Buttercup…

Buttercup

Many years ago, when my memory first came to be I guess I was about three.  Alone all day while daddy worked in the cotton fields leaving long before the sun came up; it was just me and a big old yellow dog who watched out for me that everyone called “Buttercup”.

Daddy said that she wandered up one day about half starved and she never left our yard.  I had a sister, who was about nine, but she was never around she and my mother were gone all the time.

I overheard mother saying one day that my sister was the only child that she ever wanted or even had; I did not care I had daddy so my life was not that bad.

I would eat cold biscuits every morning left on the old wood stove then sit on our back porch wondering where I could go.  I did not need anyone to take care of me –   I had that old yellow dog you see.

She and I played in the fields under the hot southern sun, I would hang on to her and away we would run.  Sometimes we would walk in the woods around the mountaintop where we lived.  I had better care from that old yellow dog than most humans could give.

Life was not easy for me with no one to care; still “Buttercup” was always there.  Soon it came time for me to go to school Buttercup and daddy would watch as the bus drove away, and they would both be waiting for me at the end of the day.

The years went by quickly when one day only daddy stood by the road with his head bowed down there were tears in his eyes as he stared at the ground.  Later as my own tears fell upon that soft mound of red dirt I looked toward Heaven and told Buttercup to keep watching for me, “You’ll look up one day old girl and there I will be”.

 

©2013.annjohnsonmurphree

 

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