Want (1929-1941)

Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things
(Deuteronomy 28:48)

Chapter 1: 1929-1930, Lockjaw

The Millers had many good friends and neighbors, but none were better than the Haygoods. Mrs. Tancie Haygood shared her eggs and vegetables with Mittie and invited the entire Miller household to dine with them on numerous occasions. In short, the two families seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

2 It was a typically hot and humid Alabama day. Supper was over, and the adults were talking and relaxing on the front porch.

3 The barefooted children were playing in the barn lot completely oblivious to the fact that Wall Street had crashed and that their nation’s economy was sinking into a severe depression. They were running, squealing and laughing.

4 Doodle and Frances were playing tag. “Ouch!” Frances cried out in pain. “What’s wrong?” Doodle asked as she stopped and spun around to face her friend. “I hurt my foot,” she whimpered.

5 In the meantime, Pearl had seen what had happened and ran to the house to tell the adults. Tom and Tancie reached the barnyard just ahead of Clip and Mittie.

6 Tom reached down and scooped Frances up into his arms while Tancie examined the foot. “Let Mama look at it, honey,” he soothed. A trickle of blood across the bottom of her dirty little foot helped her locate the wound.

7 “That doesn’t look too bad, baby girl,” her Mama offered. “Why I’ve had worse places in my eye!” Mittie agreed.

8 Clip spotted an old piece of wire sticking up out of the ground. “I’ll bet this is the culprit,” he proclaimed as he reached down and pulled it up out of the dirt. “Bring her to the house,” Mittie insisted.

9 Tom carried Frances in his arms with Doodle running along beside them. When they reached the house, they washed the dirt and blood off with some well water from the hand pump that stood in the middle of the front yard. Then they dabbed a little mercurochrome on it and quickly forgot about it.

10 A week passed, and it was obvious that the wound was now infected. Tancie smoked the foot with burnt feathers and soaked it in Epsom salts, but nothing seemed to help. Frances was running a fever now.

11 “My neck and jaw hurt,” the little girl cried. “They just won’t move right!”

12 “Doodle, Frances has lockjaw,” Mittie announced to her daughter one day. She avoided the child’s questioning eyes and never stopped peeling potatoes.

13 Doodle, however, knew something was very wrong. She could see the fear and worry in her mother’s face.

14 “Maybe you could go over and sit with her a while?” Mittie suggested. The little girl nodded, turned and ran all the way to her friend’s house.

15 She knocked on the door, and Miss Tancie quickly ushered her into Frances’ bedroom. Doodle was shocked by her friend’s appearance. Her mouth was welded shut by some invisible force, and they were feeding her mashed-up food through a small gap where two of her font teeth had fallen out. She was pitiful.

16 Doodle took her friend’s hand and held it quietly for what seemed like an eternity. She sat beside her bed and helped to feed her.

17 The following day she watched her friend struggle to breathe. “You should probably go on home now and get some rest,” Miss Tancie told her with a pat on the shoulder. That was the last time that Doodle saw her best friend alive.

18 Five days after the funeral, she too stepped on a piece of wire in the same barnyard. Fortunately, Mittie had learned a horrible lesson. There wouldn’t be any Epsom salts or smoked feathers for her daughter.

19 She scooped up the little girl and carried her in her arms several miles to the nearest doctor where a tetanus shot was promptly administered without complication. Although she would miss her little friend for the rest of her life, Frances hadn’t suffered and died in vain.