Chapter 5:

Secrets and
Treasures In the Attic

“For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor any thing hidden that will not be known and come to light.”

Luke 8:17 (NKJV)

“Gosh, that was skeery,” Dinky whimpered.

“Ole Jacob Barton, when the civil war was startin’…” William started a familiar Farmwell Valley rhyme.

“Shut up, William. You’re scaring Dinky,” Elizabeth demanded from him.

“Scarin’ you, ya mean.” William laughed as he hung Pop’s old hat on a nail under the rafters.

“Scarin’ me, and I ain’t ashamed to admit it.”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ Dinky.”

“Okay, Skippy, I won’t.”

“Should we tell somebody about it?” Victoria asked, still shaking from cold and fright.

“They’ll think we’re nuts and just imagining things, so…I don’t know.” Elizabeth was unsure. The attic got quiet. “Well, we’ve yakked enough.”

The cousins got busy putting things away. Elizabeth re-wrapped Nancy Jane’s hat in a piece of old yellowed newspaper, then put it back in the wooden trunk.

“There’s so much stuff up here and in this old trunk.”

“I know,” Victoria agreed with her, “and all these boxes Grammy had Uncle J.T. put up here, too. Pictures. Recipes. Flower seeds. There are so many of them.”

“I’d like to look through those recipes someday soon. I’d love to start a bakery one day. I’m going to start getting ready for it.”

“Ooh! Bluck! I wouldn’t buy anything from it if you baked stuff,” William needled her.

Elizabeth ignored his rude comments as she continued to dig through the trunk.

“Look at this,” she said with surprise as she picked up another old newspaper and read the headline:

NEIL ARMSTRONG WALKS ON MOON

“It’s the front page of a special evening edition of the Brotherton Gazette from the first moon landing.”

“Look at the date,” said William, peering over her shoulder. “July 20, 1969.”

“Wow,” said Dinky excitedly, “that must a been a hunderd years ago.”

“Nope, about thirty-two years ago. I know because Mom said Uncle J.T. was born on the exact same day as the moon landing. We sent him a birthday card in July before we moved here that said ‘You’re Out of This World’ along with a box of moon pies. Remember?”

“I love moon pies.” William sounded hungry.

“Uncle J.T. sure is gettin’ old,” said Dinky, shaking his head in dismay.

“My mom says he needs a wife, but he loves Miss Patsy, and Miss Patsy won’t have much to do with him,” added Victoria shyly, “even though everybody knows she loves him, too.”

“Victoria, you shouldn’t tell such things,” her cousin scolded.

“Well, why not?” William lashed out. “Everybody knows it anyway. You’re just sorry you didn’t tell it, Miss Priss.” He was being protective of his little sister’s feelings.

“Am not, William Holley! You take that back,” Elizabeth demanded of him as she stood up, put one hand on her hip, and balled up her other hand into a fist under his nose.

Her cousin waved her off, knowing she wouldn’t really hit him.

“Anyway, why won’t she have much to do with him?”

“’Cause he’s a heathen,” answered William.

“A heathen! What the heck’s that?”

“A stinker,” interjected Dinky as his cousins looked at him with surprise. “Mom calls me a heeven all the time, don’t you remember, Elizabeth?” The little boy with the cute pug nose sat spinning around and around in an old office chair, still holding Pop’s top hat on the back of his head.

“Yep, I fink it means a stinker.”

“It means,” added William, rolling his eyes, “that he don’t believe in Jesus.” A chorus of astonished gasps emanated from around the room.

“I don’t believe it,” said Dinky, stopping suddenly and shaking his head.

“It’s awful, but it’s true,” said Victoria, concerned for her uncle’s soul. Her bottom lip quivered, and a tear trickled down her cheek as she now rummaged through the old steamer trunk where she’d returned the fur muff.

“Our mom said she was mad at God for a long time when she was little because she thought he made her dad get killed in Vietnam, and that made her mom run away forever. Maybe Uncle J.T.’s mad at God,” surmised Elizabeth.

“I’m not mad at God ’cause our daddy got killed, too. Are you, Elizabeth ?” Dinky asked, sounding somewhat puzzled and gauging Elizabeth’s reaction.

“No, Dink, I’m not,” his sister said profoundly, knowing he’d never even known their dad, but she was afraid she’d worried him.

“Grammy said Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. And our daddy was, Dink.”

“Yep, he was preachin’ to the heevens, like Uncle J.T. is, down in South ’merica.”

“That’s right,” Victoria said as she pulled a purple velvet box from the trunk that contained a miniature china tea set.

“Who’s Maggie Sue O’Riley?” she asked while reading a name written on the inside lid. She was in second grade but had taught herself to read, much to her parent’s amazement, before she went to kindergarten.

“I think that’s our grandma,” her brother answered.

“Grammy?”

“No, silly,” Elizabeth whispered, “she was our great-grandma. He means the one that ran away—our Irish grandmother.”

“You mean the one that rode away in a shiny red sports car—a Corvette Convertible—with that old hippie and ain’t been heard from since?” William asked the rhetorical question while leafing through an old Popular Mechanics magazine he’d taken off a shelf.

“Left four little kids for Grammy and Pop to raise. And Uncle J.T. was just a newborn baby.” He said with disgust.

“No wonder he’s a stinker,” Dinky reasoned sadly.

“How do you know all this?” Elizabeth asked while scratching her flea bites.“Besides, I thought hippies only drove Volkswagen buses with peace signs on them.”

“I heard Miss Patsy’s mom, that old BevAnn Meadows, talkin’ about it at church once when she didn’t know I was behind her. She was remembering with old Claudia Smith, who tells everything she knows. You know—telephone, telegraph, tele-Claudia, and that other gossip Linda, what’s her name.” He strongly disliked gossips.

“And old Claudia said our grandma was only about twenty-six at the time, with long dark red hair, and was a real looker—that’s what she called her—a real looker,” he continued as Elizabeth and Victoria listened intently, their eyes wide with interest.

“Does that mean a bad woman?” Victoria interrupted meekly, afraid of the answer.

“No, goof, it means pretty,” Elizabeth corrected her instantly. “Now, shhh! I wanna hear the rest. Go on, William,” she directed.

“Oh, sorry,” her little cousin replied, blushing from the mistake.

“Anyway, I guess she walked into Hope Springs one hot summer day in 1969 wearing a pair of old cut-off blue jeans and met up with some hippie fellow at the old gas station. People’d seen him around some that summer. They said it was obvious he had money, but nobody knew much about him. He had a mustache and real long, curly blonde hair all frizzed out. Wore a leather vest and no shirt and had lots of tattoos. Old BevAnn, Claudia, and that Linda woman talked about seein’ Grandma Maggie gettin’ in that convertible and ridin’ off with him. Both of them’s long hair was blowin’ in the wind, and they never looked back.”

“Oh, wow,” Elizabeth just couldn’t believe it happened that way. “Are you sure that’s what they said?”

“Said she’d probably went to Woodstock with him or back to Ireland.”

“In a Corvette?” Elizabeth asked, perplexed.

“No, silly, on a plane!” William was astonished at her stupidity.

“Where’s Woodstock?”

“I don’t know, up in New York, I think—a big music thing with lots of hippies.”

“Poor Mommy and the rest,” Victoria sighed sympathetically.

“No wonder they never talk about her,” Elizabeth said.

“She’s prob’ly a heeven, too,” added Dinky.

“I think my mom hates her guts,” William said disgustedly. “I’ve heard her say she’d never forgive her. And, if she was alive, it would never do for her to come back around here.”

A stunned silence filled the room for a few seconds. Hate was a very strong word. Elizabeth couldn’t imagine really hating someone. Although, she did strongly dislike her cousin Gwen and William at times.

“What’s in here?” Dinky held up a small canvas bag with a drawstring. He found it earlier stuffed inside Pop’s top hat.

“Snowman fixins!” The other kids all yelled at once.

“What in the world is snowman fixins?”

“It’s two pieces of coal for eyes, Pop’s old glasses, a pair of red wax lips, and an old corncob pipe, little cuz,” William explained.

“Wow!” The little boy, who had never made a snowman before, was fascinated.

“Yeah, it’s for making a snowman, Dinky,” Victoria explained further.

“How do you make a snowman in a bag, Skippy?”

“It’s just stuff to add to a snowman. Pop made the corncob pipe, Grammy gathered everything else up and put it in that bag, then she stuck it inside Pop’s old top hat,” Elizabeth said as she remembered the fun times they all had when it snowed heavily and the cousins were all at Apple Muffin Cottage together.

“So, every time we wanted to make a snowman, Grammy got the hat and pulled out this bag,” Victoria added. “Then she got us a bright orange carrot from the refrigerator for a nose. We’d put on the old hat last, and the snowman almost looked real.”

“Fun times making snowmen and having snowball fights,” William added. “Not to mention Grammy’s hot chocolate and brownies.”

“Cool! I wanna do that, Elizabeth!” Dinky shouted with excitement.

“Sure, Dink. One of these days. Now, put that back on the shelf.”

“Okay, Elizabeth.”

“Dink, ya better put that ole hat away, too.”

“No! I’m keepin’ it!”

“Suit yourself.” Elizabeth knew when to stop insisting with Dinky. He had his mind made up.

“Fanks, Elizabeth,” he said, grateful to his sister.

She looked carefully at the purple box Victoria held.

“Hey, Victoria, do you mind if I take that tea set downstairs? I remember playing with that when I was little. I’d like to show it to my mom.” Fondly, she remembered Pop sitting crossed-legged on the dining room floor, drinking pretend tea out of a tiny cup with his pinky stuck out while her mom took care of newborn Dinky.

“Okay.”

“Thanks, Vic.”

Victoria smiled, thankful her cousin was being nice to her—almost sweet.

“There sure is a lot of old stuff up here,” Elizabeth surveyed the attic again and all of the boxes Grammy had stored there.

“Who’s going to go through all this?” Victoria wondered.

“I know one thing—I ain’t doin’ it,” said William.

“Well, now, wait a minute. What if there’s something up here important that Grammy wanted us to have? Or else she wouldn’t have packed it up and had Uncle J.T. haul it up here. Take this box, for instance,” Elizabeth read the label on top of the plastic container. “It says ‘MY BEST RECIPES—TRIED AND TRUE.’”

“Ooh, and look,” said Victoria. “This box says ‘ALL MY BEST SEEDS.’ Mom would definitely want these. She’s been thinking about starting a nursery.”

“There’s all kinds of stuff up here,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t think we should just let it set up here and go to ruin.”

“Yeah,” said Victoria with tears welling up in her eyes.

“What should we do about it, then?” William asked as he cleared his throat and tried to act like he wasn’t getting emotional about Grammy.

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “Pray about it, I guess, like Grammy would. Dear Lord, please let us know what to do with all of Grammy’s stuff. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

“Amen,” replied Dinky and Victoria.

“Come and get it!” J.T. yelled from downstairs.

“Be right there!” Elizabeth yelled back.

“Well, I’m done. Let’s eat!” William shouted as he jumped up and got in front of everyone else at the top of the attic stairs. “Last one down’ll be the rotten egg.”

“Yeah, whatever! That’s gettin’ real old, William,” Elizabeth said, exasperated.

“What have you kids been doing?” Gracie asked the group as they trouped into the dining room for supper.

“Havin’ tea with the queen,” William replied drolly as Elizabeth handed Maggie Sue O’Riley’s tea set to her mother with one hand and scratched her neck with the other. Gwen always called her “Queenie,” and she hated it.

“Oh, I see you found Maggie’s tea set,” Gracie said with a grin. “You used to play with this all the time.”

“We found it in the trunk in the attic, Aunt Gracie,” Victoria added.

“Well, thank you for finding it.”

“You’re welcome,” Victoria said as she blushed again. She didn’t like being the center of attention. She turned away quickly and hugged her mom.

“Hey, sweetie, how are you doin’?” Viney hugged her back.

“Fine. We found all kinds of stuff for dress up in the attic.”

“I know. I used to play up there myself. It’s a neat place,” Viney said while Gracie motioned for everybody to sit down at the dining room table for supper.

“Why don’t you kids help me go through some of those boxes that Grammy left up there? Maybe before summer?” said Gracie, recruiting some help.

“Sure,” Elizabeth agreed, and all the others shook their heads yes with smiles on their faces, knowing that a prayer had just been answered.

“There’s all kinds of secrets up there, too,” J.T. said, seated at the head of the table, wanting to add some mystery to the attic for fun.

“Yeah, we found some seacricks up there ’bout you, Uncle J.T.,” Dinky said excitedly, with his voice somewhat squeaky as he sat down at his place.

“Is that right? What’d you find up there about me?”

William and Elizabeth were holding their breath, afraid that Dinky would tell something he shouldn’t. They glanced back and forth at each other, not moving their heads, only their eyes, for fear someone would know that they had been talking about J.T., Miss Patsy, Maggie Sue O’Riley, and the old hippie with the Corvette.

“We found a piece a paper up there that said you’s born on the moon, and that’s why you’re a stinker,” Dinky informed him.

The whole dining room exploded with laughter. J.T. laughed so hard he wheezed. He was so tickled he couldn’t talk, and he slapped the table a couple of times and stomped his boots on the old hardwood floor.

Elizabeth laughed loudly, too, while she scratched.

“And we heard Old Jacob Barton’s ghost outside when we was having Thomas Henry’s funeral. He was playin’ an old fiddle,” Dinky told J.T.

“Yeah, ‘Shall We Gather at the River,’” Elizabeth added.

“Is that right?” J.T. said as he stopped laughing. He’d heard it, too, just a little while ago.