Brown Leather Shoes

By Xlibris US

Brown Leather Shoes is a heartwarming tale that follows a woman through her life which begins during the depression and spans almost eight decades of American history. It begins from the point-of-view of a small child who was born during the depression and struggles to understand this thing called "war" that takes her beloved older brothers away from home. She comes of age during the 50's and attends college in the 60's, becoming friends with the first African American woman to attend Southwestern State University in Oklahoma. The book is intriguing as you grow with Darcy and share her struggles with the moral conflicts and historical events that influenced her life in rural Oklahoma and shaped a Nation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493189526

Book preview

Chapter 1

T he smell of the plowed listed ridges was delightful. I ran along behind the plow… a safe distance… . and smelled the fresh dirt turned over before my eyes. My daddy rode the H Farmall tractor with pride, although he spent an awful lot of time underneath it, working on it. I ran along the dirt until I was exhausted and plopped down onto the wonderful coolness of it, for the wind felt warm against my face. I was four years old and in l942, and my world was a sandy farm in southwest Oklahoma with a mother and daddy who loved me and four brothers, Troy, Kent, Lynn and Gale, who, most of the time, loved me.

My oldest brother, Troy, had gone off to college at Weatherford… I heard Mama reading his card out loud to Daddy while he ate his supper… he got home from the cattle sales sometimes after dark. That’s what my daddy did; he usually left home before I woke up, and I knew when he came home because the truck sometimes was full of bawling cows and calves, which he unloaded in the lot out by the barn. He fed them hay or feed stalks before he stepped into the back door for Mama’s hugs and kisses. I saw them when they thought I was busy with my crayons in the stove room on my quilt.

Dear Folks

I surely am busy. Everything is swell. There is so much to do down at the church that I don’t have time to get homesick… . hope you are moved when I get home. Everyone says I’m Mrs. Chapman’s pet.(speech teacher)She is always calling on me to give a speech or do something for her. I had to make an eight or ten minute speech at BSU the other night and now a girl just called to ask if I could arrange the next two Tuesday night meetings. I think that Mileka and I will go to the show tonight. If we take a play to Ft. Sill, I will get to go along because I am the butler. We may get to put it on for the soldiers.

Troy Caswell

I had sandburs in my socks, but I liked the cool of the house and I needed to find Kent… my brother, Kent Caswell; I knew he was leaving for something called the war and it must be soon; his bags had been sitting out in the hall near his bedroom all afternoon. (The kitchen and the stove room were lined up across from where the hall was.) I tiptoed toward him. His blonde hair looked shiny against his tanned bare back. He and Lynn had been plowing a lot in our fields. I must have stepped on a loose board in the floor because Kent had been putting socks into cardboard boxes, but now he turned and stared down at me, grinning.

Mama’s going to get you for playing in the cow lot again, Sis, he teased. I liked it when he called me ‘Sis’ . . . . I just did.

Naw, she won’t care… . besides she walked across the field to see Mrs. Tanner… she’s sick. I think she took her some jars of jelly… . said she’d just stay an hour. Where you goin’?

To join up… you know, kid, the war… he said, turning back to the cardboard boxes.

Where can I go to ‘join up’? I jumped forward on both feet and lost my balance and landed upside down on the linoleum floor. Kent chuckled and I relaxed knowing he never made fun of me… . but there was no answer coming from him, so I looked around from my sitting down place to see if he had gone back into his room. Tears made his eyes glisten as he folded a shirt and placed it into one of the cardboard boxes. I just stared at him and didn’t say another word. I had made my quiet big brother sad… .

Just then, I heard the Farmall roaring into the yard headed toward the barn where Lynn parked it and hurried in to fill the round tub with water from the pump in the kitchen… . Hi kid, he said as he hurried into the back kitchen door. He slammed the stove room door in my face and I could hear him splashing around in there. Lynn always had somewhere he had to go after he ate Mama’s supper. He slicked his dark hair down with oil and splashed shaving stuff onto his foam covered chin and shaved so quick that he nicked himself and stepped out of the kitchen with globs of toilet tissue on the bleeding razor cuts. He swung open the stove room door, wrapped in a brown striped robe. You look silly, I said paying him back for ignoring me.

Oh, I look silly, uh? Well, how silly do you look now little one? he blurted out as he picked me up and turned me upside down, causing the grassburrs to scratch my legs. I screamed as loud as I could, Let me down, Lynn… . I’ll tell Mama! He set me right side up.

Where is Mom, anyway? Lynn asked, doing a dance step out into the hall. Kent had shut his bedroom door, leaving the packed boxes behind.

Mama opened the back door. I’m here! Ilene Caswell took off her bonnet letting her auburn hair fall onto her shoulders. I stayed with Lottie too long… she is not feeling very well and I just couldn’t get away. I’ll get some potatoes to fryin’ soon. I know you kids are starved. Where’s Gale? I didn’t see him in the yard… . Kent… . where are you… . supper will be ready in about thirty minutes… . Mama’s voice always sounds like it’s going up hill higher and higher when she calls for somebody and they don’t answer… . Lynn, where is it you and Glenn Allen are going tonight? . . . . I thought you had a play to memorize and a term paper to work on… She washed her hands quickly in the sink. Mrs. Vaughan told me you had a part… .

Lynn danced past the question, just like he had danced before she opened the back door. Well, Mom, big brother is in his room and little brother probably snuck down to play with Kenny and Jimmy to get out of gathering the eggs.

I could see this made Mama nervous, when Lynn ignored her questions about his schoolwork. (I’m getting smarter every day; I’ll be five in a few months.) Mama promised I’d get to play outside on my birthday, if it isn’t a really cold day.

Kenny Scivally lived just downhill along the sandy field road in a white house just across from the Arnett school. Jimmy Lewis lived somewhere close to the church, called Antioch. His mama was Aunt Gertrude and his daddy was Uncle Ross. We were all cousins. Kenny’s daddy was Uncle Raymond; he drove to cattle sales too, like Daddy did. Jimmy was Gale’s age and laughed all the time and he made me laugh and sometimes I didn’t know why I was laughing, but I did. Kenny was a little older than I was with black hair and black eyebrows. He didn’t have a lot to say. His mama was Aunt Sadie, a happy little woman. Lots of times, after supper, up walked Aunt Sadie and Kenny. Mama invited Aunt Sadie to sit on the porch steps with her and visit. Billy Rae was Kenny’s older brother. He sometimes jumped in the car, I think, with Lynn. Or maybe Lynn drove to his house to pick him up. Anyway, Mama and Aunt Sadie never ran out of anything to talk about. Their voices drifted out into the trees where I played and Gale and Kenny crawled around through our sand tunnels. The boys had dug them and sometimes they had told me I could crawl through them first. I thought I heard the word Pearl… . Pearl Harbor, and I wondered why do mamas talk about it, too, and what was it anyway? Sometimes, they said names of the big boys who had gone to Antioch church; J.W. Brown, Ray Jones… .

I was sleepy. Just about the time I found a leafy, shady place to sit on, the bye byes and the come back, anytime floated down from the leaves above me. I heard Mama’s sandals crunch the leaves near me and felt her strong arms lifting me up. Little Doris, you had a full day, and don’t you always…

There was alot about this thing called ‘war’ that puzzled me and the words… new words I’d never heard Mama or Daddy or my brothers use at the dinner table: Jap, draft dodger, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, (I had a feeling that I wasn’t supposed to ask what they meant.) When Mama and Daddy and Gale and I climbed into the car to go to town… . usually on Saturday afternoons and I saw a man’s picture on a red and blue sign pointing his finger at us and Gale, sitting in the back seat beside me, said, Uncle Sam wants you, and turned and poked me in the ribs… I knew he was just trying to make me laugh. But, I wondered, why would a man none of us knew be calling himself ‘Uncle Sam’? He was not my uncle… . he didn’t look anything like my tall uncles or my short ones and he was not on Mama’s list; she sometimes told us the names of all of our aunts and uncles: You have two aunt Carolines, she prompted, (while Gale and I were making faces at each other in the chilly morning air) We had walked outdoors to gather kindling for the ‘pot belly’ stove which stood in the room next to the kitchen. Mama continued, Aunt Caroline Payton and Aunt Caroline Covington. She carried a basket for the tiny stray chunks of wood easily found in our sandy (and sandbur) yard.

Some days, when my uncles and aunts came to visit, the talk was like everybody was mad at somebody not in there in the room, and that’s when the words flew through the air… that old Jap Coursewood… Uncle Emmit Crow had driven his Model A up in the yard about the time Mama got hot biscuits on the table. He never knocked… he just opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen. He was mad about somebody who ran the Hollis bank. He runs that bank like he owns it and won’t let go of a penny and I needed the loan to make it into next year, Uncle Emmit griped. He seated himself at the opposite end of the dining table from where Daddy sipped his steaming coffee.(my daddy liked hot coffee, not any other) Uncle Emmit’s teeth looked like squirrels’ teeth. He smoked cigarettes right down to the end, until his fingers almost got burned, then he looked around for his coffee cup and stuck the butt down onto the saucer. (that other butt word was a word Gale and I were told wasn’t nice.) I saw my mama glance away. Daddy eyed Uncle, not saying much, at the end of the table, when Uncle Emmit showed up for just a little of that breakfast, Ilene, I started out ’fore daylight. Uncle Emmit and Aunt Bessie lived way up close to a river Daddy (Benjamin) called the Salt Fork. Running creek water, Mama told me, was their bathing place… . in the summertime… . and one time, Aunt Bessie told Mama that she took her True Story magazine out to the car to read, so when she got done she felt like she had been somewhere and got out and went into the house. I waited for Mama to pour her coffee and put the rich cream into it. Sure enough, she came, carrying the big coffee cup with the steam coming out of it. When she seated herself next to Daddy, I climbed into her aproned lap, leaned back against her and waited until she dipped a piece of a biscuit into the heaven—like scent of the coffee. As usual, she had set an extra spoon beside the cup just for me.

So, Bennie, is Kent really goin’ to do it? Uncle Emmit had looked up from his now drained coffee cup and lit another cigarette, squinting as the smoke rolled from the tobacco end. Nobody said anything for awhile; Mama, Daddy, Uncle Emmit… . they all stopped what they had been doing… . for what seemed a long time… .

Afraid so, Emmit. Lot of ’em from the Arnett class have already gone. He believes it’s his job to go too. My daddy didn’t like to visit much at breakfast. He sipped his coffee, and I thought he was going to forget to eat his bacon and eggs. He had lost interest in eating, I thought. He liked to get out early to feed the cows. His hands and face were sunburned. His hair was almost black. I thought he acted like he was ready for Uncle Emmit to go.

Mama added, He is joining the Navy… . he thinks he might be safer in the Navy. I saw her hand tremble when she picked up her coffee and sipped it. More coffee, Emmit?, she asked, rising from her chair, as he held out his cup and kept talking.

Well, he may be doin’ the right thing… . gettin’ in the Navy. Uncle Emmit placed his cigarette into his left hand so he could lift his coffee cup easier. Where is Kent anyways… . still in bed?

Nope… . I’m ready to eat with you Uncle Emmit. Kent stood in the hall doorway, smiling. He looked nice, his face shined like he had just shaved and splashed on the stuff Lynn uses. His blonde hair always gets blonder in the summer. Mama calls it sunbleached.

Uncle Emmit’s face creased in a grin, showing the squirrel’s teeth. Well, speak of the Devil and he appears! He raised himself halfway out of his chair and atempted to salute. His thin hair had gray streaks.

Kent sat across from Mama and me. The biscuits, eggs and bacon were passed to him. Mama mentioned to him about the coffee and I think Kent got up to get himself a cup just to get away from the table a minute. Uncle Emmit kept on about Uncle Sam and that man in the White House while the rest of us ate our food and listened. Soon, Daddy scooted back his chair and said he had cows to feed. Kent shook Uncle Emmit’s hand when Uncle finally stuck his stubby cigarette into his coffee cup and left. I jumped down and stepped out into the hall and out the back door. My collie dog wagged her tale and I sat down on the porch beside her. I was sure glad dogs couldn’t talk. We just snuggled up together and listened to a Bobwhite singing his tune somewhere in one of the cottonwoods close by. I was tired of war and I didn’t really know what it was yet. Lassie’s brown eyes looked sad right into mine… .

One morning, when I woke up, I knew something was different; Mama didn’t come and touch my shoulder and say, Breakfast is ready, and get me up. I smelled coffee, rolled over, and crawled out of bed, and stood looking down the hall, wondering… . where was everybody? Gale must be already out playing in our sand tunnels. I walked to where Mama sat at the kitchen table, but something was not right. My pretty Mama’s face was wet with tears. She didn’t scoop me up in her arms; she put one arm around me and still held her coffee cup in her other hand. There were no bacon and eggs and biscuits… . just the coffee she sipped. I felt myself begin to cry without making a sound. I knew Kent had left before daylight with Daddy in his cattle truck. The bus station was in Hollis and that’s where they had gone. Mama told me later that big brother did not want any of us to go along. This was his job to do and he wanted to do it