In the late twenties, during my formative years, the Franklin Municipality paid five cents for a pair of crow's feet and three cents for each egg. Ignorance prevailed. People believed that crows destroyed crops. Now that was incentive enough for me to climb trees and pirate the crows' nests, not that I, a real tomboy, needed any incentive. Besides, I got encouragement from my brother, Walter, five years my senior.Every Sunday we had to go to church. After breakfast, Dad, a cantor, would leisurely dress in his finest clothes while mother hustled around getting us three children cleaned and dressed for church. Then she'd dress herself.
One spring Sunday, Mom finished dressing me in a pink dress, a big pink bow in my black hair, and long white stockings snugly held up by garters attached to a wide elastic waistband. My Sunday patent slippers were taken out of hiding, dusted off and polished. When we were all spruced up, we were sent outside to wait.
Boring!
I happened to look up and saw a crow's nest high up in a poplar tree behind the house. "I'm going to get the eggs!"
My sister Mary, two and a half years older, who cried at the drop of a hat, tried to dissuade me. "Don't go! You'll mess up your clothes. Mother will scold you!"
"Don't" always prickled my ornery bristles, and presto, I raced to the tree. Walter knew better than to stop me. He simply went inside and got his cap.
I scrambled up the tree, not minding the bark that snagged my white stockings. The marks would be on the inside and, hopefully, not very noticeable. Within minutes, I was at the nest. The startled crow flew off, cawing loudly and frantically. She kept circling above me, her flapping wings so close that I could feel my hair rising.
I looked into the nest. A windfall! Five eggs! Very carefully I dropped one egg into Walter's cap. I waited a moment for him to put it on the ground, then he readied his cap for the next one. I managed to drop all five eggs — intact. "Yea! Yea! Yea!" again. I started down the tree just as Walter put all the eggs back into his cap. Suddenly Dad appeared on the scene. Startled, Walter squeezed the cap as he put it behind his back out of Dad's sight. Sad! Sad! Sad! All but two eggs were crushed. Caught in the act, I came to a dead stop halfway down the tree.
"Come down! At once!" roared Dad. I anticipated a spanking. Walter never got spanked because he was a boy; but often he got lectured in no uncertain terms. My frail sister Mary, a bookworm, and non-physical, never got spanked either. If someone looked at her askance, she'd cry. To tease her, all I'd have to say is, "I don't like you" and she'd burst into tears. At this point, her lips began to quiver as she retreated, no doubt to cry. Dad used to say, "Mary is as quick to tears as a turn of the tap."
"Come down! This minute!" repeated Dad more forcefully.
"Promise not to spank me and I'll come down," I negotiated.
"I promise," he answered, very reluctantly.
I slid down. The sermon (verbal diarrhea at 60 m.p.h.) began. "Just look at your dress! Your stockings! You know how hard it is for mother to scrub those stains with Fels-Naphtha soap. You think money grows on trees. I sweat and toil to earn money to buy..." On and on he rampaged. He stopped for a second to take a deep breath, then continued in a stern voice, "Go, open the garage door." He followed so closely I could feel his wrathful breath on the nape of my neck. "Hurry up or we'll be late for church." He shoved me with such force that my head snapped back.
Quickly, but with difficulty, I started to push the heavy door on its rollers.
"You're pushing the door off the track!" he wrongfully accused me. With that he almost yanked my arm from my shoulder. Swiftly he gave me five "hot ones" across my bum. He didn't need to give me any more because my bum became numb after the second whack. No, I did not cry. I was born "tearless". Mom used to say, "My youngest cried dehydratedly."
What about Dad's promise?