Kind and Gentle People

There was something wonderful learned from growing up in a small country community.  Things I otherwise may not have learned somewhere else. Rural wisdom was the main course taught in our community on the Knob.  I learned to understand as much as I could about as many things as I could.  My teachers were not only my schoolteachers but also my neighbors and family. They were filled with the wisdom of how nature works and the classroom was everywhere, not just walls, windows, and desks in a row. They taught me to watch for the unexpected and survive the consequences.

 As some summers when the rains come frequently, the crops will grow thick and abundantly. It is then we must harvest everything even when we think we do not need it because next summer the rains may shuts off and everything around us will dry up and be gone. They taught me the wisdom of what to throw away and what to keep for the old ways may just turn out to be the best way.  They taught me common sense…To walk a never traveled trail is far more difficult than to walk one that is well used and established.  They taught me to support a person with a new idea; it may seem foolish at the time but may turn out to be the very thing to save a “stitch in time.”   They taught me to avoid criticizing those I called my friend. Everyone has their way of doing things and I will have mine… 

The community of Parksville, had a road leading up and over a mile-high hill and was marked as being the highest point in the county. At the top of the hill was a flat area where about thirty-five to forty families lived, raising their crops on a shoestring budget.  Everyone knew it as the community of “Parksville Knob,” or mostly, “The Knob.” It was a wonderful place to live.  There were two dead-end roads leading off the main roadway going across the Knob, Tennessee Ridge Road was on the upper side and Chestnut Grove Road at the lower side of the Knob…  Both roads were populated with mostly farm families.  It was a place where everybody was your neighbor and when one was in trouble all the others were not above stepping up to give a helping hand. It was a place where everyone was filled with brotherly love and the laughter of children was a sweet melody heard throughout the hills and spilling down into the hollows. It was a place where a stranger who appeared at your door got invited in and offered a cup of coffee.  Although there were sometimes short term feuds going on among the families, most everyone got along. There was certainly nothing like the, Hatfield and McCoy feud taking place…It was a place where God and church were the necessities of life. It was a place where the people not only spoke of the “Golden Rule, they lived by the “Golden Rule. They would start their day off with a prayer and a big country breakfast. They had the same frame of mind on Monday as they did on Sunday. Every plan they made ended with the final words of the sentence being, “If it’s the good Lord’s will.”

There were a few eccentrics, who lived there too, but for the most part, it was a kind and gentle people living in sweet harmony on the Knob.

One such kind and gentle person was Mrs. Martha, (a distant relative).

I’m guessing that Ms. Martha was probably close to seventy- years- old when I was a small girl.  I still remember many things about her and very often, something I see or hear will cause the image of her to pop up in my memory.

There was a hint of mystery about Ms. Martha, and as a small child we were all looking for something there to feed our imagination. She never let us down…Something was always going on with Ms. Martha.

Ms. Martha had snow-white hair and it ran wild about her head…she always wore dresses about ankle length and a long apron with big pockets. She wore mens boots and everywhere she went she carried a large burlap sack containing small digging and cutting tools. She was always alone and seemed to have no friends. I cannot recall a time of seeing her more than a mile away from the Knob.  

Ms. Martha was an herbalist and spent hours roaming in the woods digging roots from certain trees, picking berries and leaves from plants, and gathering bark from special trees. She knew and had a cure for anything that ailed you… from a sore throat to a lumbago attack… She sold her herbs to the country store owner in the nearby village or to individual households on the Knob. 

One spring day, I came upon Ms. Martha. She was having a wonderful conversation with herself.  I stepped back in the pathway and listened to her for a while. I don’t remember a lot about that dear woman’s conversation to herself, but I do remember these words spoken in her Kentucky hills dialogue, “Honey, I tell ye one thang, ye ain’t gonna catch me talkin’ bad  bout my neighbors like that. If I can’t say soumin’ (something) good about a body, I don’t say nothing a-tall. I shore don’t want the good Lord giving me a whoppin’ cause I spoke gossip of my nabor.”

Being a child, I didn’t really think much of this conversation except to get a good laugh at Ms. Martha, but as the years have gone by, I try to remember those words. This gentle woman taught me something that day and like Ms. Martha, I don’t want the good Lord to give me a whoppin’ cause I speak gossip of my brother or sister. The way I see it, gossip ain’t worth gittin’  no whoppin’ over. 

"Consider what a great forest can be set fire by a very small spark."

The little saying we all used, as kids, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me," is not true.
Words used unwisely can break the spirit of a giant. It can put scars on someone's heart that can become a lifelong hurt.
My thoughts is this:
If in any way, I belittle those whom I come in contact with....IF I use the weak points of my brother or sister to add strength to my strong points....If I use a superior attitude with others and forget the wisdom from the voice of my Lord...IF I criticize others forgetting everything I have was given to me...If I speak in an offhanded way, even to a small child, then I have learned little and know nothing about Calvary Love...

A thought for the day:
Let brotherly love continue; Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unaware...
Hebrew 13:1-2~
May your day be filled with the gentle spirit of our Lord Jesus....

God Bless,
Mary Frances King