The Red Flannel Rag

There was a wood stove at one end of the room with a stovepipe going through

the ceiling, the upstairs, and out the roof of the house. They kept a fire going in the

stove no matter how hot it was outside.

Mom asked them why they kept it so hot in the house, and they said they didn’t

want the fire to “die down.” We laughed about that during the week and wondered who

started their first fire an d why he or she couldn’t start another one.

Grandma Molly and Grandpa Austin dipped snuff so they each had their tin cup

for spitting. There was also a large can near the wood stove for company if they dipped

or chewed. They did not talk to each other u nless a car went up the “BIG” road. Then

Grandpa Austin, whose rocking chair sat near the window, would part the curtains with

his hand and announce who just went up the road. Then they would all speculate about

where the person was going or had been. “That was Clint Ray. I’ll bet he’s headed into

town to bail somebody out of jail,” or “I’ll bet he’s had to go pick up something at the

store,” Grandpa Austin would say. The only sounds in the room between cars going up

the road were the creaking of the three rocking chairs and the squirt-plunk of snuff spit

as it left their lips and hit the tin can.

I would sit in the living room with them as long as I could stand the lack of

conversation, the snuff spitting, the heat from the stove, and the creaking rocking chairs.

Then my brother John and I would go sit in the car and pray for the time to go home.

The car sat below the house on the side of the "BIG" road. We could look up through the

front yard and have a clear view of the front porch. At times we saw things on the front

porch of Grandpa Austin’s house that aren’t worth mentioning; other times, as you will

see later, we were shocked into adulthood.

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