 July was fadin' into August...it was hot enough to grow cotton...Grammaw had picked her own share of cotton in years past. My maternal grandmother, Mildred Rebekah Harman, born in 1907, was thrice a widow woman; married to Jack Washington Hagins, (my maternal grandfather), Floyd Winningham, and Lillard House. She never married outside of her Southern culture, bless her heart. It was a sweltering summer day, 1951... July fadin' into August... and it was my sixth birthday. Grammaw had fixed biscuits and gravy for breakfast as she was wont to do, and after she and I finished eating, she moved the pan of left over biscuits and the big bowel of gravy into the middle of the kitchen table and covered them with a "cup towel" as she called a dish towel, "to keep out the dust and the flies". They'd be there she said, "just in case someone has a hankerin' for biscuits and gravy" later in the day or wants to "grab a biscuit" as they go through the kitchen. Grammaw washed the dishes and left them to drain by the kitchen sink... she took me by the hand and we went out into her screened-in, back porch . She did a lot of livin' here in the summer. On the right side of the door was a summer, porch bed for anyone who wanted to take an afternoon nap. There was no mattress because Grammaw said "A mattress would make it too hot", so she covered the slightly rusty steel coils with one of her summer quilts she made from unbleached muslin. There were also pots of red and pink geraniums, "easy to grow", Grammaw said. I still grow to this day, potted geraniums, red and pink. Right outside the screened-in, back porch under the China Berry tree sat Grammaw's wringer washing machine. My pig-tailed twin sisters and I all three in giggling delight helped Grammaw by holding pieces of washed clothing and taking turns carefully guided each piece of clothing between the rollers and into the tub filled with rinse water. She always used Mrs. Stewart's Bluing for her white things "so they would not look dingy hanging on the clothesline". There was nary a laundry session with Grammaw that she did not say to us three girls, "Now y'all don't get your pig-tails caught in the rollers!" Mama always tied ribbons on our pig-tails. What set to the left of the screened-in, back porch door was the reason this hot summer day, my sixth birthday, Grammaw and I spent several hours together...there set Grammaw's Singer treadle sewing machine. For her "summer sewing" Grammaw had her two teenage sons, Jack and Joe, move her sewing machine into her screened-in, back porch. Yes, it was indeed my 6th birthday and Grammaw said "it's time for you to learn to sew". My greatest challenge was synchronizing my short 6 yr. old legs with the treadle to achieve the rhythm so the sewing machine would sew properly. Her patience assured me that soon I'd be "sewing like Grammaw sews"... I made my first doll skirt. She thought I needed to learn to gather by hand with a needle and thread and how to sew on a waistband on the sewing machine, which I did with her guiding hand and eye. Her old treadle sewing machine sits in our back bedroom with her old quilts folded up in a quilt chest. I've set up an old, wood ironing board with a pretty cotton, flowered ironing board cover like the ones Grammaw used to make for her wood ironing board. Grammaw said "You cain't be a good seamstress if you don't iron as you sew along." I cherish those memories when summer days moved much slower, tea was understood to be "sweet" and Grammaw House taught me to sew. Some summer ponderins, I reckon.
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