Just a Little Bit (cont.)

"See if I don't!" Those are the last words that we heard Alicia mutter to herself as she set off to haul water from her aunt's house. You do remember that she was already chilled from her long walk home in the bitter January winds, don't you? From yesterday, you remember that she had just gotten the charcoal bucket lit for a semblance of heat and had to go back out into the cutting wind to get the water. I can tell you this. She prayed almost every step of the way and with each step a resounding refrain was building up in her brain. Yep, you guessed it, "I'm gonna be somebody someday. See if I don't!"

Let's Haul that Water

…She hoped her cousins wouldn’t give her a hard time about the water. She knew that her aunt had started dropping hints about how high her water bill had been being. She made it to her aunt’s and knocked on the door, “Who is it?” her favorite cousin called from within. “It’s me,” piped Alicia. “Doors open; come on in.” Alicia went inside and started her routine of filling up the two canisters. “Don't you ever get embarrassed about hauling that water? I wouldn't do it. That's what your brothers ought to be doing!” said her cousin.

 

“I know that’s what my brothers ought to be doing,” said Alicia. “But it's hard for Momma to make them do anything.  You know they’re teenagers and she can't make them do what she wants them to do and sometimes they make her cry. Somebody's gotta help Momma. So, I do it. I don't want to see her cry. Sometimes I hear her crying at night and I don't like to hear Momma cry. So, you know; I go get the water. It's okay. Now, about people laughing at me, they gotta laugh at something. If they didn't laugh at me, then they would be laughing at somebody else. Anyway, one day I'm gonna be somebody!”

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 She hoped that she didn't meet any of her friends on the way home because you could hear the water splashing against the sides of the canisters. Alicia's coat was wet on one side by the time she got back home because one of the canisters had developed a slow leak. She hung the coat up on the back of the door in the bedroom and closed the door. She hoped it would be dry tomorrow because that was the only coat she had. It was so cold in the bedroom that maybe her coat would not be dry, but she had to take the chance and leave it in the bedroom with the door closed because she didn't want to smell like smoke when she went to school the next day.

First Things, First

Alicia couldn’t worry about Hank Gould nor anybody else, right then. She had to cook. She knew it would do no good to worry about him.

 

 Alicia went back in the front room and put the rice on in the rice pot. While she rinsed the chicken with a cup of water. When the rice got done, Alicia set the rice on her makeshift table, the metal chair that was beside the charcoal bucket.

Since there was no flour, she battered the chicken in meal and then put the frying pan on with a small amount of lard to cook the chicken in. Alicia remembered to use a very small amount of lard because she knew that the lard had to last for three or four weeks.

Momma had taught Alicia how to stretch the lard. She knew to use the fatback grease for cooking cornbread. And she knew to put the fatback grease back in the grease can after she finished frying anything. She browned the chicken on both sides and then poured the extra grease into the grease can. She then put one glass of water and one fourth of an onion in the frying pan to let the chicken simmer. Alicia had to be careful that the water from the frying pan did not boil over onto the charcoal and put the fire out. She knew that the room would be colder than it already was if the charcoal got wet.

Then Alicia put more charcoal onto the charcoal bucket to warm the room a bit more.

Ah, the Not So Joyful Cooking on a Charcoal Bucket

Alicia got sick to her stomach because of the fumes from the just started charcoal. She had to go to the door to stick her head out to get fresh air so that she wouldn't be sick.

She always kept a headache in the evenings because of the fumes from the charcoal bucket.

            After she had finished cooking, Alicia, again thought about her harrowing day at school.  "But, that's alright. That's okay; one day, I'm going to be somebody and I'm going to have pretty clothes and ain't nobody gon laugh at me then!’

One Day

                 Many of those high school days and nights long after her mother had fallen asleep, Alicia would go to sleep herself, with her mother’s words resounding in her brain and her prayers to Jesus on her lips, “Reach for the stars; I’m going to be somebody someday! Please help me to do it, Jesus; please help me (zz-z-z-z).”  - (excerpt from,  Chopping My Row, pp.  103-106)   

 

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  Prayer allowed a little girl who used to have holes in her socks to be sent to the school of Polishing and Hard Knocks to come through blessed and grown and, at last, to come into her own (her “one day”).

  
  

Here is a part of the "one day" that prayer led her to:

              

These are four of the results that the little girl who carried the water received as a result of her prayers. The publishing of the books is one of the long-term results of her prayers. Now, you know why she is standing on top of the tallest mountain in her world and is touting about prayer. The title of the next book soon to be published by this little girl grown is, as you probably have guessed, "From the Tallest Mountain in My World." And from her mountaintop she yells, "My faith remained so the blessings rained!"

As I told you on Wednesday, on tomorrow, we will be visiting one of the short-term results of the prayers of the little girl who is now a woman grown with a family of her own.

Doing What I Can, While I Can Because I Care,

Alma L. Stepping On Carr-Jones