Country Girl

I'd been dreaming. A dream of happier times. A dream where I was back in my old neighborhood. Where I knew everyone and everyone knew me. A place I loved dearly. In this dream my friends were all there and we were right smack in the middle of a huge waterballoon fight! It was the kind of fun that we would have stirred up in real life, had I still been back there. But, unfortunately, I wasn't.
Suddenly, someone elbowed me rudely in the ribs. I was conscious of a smile still lingering on my face as I came slowly awake. A smile that changed into a scowl when I sat up grumpily and turned to glower at the owner of that offensive elbow. "It's awake!" my younger brother, Matt, by two years smirked. "We're here," he added, pointing a finger at the open window. Following his gaze, all I could do was stare. I felt like pinching myself to make sure I was really awake and not still dreaming, only this time it was a nightmare! All I could see from where I was sitting was a bunch of bushes and trees and not much else! "Oh, my God! Where are we?" I asked incredulously. Surely, it was a mistake. It had to be! My mother had to have made a wrong turn somewhere. That was the only way to explain how we could've ended up in what looked to be the middle of nowhere. For who in there right mind would come here intentionaly? It had to be a mistake! This was nothing like my old neighborhood. And we were definitely not in the city anymore. But, one look at my mother's smiling face and the tears shining in her eyes and I knew it was no mistake.
The tears served to remind me that my mother had been having a tough time of it lately. The breakup of her marriage to my dad had been rough on her. She'd said that she needed to just get away from everything and find some peace of mind. But did she need a change that was quite so drastic? Didn't she know or care that she wasn't the only one suffering from all of this? There was no denying that I was more than just a little bit angry with her! The remnants of my dream only intensified all the feelings that were at war inside of me.
Climbing out of the car, I had my first full view of what was to be our future home. To the left, stood a rambling farmhouse. It had a wide porch that ran along the whole front of the house. My mother didn't seem to notice the peeling paint or the rusted tin roof! She chattered on happily, as she pointed out the old barn that stood off to the right. Once again, she didn't seem to notice that it had a few boards missing here and there! Clasping her hands, my mother turned to admire the rickety old shed that stood behind us. It appeared to list just a little to the side, like my uncle did sometimes when he was drunk. My oblivious parent seemed to notice none of these imperfections, judging by the big smile still plastered all over her face. She declared the place perfect, a godsend, she said! For what, I thought sourly, a hee-haw show?
I'd already seen the outside , so I definitely wasn't looking forward to seeing the inside of that creepy-lookin' house. My first impression upon entering was that it wasn't all that bad. I didn't want to admit, as I looked at the worn wood floors and the big rustic fireplace, that somehow it appealed to me. But that feeling quickly evaporated as we came to the last room of the house. You couldn't really call it a room. It looked more like a porch. This one, though, was closed in with screen wire. A contraption stood off to the far side. I soon learned it was a well from which we would get our water supply for our baths. My mother seemed rather pleased that someone had saw fit to leave us the tub, too. It was a tub all right, a COLD, metal washtub! My poor mother must have seen my appalled expression. For she quickly tried to reassure me by pointing out the pot-bellied stove that took pride of place in the center of the room. Well, that was one consolation, I guess. Maybe it would keep us from turning into popsicles while we were bathing!
Matt seemed to be taking all this in stride. Of course, the whole bath thing would not have been giving him a whole lot of worry. Hygiene had never taken top notch on his priority list. Although, here lately, I had noticed him taking a little more interest in his appearance and smell! Which had me thinking maybe there was a girl in the picture, somewhere? Or at least there had been. Once again, my conscience reminded me guiltily that I wasn't the only one being affected by all this upheaval in our lives.
My bladder chose that moment to remind me that I hadn't emptied it in a while. I knew our little tour hadn't uncovered the necessary equipment to take care of that problem, so I turned to my mother for assistance. Busily taking in the rest of the house, she suddenly turned to me and exclaimed, "Oh, I forgot to show you where the outhouse is!"
"The what?" I said.
The outhouse as it turned out, was a small building that stood at the far end of a trail. It was half-hidden by a bunch of tall pine trees and scrubby bushes. That explained why I hadn't seen it earlier. One look at the inside was all it took. Giving my mother a horrified look, I exclaimed, "There is no way I'm using that. That's just... disgusting!"
"Well, honey," she said as she patted me on the shoulder, "it's that or the bushes."
I seriously considered the bushes, but the thought of meeting up with a snake or a patch of poison ivy or whatever curtailed that idea! I decided to take my chances with the outhouse. After I'd stepped cautiously inside and shut the door, I gingerly sat down on the old toilet seat perched atop the cut-out hole. A bee buzzed around my head. I could hear other bees buzzing somewhere. I just knew that one of them would grow tired of buzzing around or get ticked off or peed on or something and decide to land wherever they might find an expanse of exposed skin! Such was my first experience of using an outhouse. I won't even mention the smell!
I'll never forget that first night when it rained. I was just getting accustomed enough to all the creaks and groans that old house made to finally get some sleep. That was until a racket, loud enough to wake the dead, had me sitting straight up in bed. That was when I realized it was raining. But it wasn't just raining, it was coming down in torrents. The sound as it echoed off that old tin roof sounded just like someone had a huge set of drums up there and was beating the hell out of 'em! The next morning I could only gawk as my mother proclaimed she'd slept better than she had in a long time.
Those were just a few of the atrocities I experienced in the first few months of my new life as a country girl. Someday, I'll have to tell you about the first time I ever milked a cow. But not now, the memory is still way too fresh in my mind! Then there was the time my brother and I met up with that bobcat. That was pretty scary! How can I forget those hot summer days when we had to pass by that stinky pig farm every time we went to town? Ughhh!
But, as it turned out, there were hilarious times, too. Like the time when we were working in the garden and my mother looked down and saw a snake coiled up between her feet. How she managed to not get bit I'll never know. Maybe it was all the yelling and screaming and jumping around. Maybe she threw the poor thing into shock.
My brother and I discovered that rotten tomatoes and persimmons make really great artillery for fights! We also found out where the local swimming hole was where we could go to wash it all off. The locals had named it Blue Hole. Imagine that! And yes, we were delighted to discover that there were other kids who went there, too!
Despite all my misgivings, I guess most things ended up turning out okay. I made new friends. We got indoor plumbing! My brother, Matt, well I think he proved to be adjustable to just about anything. Except I knew he missed Dad. Who knows, maybe someday that would work out, too? And my mother? She seemed to find, out there in that country, the peace she'd been searching for.

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