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|  | One Woman's Journey | | Rated:
E | | Nonfiction story of Doris who worked through trials of an era. | | by: Doris ![View datanner's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/costumicons/ps-icon-regular-10.gif "View datanner's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]") ![Email User: datanner [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/mail-off.gif "Email User: datanner [Offline / Private]") | This item has no ratings. |
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| Item Size: 4 Entries
Created: 2:54pm on 02-16-2009
Modified: 3:09pm on 02-16-2009 | |
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One Woman's Journey!Chapter Five - One Woman's Journey
"Doris has something she wants to show you," Sarah told Arthur as they were eating supper one evening after the chores were done.
With all eyes on her, Doris' cheeks flushed knowing her mother was talking about the guitar.
"Are you ready to play your song?" she asked.
"Well," she drew the word out hesitant to answer shyly. "Maybe, if no body laughs at me".
"Why would we laugh? You sound pretty good to me". Everyone at the table heard their exchange, yet no one added any comment.
Sarah had told Arthur about how their Doris had practiced and sang every chance she had then added, "She is getting pretty good".
That would have to wait for her father's judgment before she could accept how well she had come to play. However, she did accept the time had arrived to come out of the bedroom for her debut.
The dishes washed and put away, the girls joined the others in the small living room where the radio was playing country music from WSM Nashville. Doris went for the guitar and pulled her up a chair. Sarah reached to turn the radio off and waited.
Forming the key of G with the fingers of her left hand, she began "On a Hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. And I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain."
Whew! she made it through that part, she thought as she started the refrain.
"So I'll cherish the Old Rugged Cross, where my trophies at last I'll lay down,
I will Cling to the Old Rugged Cross, and exchange it someday for a crown."
Arthur had to admit she did great. His words of praise gave her heart extra warmth. She had found something she could do well that made him proud. He took the guitar and started strumming and humming before a song familiar to them all came out and the older girls joined in. He had heard them harmonize quite by accident while they worked together in peanut harvest a few days before.
Arthur raised peanuts for their own use. There was nothing more favored by the Tanner family than parched peanuts, popcorn and coke on a fall or winter night.
While pulling the peanut vines from the ground, shaking the dirt off the growth of peanuts, Donna, Nina and Doris started to sing. Harmony came easy for whatever song they sang. Arthur was amazed and pleased at the same time. He encouraged them to sing again.
"I didn't know you-all could sing like that!" he stopped long enough to exclaim with excitement. "Sing another one", he added with encouragement. Picking up the base harmony, he joined in. Soon the quietness of the mid day allowed the melody of four synchronized voices to go heavenward.
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The day's work done, supper dishes put away, the family sat outside to enjoy the quiet of the country evening. A gnat cloth smoldered in a bucket on the ground in front of them, the rising smoke chasing the annoying gnats away. There were few mosquitos’ to speak of, and then again, the gnat cloth may have served another purpose.
In the bushes near by, a Whippoorwill sang welcoming the dusk of the day. Occasionally, he would move further out in the field, then again he went to a nearby tree; each time stopping to sing his song of "Whippoorwill, Whippoorwill!"
Doris carried through her life the sound of the small bird of the night. During trying times, his singing gave her courage. It was always a reminder of the simpler days on the farm, where life was black and white with very little variation; a reminder of the day when the world was quiet as far as she was concerned.
Entering into the 1950's, she had no reference to the changes the world as she knew it, was going through. From the quiet days of reflection after the depression, world war two had ended, Hitler was brought to Justice and the Jews were free, to a time of rebellion and change.
Shrouded in a blanket of security, she tried to read her father's face for signs of worry. However the quiet man that he was kept his worries to himself. When times were lean, and food scarce, he came to the table and declared, "I'm not very hungry tonight", while his children ate to a state of contentedness.
That was a minor side of the man she called Daddy. He was a man of few words all right, but often the words he did speak came out harsh to the ears of tenderhearted girls, who needed something more than words from him. Maybe one day she would hear something from him that would reinforce his love. Could she in her lifetime evoke a conversation with him that would assure her he was “glad she was another daughter,” instead of the son he had prayed for? Would he ever be able to say, “I am proud of you”?
Several years would pass before she could sort out the thinking that sometimes tumbled and even jumbled around in her head.
However, on a night like the one they were experiencing, as children will, Doris and her sisters chased fireflies. Seeing who could catch the most, they giggled at everything and nothing, feeling the dew on their bare feet, as it settled on the yard where they played.
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