Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Come Go Home with Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams
    Come Go Home with Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams
    Come Go Home with Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    Come Go Home with Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams

    By Rosemary Black and Lee Smith

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Sheila Adams has been performing Appalachian ballads and telling stories for over twenty years. A native of Madison County, North Carolina, she was introduced to the tale-telling tradition by her great-aunt 'Granny,' well-known balladeer Dellie Chandler Norton. This collection of Adams's stories provides a rare portrait of a distinctive mountain community and charts the development of an artist's unique voice. The tales range from stories of heroic, sometimes fierce, mountain settlers to the comic adventures of local drifters and tricksters, from magical childhood encounters to adult rites of passage. We meet Bertha and the snake handlers, local preacher Manassey Fender (who 'looked like a pencil with a burr haircut, in a suit'), and Adams's beloved grandfather Breaddaddy, who taught her about life and death with an enchanting graveyard dance. But perhaps the most powerful character depicted here is 'Granny,' whom Adams calls 'the most exciting person I have ever known and the best teacher I would ever have.' By weaving these remembrances into her stories, Adams both preserves and extends a rich artistic heritage.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe University of North Carolina Press
    Release dateNov 9, 2000
    ISBN9780807866467
    Come Go Home with Me: Stories By Sheila Kay Adams
    Author

    Rosemary Black

    Rosemary Black is the food editor at the New York Daily News, the nation's eight largest newspaper. She is the author of The Kids' Holiday Baking Book (SMP, Oct. '03).

    Read more from Rosemary Black

    Related to Come Go Home with Me

    Related ebooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Edge Walker

      Feb 20, 2019

      Edge Walker
      19 min read

    • Article

      My Country Childhood

      Oct 2, 2019

      FOR AWARD-WINNING author Heather Rose, reminiscing about her early days growing up along the southern shores of Tasmania brings back special memories of idyllic, safe and carefree times and the genesis of an enduring love of literature and the sea. “

      5 min read

    • Article

      Fieldwork

      Nov 25, 2021

      Fieldwork
      11 min read

    • Article

      Where We Write

      Feb 9, 2017

      Where We Write
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Walk In Milk Wood

      Mar 9, 2023

      A Walk In Milk Wood
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Walk In Milk Wood

      Mar 9, 2023

      A Walk In Milk Wood
      5 min read

    • Article

      Shirley Collins

      May 29, 2023

      Shirley Collins
      5 min read

    • Article

      Untold Resilience

      Dec 6, 2020

      I was 16, he was 20 and Leslie was the first person I ever fell in love with. It’s difficult to try to describe the intensity of emotions in regard to relationships during that period. Those times were different; we were so aware of the horrors of wa

      4 min read

    • Article

      Saying Goodbye To Mary Danquah

      Feb 25, 2019

      Saying Goodbye To Mary Danquah
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Poetry No. 112

      Dec 6, 2022

      The Art of Poetry No. 112
      26 min read

    • Article

      Isla No Place Like Home

      Nov 2, 2022

      Isla No Place Like Home
      10 min read

    • Article

      Speed of Mercy

      Jul 30, 2021

      Speed of Mercy
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11

      Dec 7, 2021

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11
      26 min read

    • Article

      Call Me By My Name

      Apr 30, 2022

      Call Me By My Name
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Of Great Character

      Jul 30, 2024

      Ever since I learned to read, I have been a “mystery buff.” As a girl, I delighted in the adventures of The Happy Hollisters, that exuberant family who found intrigue everywhere they went. And the Encyclopedia Brown series challenged me to put on my

      6 min read

    • Article

      Gene Simmons

      Apr 1, 2022

      EVERYBODY KNOWS GENE Simmons. Or at least, they think they know Gene Simmons. Kiss co-founder, blood-dribbler, tongue-waggler and possessor of one of rock’s biggest egos. But long before he became The Demon, he was Chaim Witz, a kid born in Israel an

      5 min read

    • Article

      The New Southern Gothic

      Aug 18, 2022

      The New Southern Gothic
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Sep 7, 2023

      As his memoir Sufferah is published, telling the story of his early life in care and in prison, the award-winning novelist picks the five books that shaped his thinking and changed his life As part of his Small Axe series, Sir Steve McQueen decided t

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Sung Land

      Aug 22, 2024

      The Sung Land
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Sung Land

      Aug 22, 2024

      On the Leonardsville Road this gusty April morning, the wind is inhabited—by pine voices and widow-makers, squirrels and warblers, and the echoes of people I have never known or imagined. As I walk down the road on the center yellow line, I hear them

      9 min read

    • Article

      Push Play

      Apr 6, 2020

      Push Play
      7 min read

    • Article

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

      Jun 10, 2020

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
      6 min read

    • Article

      HUNTER DAVIES Back in the Day

      Jun 1, 2022

      Sceptre £20 Melvyn Bragg is our greatest living Cumbrian – even bigger than haulage king Eddie Stobart. Like Wordsworth, Melvyn is Cumbrian born and bred, and has never really left Lakeland or stopped loving it. He is now a national treasure, loved b

      3 min read

    • Article

      Echoes All Around

      Oct 27, 2022

      Echoes All Around
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Last Waylon Party

      Jan 18, 2019

      The Last Waylon Party
      14 min read

    • Article

      Worlds Of Ink And Paper

      Nov 22, 2022

      As a young girl, I still remember my dear mother, smile on her face, curled up with Family Circle magazine in her lap. She was engrossed in an article titled “Butternut Wisdom,” written by Gladys Taber. At my age, it didn’t mean a thing to me. But as

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Come Go Home with Me

    4.5/5

    5 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Adams voice as a known storyteller and balladeer is clear and simple in these short glimpses into her early life growing up in the community of Sodom in Madison County, North Carolina. Funny and heartwarming, we come to know many of her kinfolk and neighbors. The story of Old Christmas Eve with her Breaddaddy will leave you with a warm feeling and you'll understand her Granny best by her phrase "my hand print is all over the raising of that one." Sheila Kay Adams is a North Carolina treasure.

    Book preview

    Come Go Home with Me - Rosemary Black

    It’s a Sign

    There was a small branch that wound and twisted its way down from the Sim Top, through the Burton Cove, on down through Sodom, and later joined with Big Laurel Creek. It wasn’t very wide or deep, but in places it formed pools that were so clear that you could see the sand and rocks on the bottom. It was the perfect place for minners to live. As children, we would make hooks out of straight pins, catch a few worms, and fish for those little fellers. We always put them right back in the water so there never got to be a shortage of them.

    One hot September day, I was helping Granny clean up after breakfast. She brought the tail of her apron up and wiped the sweat off her face. Hit’s hotter ’an Satan’s house cat today.

    She walked to the open door and stood, one arm braced against the facing, and looked for all the world a picture, framed and motionless. Then she whirled of a sudden and said, Grab a flour sack, honey. Let’s go to the woods and gather us some buckeyes. We’ll git us a dope from the peddler.

    She reached around behind her and untied her apron and threw it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. I reached in the kitchen cupboard and brought out a flour sack that bore the same pattern as the underwear I had on, and out into the sunshine we sailed, Granny in front, singing at the top of her lungs, me in tow. Granny’s digging stick swung gracefully from the leather string around her neck, and she paused briefly to grab her hoe from where it leaned against the barn. She never went into the woods without her digging stick, the handle worn smooth from years of use digging out ’sang root. And she never went without her hoe, the edge of which was honed to razor sharpness. The hoe served a dual purpose. It could be used as a walking stick on the steep mountainsides, or it could slice the head off a copperhead in one blow. Granny was an accomplished copperhead killer.

    By midafternoon, we had filled the flour sack full to busting, had located several ’sang roots, two of which were now in Granny’s possession to be washed and hung behind the stove, where they would dry and later be sold. We had turned over rocks in the branch so we could watch the spring lizards jump straight up and then slither farther into the mud to be still as death, and we had a run-in with a huge thousand-legs. Granny capped her hand over my mouth when we saw the thousand-legs, because if you show them your teeth, they’ll every one rot out.

    We had wandered through the mountains and gradually worked our way back down to the branch, where we laid down on our stomachs and watched the minners dart back and forth through the shafts of sunlight that sifted down through the leaves of the buckeye trees. We dipped our fingers into the water and the minners came right up; and if we stayed real still, they would nibble our fingertips. If we moved our hands the slightest bit, they would streak off in all directions, only to return when the water became still again.

    Suddenly, out of nowhere, came the sound of a strong breeze–but the air was perfectly still. Granny looked up and about that time a big yellow and black butterfly landed on the bank beside her, and then another, and another. They swooped down out of the sky and covered the banks of the stream, the trunks of the trees, and me and Granny. They settled on our arms, our hair, our faces. I will never forget the way Granny looked with her hair and face, arms, and shoulders all covered with butterflies opening and closing their wings. Granny’s skin looked to be a moving, living mass of yellow! And through the living yellow I could see Granny’s shining blue eyes. I got so excited that I jumped up and started trying to catch them, and Granny spoke sharply to me for one of the first times in my life.

    Git down an’ be still, girl!

    I was so startled and hurt by Granny’s tone of voice that I did as I was told immediately. The butterflies soon settled back on me, and I looked at those on my arm. I could see their tiny bright eyes, their curled velvet tongues; even more, I thought I could see their life’s-blood running through their paper-thin wings.

    And then, in a fluid and beautiful motion, they lifted as one and spiraled into the blue September sky and were gone. Granny reached out and took me in her arms and held me fiercely for a minute.

    It’s a sign, Sealy, it’s a sign of some kind. God sent them butterflies just for us. I’m sure it’s a sign . . .

    Time passed; it always does. I still remember, though. And sometimes in the heat of late summer or early fall, I go back to the little branch there beneath the huge buckeye trees and sit on the bank with my feet dangling in the water, searching in vain for the minners that nibbled at my finger thirty years ago. And I turn my face up, searching the endless blue for a cloud of yellow, listening for the rustle of a thousand little wings.

    Marking a Trail

    Breaddaddy was my mother’s father. His voice was a constant throughout my childhood, and I can hear it in my mind even today. He was a small man, razor-blade thin, as he used to refer to himself, with a thick shock of stiff white hair and all of his God-given teeth. He was a great source of entertainment for me as a child and one of the best storytellers I’ve ever heard.

    Me and Breaddaddy used to hunt bird nests in the field there next to the house. We would crawl along on our bellies, him in front parting the tall grass, me close behind. I would look back every now and again, marveling at how the grass stayed flat. Breaddaddy said we were marking our trail.

    We’d be in trouble if they was somebody a trackin’ us, Grandbaby. Why, that grass a layin’ down that a way would lead ’em straight to us. You have to be clever when you don’t want to be cotch up with.

    We’d find a bird’s nest, and, every time, he would caution me about not touching the nest or even allowing my breath to pass over it. Iffen the Mammie bird even so much as gets one whiff of our smell on the babies, she’ll leave the nest and the babies will die.

    I believed him. I had seen the results before. The tiny defenseless babies tossed from the nest, flopping along on the hard ground, covered in ants. I knew better than to touch them.

    One day, Breaddaddy decided to take me to the High Rock to pick blackberries. We left early, and midmorning found us sitting on the top of the ridge in the shade of the High Rock.

    The High Rock was a strange jumble of rocks, some of them rising up into the air for thirty feet or more. The fact that they were right out on the top of the ridge always caused me to go into a full-blown question-asking fit.

    How did these rocks git here? Who was the first person to ever see them? Reckon they was left here by them big glaciers? How long do you reckon they’ve been here like this? And what about them holes up there in the rock? How do you reckon they got there? And on and on. I guess it was in self-defense that Breaddaddy told me this story.

    "A way back, years ago, even before your people come to Sodom, they was wild animals that roamed through here–big black bears that stood ten feet high when they rared up on their back legs, the big cats, them what was black, and the brown’uns too, prowled these woods. We had beaver that lived up and down the branches, and flyin’ squirrels and wild turkey and even had wolves.

    "The Indians farmed the land just like we do. They had crops a growin’ right out the ridge there. They cleared and farmed the ridge tops first ’cause they caught the sun better and they could see clear out across the valley in case danger threatened. They was a clever bunch, the Indians. They lived close to the land and knew how to take care of it. They was real careful with it and it was good to them, too.

    "They was a young Indian girl that used to come and help her Mam and Pap work. They would leave home before daylight and work all day out here on the ridge. She was a good girl, and part of her job was to help take care of her little brothers and sisters. See, they couldn’t take the young’uns to the field and put ’em down on a quilt the way your Ma did when we went to the fields. They was always havin’ to worry about some wild animal a carryin’ them off and eatin’ them. So, the young girl stood watch.

    "Now, the young girl was really purty, and when she got up courtin’ age, she drew the unwanted attention of one of the braves there in her village. He was a bad ’un and there was talk that he had taken his wife off and killed her. They never was able to prove it, so he was a free man. This man took to followin’ the girl and her family up on the ridge and would set off to the side and watch the girl as she took care of the young’uns. She was afraid of him and tried not to even look at him as he set up on that rock over there. But she knew he was there.

    "One mornin’, as she sat with the young’uns, the brave got up from where he usually sat and walked over to the biggest rock, that one right over there, and started to chip away at the face of the rock. The girl watched, wonderin’ what in the world he was doin’. He never said a word, just kept strikin’ that rock, blow after blow. By the time the girl and her family left the ridge, he had a purty good sized hole started.

    This went on for weeks. He made seven perfectly round holes; count ’em, you’ll see there’s only seven.

    I wandered over to the rock and climbed up on a fallen tree and peeked in the lowest of the seven holes. I rubbed my hand over the inside, feeling the smoothness of the rock. Breaddaddy’s voice went on behind me.

    "Well, he chiseled out them seven holes just as purty as you please and went back to settin’ on his rock. Now, he had a mean face on him. Had a big scar that ripped down the right side of his cheek. He picked that up in a knife fight about the time his wife disappeared.

    "The girl was afraid of him. Afore long though, her curiosity overcome her fear. She went over to the rock, right about where you are, and peeped in, just like you’re a doin’. There was a real purty white deer hide neatly folded layin’ inside.

    "The girl took it out and felt the leather. She glanced over at the rock right nervous-like and the brave smiled and nodded at her. She carried the hide back over to where her brothers and sisters were a sittin’

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1