Diary of a Wildflower Read online

  DIARY OF A WILDFLOWER

  By Ruth White

  Copyright 2013 by Ruth White

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Digital Donna: digitaldonna.com

  About the Author

  Ruth White grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, and went to college at Montreat and Pfeiffer, both in North Carolina. A former teacher and librarian, she now enjoys her roles as full time writer and grandmother. She lives in Hummelstown, PA.

  White has published many novels for young adults, including the award-winning Belle Prater’s Boy. Diary of a Wildflower is her first novel for adults, and is based on her mother’s early years. It is authentic in setting and characters.

  Also by Ruth White

  Belle Prater’s Boy

  Way Down Deep

  The Treasure of Way Down Deep

  Weeping Willow

  Memories of Summer

  Sweet Creek Holler

  Tadpole

  Little Audrey

  Belle Prater’s Boy _A Newbery Honor Book

  White creates vivacious memorable characters. She gives her two protagonists the courage to face tragedy and transcend it…and the ability to pass that gift along to the reader _ Publisher’s Weekly Best Books ‘96

  Way Down Deep _Both fable and mystery….filled with the heart’s own truths _Lee Smith, author On Agate Hill and Fair and Tender Ladies

  Weeping Willow – An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

  Written in crackling vernacular, by turns funny, sweet and sad, this is a moving testament to the power and resiliency of the spirit _starred Publisher’s Weekly

  Memories of Summer _A Top Ten ALA Best Book for Young Adults

  A marvelous re-creation of time and place and a poignant story that has much to say about compassion. _starred School Library Journal

  Sweet Creek Holler _ An ALA Notable Book

  A triumph. _ New York Times Book Review

  Tadpole _A School Library Journal best book of the year

  The power of White’s work derives from her seemingly easy evocation of ordinary people as they stumble into enduring truths. _starred Publisher’s Weekly

  Little Audrey _a Booklist Top of the List 2008

  Fierce in its honesty while remaining utterly childlike….a tough, tender story. _Ilene Cooper, Booklist.

  Prologue

  In a time and place where women have few choices in life, Lorelei Starr, a dreamy blue-eyed descendant of the first English and Scotch-Irish settlers in the Virginia hills, looks at the distant horizon from her isolated mountaintop home, and wonders if there is something out there that will fill the hollow place in her chest.

  Throughout childhood she wavers between two fantastic realms of imagination. One is a patch of tangled woods where the hopeless Old Thing hides and cries away the years. The other is the enchanted ice palace where the sleeping beauty waits for the kiss of the prince. Lorelei learns about love from her older siblings, who nurture her as their abusive father and distant mother cannot do. Daily she walks down the mountain to the school in the hollow. The rest of her time is filled with “woman’s work”.

  Memories of certain incidents come to haunt Lorelei – a sister being whipped by Dad, another being taken away to a sanitorium. Then there’s the smell of strawberries, which are forever associated with a harsh blow from Mommie.

  But there are also moments of joy, such as the visit from the traveling peddler who touches her heart by showing her a bit of kindness, and her first visit to town when she rides in an automobile and sees a moving picture show.

  When Lorelei is ten, her mother dies needlessly. This death is followed by another one that carves a deeper wound, and she plans her escape from this bitter home. When the opportunity comes, Lorelei leaves behind everything familiar – family, kin, and the teacher who declares his love for her.

  As a teenager in the roaring twenties, Lorelei is swept into the carefree world of flappers, bobbed hair, the Charleston, the IT girl, and the notorious speakeasy. Most important she becomes a bit player in the high society world of old money. Here she meets a different kind of creature – men who are rich and handsome, well-bred and well-educated. One of them steals her heart away, but how can a simple wildflower ever compete with that exotic orchid by his side?

  On a trip back to Starr Mountain for yet another funeral, Lorelei comes to the realization that a girl must create her own choices in life, and she finally comes face to face with the promise of happiness.

  Table of Contents

  Part I: Starr Mountain: Chapter One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part II: Living with Ghosts: Chapter Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Part III: Charlottesville: Chapter Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Part IV: The Old Thing: Chapter Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Dedicated to Lorelei’s grandchildren:

  Johnny, Mike, Jim, Steve, Mark, Brian, Marcia, Vince, and Dee

  The William Starr Family of Starr Mountain, Virginia

  Father: William (Willy)…born May, 1866

  Mother: Gertrude Brown Starr…born Jan, 1883

  Samuel…Feb, 1901

  Trula…Dec, 1903

  Luther…Feb, 1905

  Roxie…Sep, 1907

  Nell…Sep, 1909

  Lorelei…Oct, 1911

  Charles…Apr, 1913

  Jewel…Aug, 1915

  Daniel…Aug, 1919

  Clint…Oct, 1921

  Lawrence…June, 1927

  Part I: Starr Mountain: Chapter One

  August 4th, 1915

  It’s a golden day in summer, and Samuel takes me down the mountain to Gospel Road where I can play in the creek that goes goes sparkling over the rocks. Nearby the high tree branches break the sun into pieces and spills them on the floor of the woods.

  My name is Lorelei, and I will soon be four fingers old. Samuel is my biggest brother, and he has all my love. His eyes are the color of bluebird wings, and he is the best-looking boy you will ever see.

  I am barefooted, and Samuel picks me up and sets me over the sting weed. When we start back to the house, he lifts me to his shoulders where I can see all the pretty world. I hear the katy-dids singing with their stringy legs by the path.

  We pass the garden where the roastin ears grow from the dirt. We pass our cows, Flag and Pansy, who give us milk from their titties. Daddy is sleeping under the maple tree. On the plank porch Mommie is fanning herself with a cardboard fan. Her belly is big and round. She carries it on her hands. She has hung the overalls on the tree branch, where they drip on the grass. Samuel puts his arm around her, and asks her how she feels. She leans on him, but she has dark looks for me.

  Trula is the biggest girl. She is almost thirteen. She gets supper ready, and I am set on a barrel at the table. It makes me tall. My plate is tin. I have beans and taters and corn in it. Samuel taught me the colors. Cumbers are green. Corn is yellow. Carrots are orange. Maters are red. But we do not have blue food.

  We hear Mommie hollering in the loft. Aunt Sue is up there with her. Daddy keeps on eating. He has food on his chin. Samuel does not eat the summer colors. He is sick in his heart. He wants to hear Mommie still.

  In the dark the swollen white moon bounces far out on the mountain tops. Samuel says the twink
les are Milky Way. On the porch he holds me, and I nearabout fall asleep. I go with Roxie and Nell to pee in the weeds.

  Then there comes a new animal noise. It is so pitiful, it hurts my heart to hear it. Trula thanks Jesus that it is born. Mommie is hollered out. Daddy reads the Bible book moving his lips.

  They call the squirmy little thing a Jewel.

  October 19th, 1916

  When Daddy was a boy, he helped his pa, my Grandpa Wallace, dig a road through the dirt and roots and rocks. It is called Willy’s Road, and it’s the only road down off the mountaintop. Each one of the Starr brothers has a house up here, but they are not too close to each other. Ours is on the top. It’s the house where Daddy and his brothers and Aunt Sue grew up together. It has logs in the walls with hard mud in the cracks. It has wood on the floors. There is a fireplace of rocks. There are stairsteps going up into two sleeping lofts.

  Abe and Barney are our mules. They haul stuff on a flat wagon. I can ride on it if I want to, but Roxie holds me on tight. We have sheeps in the pastures. They are fat and fuzzy with curly hair. Daddy and Samuel and Luther shave them and take their hair down to Baptist Valley to sell for making sweaters. Then the sheeps are skinny and cold without their hair. They stand and shiver in the wind. Charles is the littlest boy. Me and him play with the baby lambs.

  Nell says it’s my birthday, and I ask her how many fingers? She shows me all of them on one hand. That is a lot.

  Trula cuts the orange pumpkin on the porch. Roxie and Nell sit on the planks and watch. I climb on a chair and stick my naked feet up under my dress to make them warm.

  Trula tells us a story she heard at the school house. It’s about the princess who stuck her finger on a needle, and fell asleep in the woods for a hundred years. She was sound asleep in the leaves, but she didn’t snore a bit. Princesses don't do that, Trula says, or pick their noses neither.

  Then the handsome prince comes by and kisses her on the mouth and she wakes up smiling. He carries her off on his white horse, and they live happily ever after.

  Happily ever after? What does it mean? Trula has the dreamy eyes. She says it means the prince and princess fell in love. How far is that to fall? I think it is a long way. I rub my cold feet.

  Mommie cooks the pumpkin and spoons it on the white dough. There is brown sugar to go in it, and spicy stuff too.

  It’s dark when Samuel comes in. He is fifteen. He works outside in the cold and his ears are red. When I am a big girl, I will make him a warm thing to go on them. He has a package for me. He says it is a birthday pleasant. I never had a pleasant before. He tells me to open it up Lorelei, honey. I shiver as I tear away the brown paper. Samuel has brung me shoes from the store. One to go on on each foot!

  July, 1917

  Samuel says that me and Roxie and Nell can go to the store at Deep Bottom with him and Luther. We take Barney to pull the wagon. I am scared of Barney. He’s a mean old mule. He

  does not like me either. Samuel walks on one side of Barney, and Luther on the other.

  Riding down Willy’s Road me and my sisters hold tight to each other on the wagon cause there are bumpy places. Gospel Road is better, but not by much. There are houses here. Our Aunt Sue’s girls, Min and Callie Collins, are on their porch. They holler and wave to us.

  We stir up a lot of dust, and it settles on the weeds. The Deep Bottom road is better. It is packed tight by wagon wheels. Samuel points out an automobile that is pulled over beside the creek. I have seen pictures, but this is the first automobile I ever saw for real, and I'm sorry it’s not moving around, so I can watch it.

  Barney stops in front of the store. It’s a brown board building with a little porch hanging on the front where there’s a sign with a pretty girl drinking from a bottle.

  In the store I see big glass globes full of yellow lemon drops and red and white peppermint balls and brown horehound sticks. Samuel sets me up on a counter, and reaches me a bottle from a cold box. He gives one to Roxie and one to Nell too. When I drink from the bottle, it makes the tears start up inside my eyes. And the fizz burns my tongue.

  The store man is Mr. Call, and he wants to know who are these little barefooted gals? Samuel says we are his sisters, Roxie, Nell and Lorelei. Mr. Call smiles so big his eyes sink into his face. He brings out hair ribbons, and gives me a red one, Nell a green one, and Roxie a blue one. He says we look like all the rest of the Starrs with our square jaws and blue eyes. Samuel says that’s the English and Scotch-Irish blood running through our veins.

  We drink our pop and watch people come in with nickels and dimes to buy all kinds of things in pokes and cans and bottles and jars and boxes. Samuel and Luther get things Mommie wrote on a piece of paper. We take home sacks of flour and sugar and corn meal. We have coffee, salt, black pepper, and vinegar too. There’s barely enough room on the wagon now for me and Nell and Roxie. But we scrunch up together and hang on as we head back up Gospel Road.

  I don’t want to go. I want to stay here in this place where there’s lots of houses, and people on their porches waving at you, and you see more stuff in one room than you ever sawbefore in your life. But we have to get up the mountain, and as we ride away, there is a lump in my throat. I look behind me for a long time, till there is nothing left to see but dust swirling around the bend in the road.

  August, 1917

  A new preacher brings his pretty wife from West Virginia and starts up a Sunday School. The church is a little bitty white building beside of the creek at Deep Bottom, near the mouth of Gospel Road. Me and Nell and Roxie and Luther go to it on a Sunday morning. Trula and Samuel stay home with Mommie and Daddy and Charles and Jewel.

  This time we have to walk. I have little legs and feet, and I can’t keep up, so Luther carries me on his shoulders for a spell. I try to reach the green leaves.

  Some of our cousins are at the church house. Uncle Green's boy, Vic, is my age, and I like him the best. Nell likes to play with Uncle Ben's girl, Opal, who's closer to her age. Opal is sweet and friendly, with golden hair on her head. Luther buddies up with Uncle Tom's boy, Allen, and Roxie likes everybody the same. They all like her too. When the mountaintop gets lonesome, I think Sunday School is a good place to go, but Trula’s stories are better.

  Walking back home, it’s so hot I can’t stand it, and Willy’s Road is steep. Luther won't carry me again, so they leave me behind. I stand there bawling until Roxie comes back for me. She says she can't carry me, but she will not leave sissy to walk home all alone. It is too hard a thing for a little girl on such a hot day.

  October, 1917

  A while back I started going to the school house at Deep Bottom with Nell and Roxie and Luther. In the cool mornings I can walk for a long ways without giving out. Charles and Jewel are not as big as me. They can’t go to the school house. Trula and Samuel went one time, but now they’re too old. I can read some of the writing. I can count all my fingers and toes. My hair is dark and curly. It falls down my back. Trula plaits it in pigtails. I wrap a belt around my school books and sling them over my shoulder. It’s a wore out belt, and the buckle is busted.

  The school house sits out behind Mr. Call’s store. There are two rooms in it. One is for the first four grades, and the other is for the fifth through eighth grades. We also have two toilets in the woods outside the school house, one for just girls, and one for just boys.

  My teacher is Mr. DeLong. The other teacher is a girl. When Mr. DeLong reads stories to us, his voice is the only sound in the room. He reads about boys and girls who live in towns. He shows us the pictures too. There’s a daddy who holds his little girl’s hand, and a mommie who smiles. She wears a pretty blue dress. I wonder if Mommie had a dress like that, would she smile too? Or has she forgotten how?

  December 25, 1917

  Wake up it’s Christmas. I blink at Roxie whispering in my ear. She is ten years old, and the fairest one of all. Her hair is yella as butter, and her eyes are like morning glories. She has dimples when she smiles. Roxie is the smartest gi
rl in the school house. She's teacher’s pet and Daddy's pet too. He teases her and calls her his sweet Rox.

  She says she’s got something for sissy Lorie, and she puts a tiny baby doll in my hands. Roxie says she made it herself out of cloth, and stuffed it with goose feathers. She embroidered its eyes, nose and mouth. She took fur from an old coat in the charity bag and made hair for it. She's the prettiest doll I ever had. She’s the onliest doll I ever had. I will name her the softest name I can think of – Beth Ann. It's two names I put together from a reading book at the school house.

  At breakfast we each get one orange by our plate and a piece of peppermint candy that Samuel brung us. We can’t eat it yet. Trula pours milk gravy from the stove into the white round bowl. Daddy talks to God, thanking him for good health. Beth Ann lays on my lap. I pet her with my hand. I say thank you to God for my doll and for the orange and the peppermint. And thank you for Roxie and Samuel and Trula.

  When Daddy is through praying, Trula fills up Charles's plate for him and Jewel's too. I am big enough to fill my own plate. Mommie pours coffee for her and Daddy, Samuel, Trula and Luther. Trula pours milk for Jewel and Charles and me and Nell and Roxie. This morning we have rice and sausage to pour our gravy on. And we have eggs and biscuits and butter and hot blackberries and cherry preserves.

  On special days Daddy talks about Bible stories while we eat. This time he tells us how Eve tempted Adam, and they fell down together, but it was all her fault. God told her because she was so bad she would have to bring forth children in pain and sorrow. And her husband would rule over her.

  Uncle Artemis brings Grandpa Wallace over to stay the day with us. He’s got long white hair on his face, and he is grumpy. He says young'uns should be seen and not heard. That’s in the Bible too. He hollers at me to bring him that orange I’m trying to hide behind my back. I reach it out to him, but Trula takes it and gives it back to me and says Grandpa can have her orange. I offer to share mine with Trula, but she says no I should eat it, cause she does not like oranges. I know that is not so.