Document text
September 28, 1939
Winifred Morton (Postmistress)
Valhalla, N. C.
Adyleen G. Merrick, Writer
Dudley W. Crawford, Reviser
Original Names: Changed Names:
Valhalla Eden
Minnifred Morton Mildred Moss
George Morton Jim Moss
Tryon Tyden
Mts. Thompson Mts. Tanner
Nadine Nellie
Edith Edna
Helen Hilda
In the diminutive building which housed the Post
Office of Eden, North Carolina, Mildred Moss busily dis-
tributed the morning mail, stopping now and then as she
worked to say "Good morning" or to speak a cheery word
to one of the group gathered about her waiting for the
last letter and card to be put up in the little boxes that
faced the wall. Her kindly eyes looking out through steel
rimmed glasses had an expression of welcome and good cheer
as she spoke first to one and then another of her neighbors.
Light brown hair touched with grey was drawn straight
back from her forehead and pinned in a secure little knot
at the nape of her neck. There was no fussiness about
Mildred Moss, she looked the typical little old New England
mother, from her practical glasses to her yet more practical
morning dress and stout low-heeled oxfords. Her small white
hands moved quickly here and there as she placed mail in
the proper place with swift sureness.
Now and then she stopped to glance at a letter or post
card, sometimes a smile crossed her face or perhaps a frown.
She knew so well the people to whom this mail was addressed,
their particular problems and joys. Also, they were all her
friends, she followed the life of her community with interest
and concern.
Since the day Jim Moss had brought her as a little
yankee bride to his tiny cottage there on the hill nearby
which has been her home for many years, she took into her
heart the joys and sorrows of her neighbors, her own had
made her strangely understanding. It was to her folks came
for advice and help. She always gave it freely.
Pausing for a moment she patted the golden curls of
a chubby child who looked up at her with expectant eyes;
his little body tense with excitement.
"The package came, but baby it's so large I don't
believe you can manage it. I'm afraid it's much too heavy.
Can't you wait till your ma can come and get it? No?. Well,
lets see, hold out your arms and I will help you get started.
Ohl it's mighty big for you son, I just don't believe you
can make it home!"
Holding tight to the package the child struggled valiant-
ly through the doorway making his way along the winding path;
his little legs wobbled a bit as he crossed the bridge over
a stream in the meadow, but he trudged on finally passing from
sight, and the quiet which had marked this episode was broken.
"Poor little fellow" said the postmistress. °That's a
package of things his ma's sister sends. I wouldn't be sur-
prised if there isn't candy and perhaps a toy tucked in it
for him. Any way that's what he thought I'm sure."
It was pleasant waiting there in the little Post Office,
to look out on the well kept grounds surrounding it, where
flowering shrubs and rows of flowers gave the morning air
an especial sweetness. Sunlight made a silver ribbon of
the little brook nearby. The mountains in the distance were
touched with bright signals of the coming fall. Cosmos, pink
and white, flanked the roadway and swayed rythmatically with
each stirring breeze; everywhere hung a mysterious promise
of the harvest season.
It was an interesting group of people gathered there
waiting for the mail. Most of them made their home in the
valley. The tall grey-haired man was once an actor, he still
bore the stamp and mannerisms of the stage. Near him was the
bright little woman who awned and operated a gift shop on
the highway not far away, and worked with such success upon
hooked rugs hour after hour. Then there was the "New Man"
from Cleveland who had come into their midst to try planting,
in the open, acres of flowers for the wholesale market. A
dark -eyed woman held fast to a child's hand as she talked
in low tones to her older son who had just come in from work
at the mill. He worked on the night shift. They were all friends
and neighbors of Mildred Moss.
Soon the little group dispersed and went their separate
ways; the morning mail hour was over.
Carefully picking up a few sprays of an evergreen with
dark glossy leaves and wax -like white flowers, she came
forward with a welcome greeting.
"I thought you would come, so I stopped on my way through
the garden and gathered some Sweet Olive for you. I haven't
forgotten that you love it. I didn't have time to cut any
for you when you were over here before. I've been sorry
about that ever since.
"It's strange," she said, drawing up a chair, "how the
perfume of a flower can remind you of people and things in
the past. The Sweet Olive shrub was there in the garden
when I came, I don't even know when Jim planted it,(if he did)
or where it came from. We've tried so often to root a cutting
but never succeeded. It was blooming when our little son died.
He only lived eight months. Geeoge did so want a am."
There was a far away look in the woman's eyes and a
sigh escaped her, then she went on.
"I remember how I stood looking down at my little son,
so still there in his casket. He seemed such a tiny mite to
have to go all alone back to God. I went out in the garden
and gathered a little bunch of the fragrant white flowers
from the Sweet Olive shrub and slipped it into his little
hand to go along with him.
"Sweet Olive was blooming when my sisters came for their
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first visit to us. I think it was the only thing that
pleased them. They were shocked about everything else.
My new life was so different they just couldn't understand.
I had lived in a large and comfortable home, had known every
convenience, it seemed hard to believe I could be contented
and happy here. The cottage so small a friend once laughingly
said: 'Why Mrs. Moss, I could reach my hand down the chimney
and open your front door!' It wasn't quite that bad but the
cottage is awfully small. However, I just loved the place
from the very first day when I saw it there among the flowers.
I love it yet. That's why I have not gone to live with either
of my daughters or back north. It was in that house life's
joys and sorrows came to me. It 44L there I have lived, I
couldn't leave it now.
"Forty-four years ago we came to Tyden nearby, for my
father's health. Be did improve for a while but not for long.
We should have come sooner,I suppose.
"I'll never forget the day we arrived in the little
village where there was so much beauty and so few conveniences.
How drab and cheerless the cottage was that we had rented
sight unseen. The cottage whers}in bad weather,,winds blew
with such violence they actually raised the rug on our parlor
floor and rattled the windows something awful. We shivered
over a "hot blast" stove and I guess we thought a lot about
our comfortable home back east. Xim came to the train with
our friends to meet us the day we arrived. He was kind and
helped in getting us Settled. I think of that so often now.
"I was never what you might call beautiful, but Jim said
from the very first time he saw me coming down the steps of
the Pullman car, he knew I was the girl he wanted. From then
on he was certainly a persistant suitor. Aren't men funny anyway?
He came to call rightsway and asked me to go with him to a dance
next evening at the village hotel. Being a stranger and think-
ing it would be very informal, I wore some simple dress. Imagine
my surprise when we arrived to find it a gala affair. Women
in beautiful evening gowns, lovely looking, so well groomed
and up to the minute. I just supposed I would meet country
folks and was terribly embarrassed. But there was friendli-
ness and good cheer among those people, who later became my
friends. Most of them were here as we were, seeking health.
I soon forgot my emparrassment and had a good time. They
were all so kind.
le "Next fall aLgg came up to Boston and we were married
quietly, as my father had been dead such a short time. I can't
say my family took very kindly to it. 1Why on earth did I
want to marry him? Why go back to that little country town?'
"Well, I couldn't say then, I can't now. With the death
of my father our home was broken up. My two sisters were away
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teaching and there was only mother and one brother left. It
just seemed as if I walked out of one life and into another
the morning Jim brought me, his little yankee bride, back to
the new life. Be took my hand and led me through the door
and smiled as he said in a half embarrassed way, 'Well, here
it is "Doll", make the most out of it you can.'
"And I did, too. I set right to work. I covered all
the bare spots as fast as I could. I spent days and days
changing that bachelor den into a presentable home. Curtains
went up; flowers were put everywhere and you've no idea how
that helped. Out came my wedding gifts and it wasn't long before
the cottage looked mighty different I can tell you. Jim was
delighted, he watched with ever increasing interest although
he wasn't much help at any time.
"Then I tackled the yard. I just have a passion for
bringing order out of chaos, and the days just flew by. I was
so occupied I forgot my old home and its comforts. I even
overcame my dislike of taking 1.17 bath in a large tin tub,(11100Te
was no bath room until years later) and my hatred of Jim's
old lop-eared hunting dog, always under foot, always dirty.
I conquered everything in sight except Jim. In all our married
life together I never really succeeded in making him look neat.
He loved his old work clothes, his perfectly filthy pipes and
that old dog. He could in no time reduce a nice straight room
to an upset one, with his easy way of mending and pottering
with things in the house instead of the work shed or the barn.
I'd work so hard and then be embarrassed to have company come
in and find both Tim and the house looking so awful. But,
like most women, if they are sensible as well as wise, I grew
to care less about the looks of things and more about Tim
and his comfort.
"I'll always remember the day an old friend of mother's
from down east came to call and of how she lifted her skirts
carefully as she crossed the bare floor of the living room
to keep them from getting dusty. I cried, I was so angry
and hurt. I know now my little sitting room must have looked
terrible to her, and then at the beginning of our second year
of married life, the first baby came. The months before were
filled with doubts and fears. I hadn't realized at first how
far away Boston and my people were. But I did, when I knew
the baby was coming. I remember helping Tim get ready to go
to a wedding. I had planned to go too, but then the time came
I just felt too miserable. I found Geergeixe clothes for him
and coming UD the steps with hot water for him to use for
shaving I stumbled; there was a queer sharps pain that startled
me. I didn't mention it however.
“Long after 41446 had gone I stood at the window looking
9
out into the still starlit sky. I thought about home and
mother. I fought back the nervous homesick tears; I just
wouldn't be a coward!
"That's the only night I can ever remember thinking our
home was large; as the minutes went by it grew to greater
and greater proportions. I felt lost, weary; courage failed me
and I fell sobbing into bed, homesick and frightened.
"Next morning I just couldn't get up. Waves of agony
rolled over me.
ran for the Doctor and old Mrs. T4nner,,
who greeted me cheerfully upon her arrival with, ',Howdy, have
ye taken any ile yet?' She was a strong forbidding looking
woman whose thoughts were much more upon the misery she had
in her jaw than comforting me.
"The arrival of Nellie later in the day is still vague
in my mind, visions of old Mts. Tanner and the kind hearted
Doctor are all confused. I went off into a strange world
after a few whiffs of life saving chloroform where everything
got all mixed up with queer looking people and sounds like a
dog moaning and the faint cry of a baby. And then blackness,
deep and awful.
"Out of this I came and looked up into the distressed
eyes of Jim. I managed to smile and he prtbmptly began to
weep, his face all puckered up in the most ridiculous way.
10-
I thought of course something awful had happened,las old Mrs.
Tanner came in with the oaby. She took one disgusted look
at rim. 'You git; she said. This ain't no place er time
fur ye to be a bawlint. He got. Just the touch of that
little form which I sheltered so naturally with my bare arm
seemed to give me a new kinship with the world; my heart sang
and I felt 51orified.
"Drawing her close to my side I drifted off into a deep
contented sleep.
"My first sick bed tray was truly a masterpiece of
country art. Mrs. Tanner appeared with a large tin waiter,
(kicking the door of my room open as she came). It wasxun-
adorned by napery. A saucer contained sugar, still another
butter, a huge slab of it; a blue bowl was filled to over-
flowing with greyish oatmeal, a cup with no handle held strong
black tea, and warm milk still remained in the saucepan in
which it was heated. I made up my mind right then and there
to make short with my convalescence.
"When our next baby was coming I decided I wouldntt have
old Mrs. Tanner there nor a nigger woman either. As it so
happened Tim had only time to get the Doctor and it was Tim
who held the lamp as the Doctor worked to oring our second
daughter into the world. He brought still stranger trays
of nourishment.
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"Baby Edna never thrived, her frail doll -like face and
body frightened me. We did everything, tried everything to
prolong her life, but she slipped away at the end of the fourth
month.
"So much crare.,, so many sleepless nights and busy days
took its toll. I was weak and tried. The kind old Doctor
said 'No more babies for a while Mrs. Moss.' His good advice
fell on deaf ears. I wanted more babies; I loved them so. It
wasn't long before another one was on the way. Contrary to
what we expected her advent into the world was normal and un-
eventful.
"Hilda was a tiny Daby. Everyone said I would never raise
her, but I did. She is married now and has et nice family of
her own; all such bright healthy children, too.
"Then several years later I lost my boy. People said I
just didn't know how to tare for them, who can tell, I did my
best. The Doctor advised this and that, I changed diets and
wept over my poor little babies. I tried so hard to be a good
wise mother, to make them live.
"And now, the two daughters are gone their separate ways,
both are happily married. Nellie came home when her father
died but nOCin time to be of much help to me. I used to sit
by rim and strive to comfort him, he seemed like a little child
too, so frightened and suffering so. He was afraid when the
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end came he would suffocate to death. It was cancer of the
throat you know, but he died peacefully, thank God.
"So few people really understand their neighbors. No
one thought Tim was especially good to me (they just didn't
know) or that he provided as he should for us, and yet I look
back over all those years, even the awfully lean ones, and Itm
not sorry I married Jim. I've sold the land,/which he had bought
with an eye to future advancement in price. I've had good
profits from the pecan grove he planted and each year I sell
a good many crepe myrtles and other shrubs, while the holly
trees he tended so carefully yield a good revenue when we
harvest the branches at holiday time. Life was hard at times
but I've never come to want. Jim looked far enough ahead for
that. I only started the Post Office because I was lonely after
Jim died and needed some definite work to do. It wasn't be-
cause he didn't leave me enough. The work brings me in daily
contact with people and makes the days go by faster that's all.
"Do come again while the Sweet Olive is blooming. I love
to share it with you."