene could keep. Miss Janey Jo is very kind. I am glad Pap-pa married her, even if he did not wait a decent interval after Mam-ma died.

When it was about time to go home, Miss Janey Jo asked us to stay for supper and to sleep over again. We were ascared that our mamas would be worried about us, but Pap-pa said he would just ride over there and let them know we would be home tomorrow. When he came back, he had Sardius with him. We had a grand supper, then Pap-pa played his fiddle and Miss Janey Jo brought out some material she had put aside, and we made a little rag doll for Sapphire while Sardius and Pap-pa whittled out some legs for it. I barely can keep my head up to write this. We stayed up past Midnight last night, and now it is ten o’clock, and I am very, very sleepy.

They say what you do on New Year’s Day sets the tone and that you will do the same thing every day for the whole rest of the year. If that is the case, then I will do nothing but play all year long.

January 2, 1932. Darlene and I slept late this morning. Sardius had already walked home before we got up, and Pap-pa drove us home in the buggy so we would not get our shoes muddy. The snow is melting, making the path just one big pig sty. Darlene went straight home, and I did not see her the rest of the day.

As soon as she left, Daddy took a bag of sugar out of the cupboard and disappeared. Uncle Woodrow said he was going to check on the raft Sardius and Jasper were building over in his old shed. I asked him if I could go with him, but Mama reminded me that I needed to help Ruby with her reading. Mama has been too busy to help her much, and she is afraid she will forget the words she already knows if we do not keep working with her.

Ruby loves Baby Chatterbox, especially the part where baby keeps saying, “Baby, baby, baby loves kitty, kitty, kitty, and kitty, kitty, kitty loves baby, baby, baby.” She reads it over and over and then laughs her head off, and reads it again! It plagues me to death.

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