Monday, November 6, 2017

Playing Church

     After the garden slowed down a bit Mom starting looking for ways to help earn money. There was a store in our small town that said they'd be happy to buy all the baked goods she could make. Our little kitchen turned into a bakery where Mom would spend hours baking bread, cinnamon rolls, and pecan tarts.
     The first few days it was exciting to watch as she made all the delicious looking things, but after a while it became tiresome as she made the same things again and again. We would watch for a while but since it had to be perfect to sell, John and I couldn't help and we soon wandered off to find other things to occupy our time.
     We enjoyed pretending to play church. I would get my doll all wrapped up in blankets and then we would sit on Mom's rocking chair and rock as hard as we could, pretending it's our buggy. After we rocked long enough we would arrive at "church" and go into our little bedroom and sit in the lower bunk of the bunkbed and sing loud and long trying to imitate the songs we'd sing in church. After that John would get up and preach for awhile, usually some silly little sermon that ended up with us giggling and laughing. (which was a part we did not copy from Amish church services where you wouldn't even think of smiling.)
     We did this nearly everyday, and then one day after we had our rocking chair ride to church and got into our room I had the wonderful idea to open the bottom drawer of our dresser and use it for a church bench. We pulled it open and sat in it. Our weight was too much and the dresser tipped forward pinning us underneath, sending the kerosene lamp and everything else that had been setting on top crashing to the floor and breaking into pieces. We cried at the top of our lungs and Mom came hurrying in and lifted the dresser off of us. Amazingly we weren't hurt. Only frightened.
     She had us sit in the bunkbed while she cleaned up the mess so we wouldn't step on any broken glass. Once everything was back in order she got us settled at our little table with our coloring books and went back to her baking.

8 comments:

  1. you didn't need scolding..the fright was enough to make sure the lesson in the physics of balance was learned

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    1. It was a scary lesson, well learned. None of us ever tried that again!

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  2. Oh my! You and John must have given your mother a few grey hairs!

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  3. Your momma was doing the best she could to do the baking, earn some money, watch the kids... Sometimes, we just can't do it all. Just like the story on the train track with your father, I'm sure it scared her even more than it did you two. :)

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  4. Playing church! I did that with my dolls, and our girls did it when they were growing up. My dad said he "got his start" in ministry, preaching to the chickens in his backyard.

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