Button My Drawers

I used to enjoy visiting my Aunt Hattie and Uncle Herman. They had two small daughters, Mary and Marie. Aunt Hattie was my pappa's half-sister, the only sister he had. I would walk four or five miles to spend the weekend with them.

Once Uncle Herman was going to say grace. He stuttered pretty bad. Mary was a baby on Hattie's lap. Just as Uncle Herman started the blessing she put her foot up on the table. Uncle Herman said, "Good Lord," and abruptly added, "Hattie, Mary's got her foot on the biscuits!" Well, we broke up and he did not finish his prayer. However, they had good food and always made us welcome.

Once, before Hattie and Herman married, Uncle Herman, then very shy, was at our house before church one Sunday morning. My mamma had more than she could do trying to get dinner going and kids ready for church. So, Uncle Herman said to me, "Come here and I'll button your shoes." At that time this took a shoe buttoner - shoes had buttons up the side and over the ankles. So, he did them.

Then I said to him, "Now if I had someone to button my drawers, I'd be okay." We wore the kind with buttons all the way across the back at the waistline. I have often wondered why these were used since no child could button or unbutton their own. Uncle Herman was so embarrassed he ran out the door. My folks got a big laugh out of that many times.

Another time I was halfway to church with my new Easter frock on wrong side out. My mamma just stripped it off in the middle of the road, turned it, put it back on, and we went on to church.