Some Reflections on Family Life

Back Home

I came back home today to see,
if it seemed at all like home to me.
The place was there I hoped to see.
But nothing seemed the same to Me.

The steps were down, the front door leaned,
the windows out, without their screens.
The chimneys fell, the roof caved in,
a memory now, where home has been.

The rose is gone, no tender care;
beneath the house a broken chair,
a plow stock, and an old bed frame.
It’s not home now, oh what a shame.

Our Pa is gone and so is Ma.
There hangs his hammer and his saw.
And what rests here is this old pail;
some bolts, screws and rusty nails.

A bonnet, apron, and Pa’s old hat;
the broken rockers where they sat.
A worn out broom and mop was there,
but no one here now seems to care.

No, there’s no wash pan, nor soap.
Familiar things as I had hoped.
The old wash bench has fallen down;
the gourd and bucket on the ground.

What’s this I see upon the wall?
The axe Pa used to raise us all.
He hewed the ties and split the rails.
Ma built the fence beside the trail.

The barn is gone, the pig pen too.
The chicken house where catnip grew.
The tail that leads down to the spring
is no more now, like other things.

The orchard and the hills I've known,
with briars and weeds is overgrown.
No garden now, no tater patch.
Can’t close the door, there’s no latch.

I closed my eyes and shed a tear,
wondered why I’d come back here.
And then I turned for one last glance,
I'll go inside, just take a chance.

Inside I see bare papered walls.
The ceiling’s gone, it had to fall.
The leaking roof made it cave through,
just one more thing I wish I knew.

If all the twelve were here today,
and everyone could have his say,
I think we’d hang our heads and cry,
For good old days that’s done gone by.

We’d take a walk up through the hills,
and say “Dear God, can this be real?”
and then we’d stop and take a look,
then do some searching in the Book.

We’d read and see that in this land,
God meant for us to understand,
that life’s short and death is sure.
We’d better make our life secure.

By trusting in His blood, we see
the only Hope for you and me.
Today we dare not put it off,
tomorrow may be our eternal loss.

We’re only here for a short span,
so reach and take our Savior’s hand
and take by faith the words He spoke.
“Come unto Me.” This is no joke.

Our homes one day will be like this,
the things we have we'll one day miss,
but, if we've made our future sure,
our soul’s eternal rest is secure.

So come on now, let’s heed His call,
He died for us, for one and all.
He’s waiting now to hear us say,
“I thank thee Lord, I take thy Way.”

This world to us will come and go,
we'll stop the plow, the axe, the hoe.
We all grow old and pass away,
to dwell with Him eternally.

Elva Mize Rice
May 5, 1978


To Ron from Mother


Bear Hound

My baby brother is a hunter. He likes to hunt deer, anything, turkey in season, and everything else. He travels through Georgia, North Carolina, wherever hunting season is open. He enjoys it. One time he knew where there was a deer run, where the deer went down for water from the river. He went early one morning and found a large tree and sat down, and leaned back against it, facing the deer run. He had his gun. While he was sitting there a long while, it was a cool morning and he drifted off to sleep.

While he was asleep he awoke to a hot breath right on the side of his neck. A sniffing nose went up around his ear, his face, hair, all around. After a while a tongue began to lick him. He dared not move, not even open his eyes, as he knew that it had to be a bear or a panther. He knew if he moved a bit, he was a goner. He just sat there and prayed that something would happen. While he was sitting there, this tongue began to lick him real rough. He thought it gots to be a bear's tongue, it's too rough. It licked his face all over.

In a few minutes this old hound whined. In an instant, my brother knew that this was an old hound that had gotten lost from his master while he was hunting in those woods. My brother was the first human this old hound had come into contact with. He thought this the best sounded best looking old hound he had ever seen in his life. He just hugged him and hugged him and led him out of the woods. He had lost his appetite for deer that morning.

March 29, 1997


Apple Tree

Perhaps what we had done was overlooked because they were after that lie. My daddy always said "A man is no better than his word." He said if a man's word was no good and he couldn't believe him, he was a no account man. Just watch him. Mark it down.

One time I remember, when I was a little one, between three and a half and four years old. My daddy was just a young father and he started him up an orchard, just cleared up the land, terraced it down, and started his orchard. He would order his trees from Starks Brothers. Some from Sears Roebuck, way back then. He would dig holes where he was going to put them and then he would call me as his big helper. I would stand there and hold the trees up straight and erect while he tamped down the soil around them. I thought I was really something because I was helping Daddy start an apple orchard. He would tell me how good the apples would be and we would make pies and we would make jellies, and apple cider. I just loved those apple trees.

About the second year after we got them out, a few of the trees began to put little bunches of blossoms out on the tips of every branch. Daddy would take me by the hand, lead me around, and show me these and say "This will make a red apple and this will make a yellow apple and we will have some fine apples." When they got up large enough for one to tell they were going to be apples of nice size, he told me one day "There's not going to be but a few of these because this is a young orchard, but don't pull any of 'em, because if you do, it will cause the trees to drop their fruit before its mature and they won't bear as well. Well, I let that all sink down. I promised him I wouldn't. He would take me every week by the hand and show me the apples.

One morning I got restless. It had been raining all night on Friday and it was now Saturday morning and they slept in late. I jumped up and slipped out in the yard, down to the spring, out to the terraces to see the apples. Those apples were about as big as your fist at that time; yellow golden apples. There was a drop of rain hanging on the bottom of each one of 'em. I thought those were just the prettiest apples I ever saw. I stood there a while and looked at them, out on the tips of the branches. I reached up and he told me not to. "That one way out there on the end, he will never miss that and I'm going to see how it tastes." It was beginning to show color; beautiful.

The little forked tree was standing there and I just stepped up in it to reach for the apple. The tree split all the way to ground. One side went down all the way to the ground!

Oh! I was frightened. Oh! I knew I was caught and I knew I didn't know how to get out of it. And I knew I mustn't lie and I was in a quandary. So, I ran to the house as fast as I could. There was a pan of water there on the steps, where it had rained during the night. I washed off my feet, ran in, and jumped in the bed. I curled up, lay there awhile, but couldn't go back to sleep. I got as deep under those covers as I could get.

After a while my daddy got up and he got breakfast started. He was out walking around, looking at his apples. I knew what he was doing and why, but I didn't go to see. I was sleeping. Daddy came into my room a bit later where I was pretending to be asleep and asked me if I had been out of bed already. "No, Sir." "Are you sure?" "Yes, Sir." "Positive?" "Yes, Sir." "OK." He left and went back down to the kitchen.

After a while he said "Let's have breakfast." Mother finished our breakfast and we enjoyed it. Well really, they enjoyed it but I couldn't enjoy it much because I knew I had lied. And I was going to get in trouble if they caught up with me. But I was hoping they wouldn't quite come up with what I had done. After a while Daddy said "Hanna, guess what one of these children's done?" Oh! I just drew up in a knot. I knew I was caught. "Guess what one of these children's done. They's climbed up in one of the trees and split it all the way to the ground; that big one down there that had them pretty ones on it. Daddy asked mother if she had any idea of who did it and she had no idea at all. She said none of the children had been up. She had no idea that I had slipped out early. She was telling what was right. "All of them's been in bed, there haven't been any children here." He said "I have a way of finding out. It was one of these children here." I thought "He can't tell who it was because he was in bed asleep. I did that. I washed my feet and crawled back into bed."

Daddy turned to me and asked me "Do you have any idea who stepped up into that tree down there and split it all the way to the ground and ruined my pretty apple tree?" "No, Sir." I stood there a few minutes. Again he asked "Do you have any idea?" "No, Sir" He continued "Now you look me straight in the eye. Are you telling me the truth?" I said "Yes, Sir" because I knew I was in trouble and didn't know how to get out of it. I knew I shouldn't lie but I didn't know how to get out of it. I was in a quandary. He said "I'll give you another chance. Are you sure you didn't do it?" "Yes, Sir." He said "You know I have a way of finding out exactly who did it." Oh, oh. Where was he when I didn't see? He must have been watching me someplace. Then I got to thinking. Maybe daddies were like God and could see everything I did. Then I really was scared. I had been taught all my life that God saw every thing I did.

He said "come here." He told Mother "I have a way of finding out." He reached back into his hip pocket and took out a little stick that he had trimmed off just right with his knife. He held up the stick and said "This stick is the same length as the foot that stepped up in the apple tree because I measured it down in the footprints in the mud at the base of the tree." Oh, oh. I'm a goner. I just stood there. I was frightened to death. He asked me "Do you want to change your story?" "No, Sir." I was in deep enough and I didn't know which way to turn cause if I told a lie, I was telling another one. Then I didn't know what I was gonna do. Daddy said, "Well I got a way."

He asked Mamma to bring the baby to him and to turn his foot around. He took his stick out and measured it next to that tiny little baby's foot and that stick was much longer than that little foot. He said "It couldn't have been this one." I was hurtin' all over. He called my little sister, just two years old. "Come here, Elsa." He told her "Hold your left foot up here." So she did. Her foot came just a little over halfway on that stick. "Well, it wasn't this one. There's not but one more here that it could have been." To me again he said "I'm going to give you another chance to straighten things out if you want to." I was in such a mess then I didn't see any way out and I just went ahead and lied again. "No, Sir."

Daddy said "I want to measure your foot by this stick. Reach your foot up here." I was standing there. I went to lift my foot up there and that was the heaviest foot I EVER picked up. It would just hardly get up on his knee where he could measure it. When I got it up there and he measured it, it came out exactly right to the top of that little stick. He looked at me and asked "You want to change your story?" I was already crying and I didn't want to change any story. But I knew that he knew all about it.

He said "Now let me tell you something. My apple tree's ruined. Split open and I don't know whether it will ever amount to anything. I'm not worried about the apple tree. What I'm worried about is about my child lying to me like you lied this morning." I didn't have a thing to say. I was standing there, facing the facts. I had lied. He said "You know there's a penalty for lying. I'm going to give you a good lickin'." He went out in the yard and broke off five or six little twigs from a peach tree and pinched them together at the back and came back in. He pulled up my little gown which was already muddy and wet from being out on the grass and mud in the yard and orchard. He checkered my little legs real good in the back with that little switch. It just burnt and hurt and everything.

Daddy said "Remember, I'm not whipping you for the apple tree. I'm whipping you for lying to me. You gotta pay for a lie when I catch you in one." He wasn't fussing. He was just talking. I a whole lot rather he fussed. He didn't. He was just talking. "When you lie, you've always got to face it. You've learned early. You faced yours this morning. Now you watch that."

Oh, I went back in there and crawled in that bed. My little legs were just stinging and burning. But you know what? Next time that I was asked something I thought two or three times before I answered and I didn't lie again about that. I tried again a few times but I never could get by with it. My daddy or mamma could look me straight in the eye and tell when I was lying.

I lied that time but I raised a little boy a few years later and he tried the same thing on me. I remembered what my daddy had taught me and what my mamma had taught me and I was trying to teach him. So I spanked him one day for lying and I told him "Mother can always tell when you're lying." He said "How can you tell when I'm lying?" He was a little feller, only about two and a half. I said "Mother can look in your eyes and tell when you're lying." So a few days later he came into tell me something and all at once he turned the backs of his little hands over his eyes and stood there while he was talking. I asked him "Ronny, why have you got your eyes covered up?" He said "I don't want you to see in there and know I am telling you a lie." He had tried the same thing I did.

Elva Mize Rice
March 29, 1997

Parents

Why do Ma's and Pa's grow so old,
when we kids are still so young?
They live the stories they have told,
and sing the songs they've song.

They've walked paths we still must walk,
but now they're treading slow.
They've crossed muck and mire of life,
through which we all must go.

They try to tell us but we balk,
we do not see nor hear.
Things they know, we still must learn,
although we walk with fear.

Our necks are stiff, our backs straight.
We think we stand up tall.
We think we rule the world today.
We know we know it all.

But let us strike a rocky place
or face a long steep hill.
We try to recall "What did they say?"
I think I hear them still.

O yes, they said "Look up my child,
when life is tough and long,
our Lord up there sees it all,
His ways with us is strong."

He left His spirit here to guide,
to keep and comfort too,
and if you know Him as your Lord,
He's coming back for you.

So read His book and wait and pray
and learn as along you go
and when you reach their age,
you'll see your pace and steps slow.

Do thank Him for the Ma and Pa
He's loaned your for awhile
and try to pass on to your kids
what they taught you as a child.



Elva Mize Rice
December 1, 1978

To My Grand Son

I hope one day that you will see,
how very much you mean to me.
As down life’s road, you now must go.
You can rush on, or pass or slow.

For life you know is a one way trail.
So do your best and never fail.
For there’s no turning back, you'll see,
Don’t take for granted. It’s free.

For years before you came to me,
God placed His son upon the tree.
With blood and sweat upon his brow,
secured the freedom you have now.

Don’t take it lightly, for an hour,
for you must travel in His power.
So stop, think, read, and pray,
for on ahead is Judgement Day.

Life, long or short, is but a span,
where measured by his loving hand.
But in His word you'll always find,
your loving care, He has in mind.

Today? tomorrow? We don’t know,
but down life’s path we all must go.
And over the hill, or ‘round the bend,
we could come to a sudden end.

Elva Mize Rice
November 3, 1979

Reunion

Time keeps right on passing,
it seems so slow,
but the years keep on stacking,
as older we grow.

Our hair was once glowing,
young, colored, and fine.
Now they’re all turning gray,
exactly like mine.

Some are just graying,
they’re still soft and fine,
and some of us, snow white,
exactly like mine.

Some of us are balding,
and some are just thin.
Our tops are all changing,
especially the men.

At our reunions we joke,
as we did long ago.
Our sparkle is going.
a fact we well know.

Sometimes as we tremble,
and smile through our tears,
we wait for the next time,
as we done for years.


These years keep on rolling,
one day they will end,
and then will recall,
all our cousins and friends.

We'll sit down to eat,
and some won’t be there.
Someone who is younger
will sit in his chair.

We'll say our good-byes,
and go home again.
After talking this over.
we'll plan this again.

How well we all know,
our Lord will soon come,
and carry us safely,
to a far better home

And all who have not known Him,
while living down here,
will not have a home,
with our loved ones up there.

As we are now living,
and still have the time,
let’s accept His shed blood,
and his offer divine.

And then when He calls us,
and we know that he will,
an unbroken circle.
will each one fulfill.

We'll see the nail prints,
made for us long ago.
There, no more annual reunions,
as down here below.

A permanent reunion
we'll have, way up there.
We'll sing and be happy
as Heaven we share.

Elva Mize Rice
May 16, 1982

Corn

A family is like an ear of corn.
God puts each grain in its place.
When He comes to take one home,
It leaves an empty space.

Elva Mize Rice
Summer 1983