Root Jumper Read Free

bedraggled bunch by the time services started at 10:00 am. No one wanted to own us, and so we sat in the back. Our parents always threatened us, but they never did anything to punish us. Perhaps at times they would rather have been playing in the creek too!
    The persimmon tree grew along the paths in the pasture field. At first before ripening, the persimmons were green-colored shaped like a tiny apple with brown ruffling around the top. If you tried to eat them before they ripened, they would pucker your mouth like a hex. When they were ripe, they were orange colored and shriveled. We sucked the inside pulp out of the skin and spit out the black seeds. I was interested in the little piles of black seeds under the persimmon trees. My brother Werner told me they were opossum poop. When the boys went “possum” hunting, they always visited the persimmon tree.
    The pawpaw trees with their beautiful green shiny leaves grew along the cow trails. We put our milk weed babies to sleep wrapped in pawpaw leaves. The pawpaw fruit, before it ripened, grew in green clumps. It grew in size from three to six inches in length and about one and a half to two inches in diameter. Upon ripening, it turned dark on the outside and became soft. This fruit was filled with a yellow filling with black seeds. It tasted somewhat like a banana. I loved to hear the sound of a pawpaw falling. It is heavy and falls with a thud. These fruits never rolled like an apple, and they were easy to grab. I can still see Mom coming home with an apron full of pawpaws.
    All of our many paths eventually led to what we called the big road. This road was built by the WPA. Truckloads of rocks were brought in, dumped on the old road, and broken and pounded up by men using sledge hammers. People used to call them the “we piddle around bunch.” The big road ran the length of the valley and then across Golf Hill. There it passed the old mound builders mounds at the bottom of the hill, and then it went to Route 2. This is a place called Clover, which is just above Greenbottom. Several side roads branched out from this road. This road was not hard- topped until 1971.
     

The Root Jumper Plow
    The farm I was raised on was up a hollow. It was old, very old. It had been owned by other families before us. The farm was surrounded by hills, but there was flat land at the bottom of the hills. The bottoms were divided by water running from the hills at different places. It looked like a hopscotch diagram with a pointed end at the very tip of the hollow. I think there were about sixty-five acres including the hills. My dad and mother raised seven children on and from this land.
    Dad rotated the crops and used anything to make fertilizer. The fields were always covered with corn stalks, tobacco stalks, and the cane stalks from the sorghum molasses. All of these made excellent fertilizer. All the manure from the farm animals was put on the garden and on the tobacco fields. Dad was always looking for a new way to expand the farm. He said that new ground raised the best crops but that it was the most difficult to prepare.
    After breakfast one morning, Dad turned to me and said, “Sis, you want to go with me this morning? We will take a walk up the hill.” I was always happy to be with my dad. Dad, who was usually silent, was very talkative on this day. He said, “Sis, this is a fine day to locate some new ground.” I agreed with him. As we walked along, he said, “Up here on the flat should be some good dirt.” When we reached a large part of the hill that was flat, he stopped and stooping over, he began to look at the dirt.
    I looked over the hill and could see our church. Peeling off my jacket, I set out to explore. Up and down the valley people were moving about. There was my uncle’s farm. My cousins Jenny and Ramona were outside. They waved to me. In my mind I can still hear my dad calling to me saying, “Come see the ground.” As I ran back around the hill, there was Dad