Echoes from Orchard's Glen
An Appalachian story of the Faith of seven generations
by
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Chapter 2
“Dandy”
Brushing against the thicken glass of the east window pane, a twisted apple tree limb shows new signs of life all along the aged knobs of the branch, as a cool spring-breeze quickly pushes dense fog past in misty waves.
“O’timers will tell’ye…that o’dogs and old folks go home in the spring and fall.” she whispers, bed-covers pulled up to her chin.
Oddly, she finds comfort in these words this morning.
She was born in this bed. The tenth of ten children. In a sturdy bed of solid chestnut-wood with its thick-headboard rais-in five-foot high from the floor. Her and her “man” married fairly young, and then spent their lives here, farming the bottomland. Being the kindly daughter she was, she “seen- after” her Mama and Papa, and when they passed, this two-story farmhouse and nine-hundred and seventy-seven acres came down to her.
She gave life to twelve children here herself. Here…in this room. In this very bed. And now, she had spent the past five months, lying in this bed. Resting at times, still finding it hard some days to even gather the strength to set-up long enough to take nourishment. Five months in the bed.
The bed she was born in.
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, she was suddenly awakened.
“Mommy…?” a child’s voice cried.
“Mommy…” the voice again.
Aged eyes scroll across the patchwork-top quilt, over the low wooden-timber that made up the foot of the bedstead, coming to rest on the empty slat bottom chair in the far corner. The tune to a song she’d not heard in many a-year played softly…somewhere about the room.
“Mom-my…it’s me.” a tiny boy giggled.
“D-andy…?” She asked.
A chill sweeps up her wrinkled face, raising her head as widen eyes fall upon a tiny cotton-headed figure now setting…in the corner chair. His short legs dangling.
“My…Dandy…?” she said, puzzled.
With a blushing smile he chuckled, nodded his head three times, then vanished…like the vapor from a tea-kettle.
The hall clock faintly strikes 3:00 A.M.
His name was Daniel Russell. Daniel Russell Landery being his Christian birth name. Russell, after her dear Papa, and he…was her first. As perfect a-baby boy as you’d ever lay eyes upon. She quickly gave him the nickname of Dandy, saying his hair was the very color of the spring dandelions which grew in the little grassy meadow down below the shuck house.
Except …he was “Born, a bit too early.” That’s what o’l Doc Palmore alleged. He had to fight for ever-breath, but between the good Lord and his mother, he did live to see daylight. Still-he never made a sound, even when Doc spanked him. Just breathed slow and shallow, never cried once, in three days.
Three short days.
Three days spent rocked so gently and lovingly in he’s mother’s adoring arms, tenderly watching his every move.
Then on the morning of the twenty third….the twenty third of January.
He was just …gone.
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About the Book
There among the mist-enclosed foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, comes a sweeping, powerfully moving account about the enduring faith of a pioneer family, every bit as pure and simple as this enchanted countryside itself. The Farnsworths were widely recognized as survivors, with more grit and gumption than the black-bottomland soil they took their living from. During the demanding decades that followed their initial arrival, their descendants never lost their abiding faith in each other and in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Mrs. Sarah Abigail Farnsworth Landrey, the fourth generation to reside on this land, had lived a Godly life. Extraordinary she had witnessed crop failures, droughts, floods, wars, tornados and personal heartbreak. Raising nine children while working the land along-side her parents and husband, today at ninety-five, she was preparing for still one more long awaited appointment. To be “gathered unto her people.” How did this matriarch realize that today was the day she was going home? Well…cause she had a visitor in the wee-hours of that morning. The morning of the tenth-day of March, in the year of our Lord, 1975.
Here in the white-clapboard farmhouse her grandparents constructed, in the bed she was actually born in, she was awakened to a gentle sound that at first sent chills up her spine. Once she became aware of just who was in her bedroom, and why they were there….she would never feel more assured that this faith she had always clung too, would truly see her though this final journey. Believing that “Everyone is born for some’ em, some purpose.”
Filled with humor and moments that will move you to tears, you will be transfixed as the descendants of Mrs. Landrey ponder on precious recollections that morning, still clinging to their unwavering relationship with the Lord.
About the Author
Larry R. Pirkle has been a contributing writer for poplar magazines since 2005. His work has appeared in Country magazine, Country-Extra and Out Here: a Tractor Supply publication. His story, My Neighbor’s House was selected for the keepsake book Country, Heart & Soul, commemorating Country magazine’s 25th anniversary. Pirkle is the author and illustrator of five inspirational books, including Of the Seeds They’ve Sown, a collection of his most popular short stories. Some of his subjects include front porch swings, saying grace at the table, and Collie dogs. Raised at the side of what he calls “Masters of the Faith”, he credits his mother and maternal grandparents for cementing his raw-bone, born-again Christian values. He lives with his family and animals as part of the sixth generation to reside in the Etowah River district of Dawson County, situated in the beautifully forested foothills of Northeast Georgia.