Greenbrier Cemetery, Becker, MS
Then comes the entry about Lois Goodlink. Lois was Mama's best friend in first grade. I assume it was written around July 1986.
From the journal of Anita West Moss ca. 1986: ©
September 1948 - I am five years old. Mama says it is time for me to go to school like my sister and brother. Cabby says it will be fun. She says I can read lots of books. I say I don't need to go to school; I can read books at home and color already. "Yes, but you can't read hard books, and I am not reading you Hans Brinker. You'll have to learn to read it for yourself."
I say I don't want to miss the radio show I listen to with Mama. My favorite is Our Gal Sunday. it's about the poor girl from a mining town in Colorado who was trying to find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman.
I cried so much that Mama did not make me go on the bus with all the squalling kids that first day. But the next day, she washed and curled my hair and dressed me in a bright yellow dress with a ruffle around the bottom of the skirt and a starched sash. Then she put a yellow ribbon in my hair and said we were ready to go.
My teacher was Mrs. Whitehead. She knelt down beside me and told me how pretty I looked in my yellow dress. She showed me her picture books on a shelf and said I could sit in one of the little chairs and read. Three big boys sat nearby. Later, I learned that they had failed. They snickered behind their hands and made faces at me. One of them was Carroll Moffatt who went on to become a state senator. Mrs. Whitehead had her silky hair pulled back in a neat bun. She had beautiful brown eyes and a lovely lilting Southern voice. She speaks softly and Mama starts to leave. I see this, run to Mama, trying not to cry."Please, please take me home, Mama. I'll do my lessons at home, I promise." But Mrs. Whitehead says "Come look at the aquarium and the funny goldfish with black spots;" reluctantly, I go with her and try not to hear Mama leave.
I sit in reading circle beside a girl named Lois Goodlink. She told me she had also failed first grade the year before. She is pretty - her hair is reddish blonde and curled into Shirley Temple curls just like mine. "My daddy was kilt in the war." she says "My mama still cries about it. My granddaddy owns a store." Then we remember we played together once. My daddy stopped at the store on his way back from taking the cotton hands back to Aberdeen. He bought each of us a Chocolate Soldier and a Moon Pie. We sat under a shade tree at Lois's little table and poured the Chocolate Soldiers into the toy tea set and crossed our legs and pretended to be grownups. I like Lois a lot. She has freckles across her nose, a crooked, snaggle-tooth grin, and big blue eyes. She wears wine-colored corduroy overalls and says they are way too hot, that she is burning up. " "Uh-oh," she says, "Mrs. Whitehead is going to give us those dumb reading books about Dick and Jane and their ugly dog, Spot." "My dog's name is Prince," I says "but he's real smart. All my daddy has to say is "go get the cows, Prince'" and he lights out to the back of the pasture and brings 'em all back."
Mrs. Whitehead sees us talking, but she does not say anything that day. Later, she will keep us in at recess and say she is proud we are such good friends, but she'll have to make us sit next to the boys if we can't wait till recess to talk. We both blush and cry a little bit and promise not to talk. We love Mrs. Whitehead and don't want to make her sad. Most of all, we don't want to sit next to the boys. That first day Lois says she'll take good care of me. "Shoot, she says, you'll get used to it. I ain't scared. If any of them big boys bother you, just say "I don't give a cuss!" They just want to make you cry." Lois said she had a boyfriend in the second grade. His name was Carl Honeycutt, and they became sweethearts in the first grade. He passed, but they still sat together on the bus and went to the same church. She said I could sit with them every day.
That afternoon, I got on the bus with Lois. When I got off the bus, I could see her snaggle-toothed grin through the window. Prince was waiting for me. I ran down the long driveway with Prince, while Cabby sauntered slowly behind me. She had not wanted to get off the bus because she liked sitting close to a boy named Grafton Prenfro. She was a big, grown-up, highschool girl and not much fun anymore. My house had two front doors. Mama would keep one of the doors locked. We'd go in through the front bedroom. I couldn't wait to tell Mama that I'd made my very first friend.
Every day that year, Lois and Carl would save me a seat on the bus. We'd hug each other and play together at recess. Sometimes, her grandpa would bring her to my house on Saturday afternoon and we'd go with Cabby to the picture show. Cabby would sit with her boyfriend and hold hands in the balcony, but we'd sit all the way at the front and cheer when the feature came on. Red Rider and Little Beaver were our favorites but one time we saw a movie called Lost Women that had women warriors, dinosaurs, and earthquakes. At the end, all the women and all the dinosaurs fall through giant cracks in the earth. The evil pagan priest tries to save his treasure and gets covered up with burning hot lava. Later that day, we played "Lost Women" all afternoon in daddy's barn loft. At Christmas, Santy Claus brought both of us beautiful cowgirl outfits - white with red fringe and boots and a red cowgirl hat. Lois said she was Dale Evans, but I said I didn't know who I was because neither Lash LaRue nor the Cisco Kid had gotten married yet, and I couldn't decide which one I was going to marry. Lash LaRue really appealed to me more because I liked the way he could use that cunning whip. Lois said why not the Lone Ranger. I said because he might be horrible under that mask and anyway Tonto gave me the creeps when he said Kimo Save. Then I said I'd just learn to use a whip myself and not get married at all.
So first grade turned out a whole lot better than I thought. I learned to read hard books fast but had a hard time learning to print. My letters always looked squiggly. Lois could print prettier than anybody in our class, but she still couldn't read too well. So she'd help me print, and I'd help her learn to read with flashcards.
When the last day of school came that glorious May, Lois and I hugged each other and cried. We were both scared because we were both going to have our tonsils out that summer since we both had missed school with sore throats and earaches. But we pretended not to be scared. Lois said "Mama n' Grandpa both said they'd give us lots of chocolate ice cream and red jello to eat in the hospital and that her Grandpa said he would buy her a bride doll 20 inches high if she would be a brave girl and not cry. And Lois said "Don't forget me 'cause we're gonna be best friends forever even when we get to be old, old ladies of forty and have grandchildren." " I hope you get that bride doll," I called as I got off the bus.
In June I got up one morning to the raucous singing of mocking birds. My daddy had been to the store already. He looked funny when he came in the backdoor. "Silas Moffett's little granddaughter is dead," he said. Mama looked back at me quick and asked what happened. I did not remember that Silas Moffett was Lois's grandpa. Daddy said she bled to death in the Aberdeen hospital the night before. He said some folks said that darn doctor who did the operating was drunk and the Moffett boys had to hold Silas to keep him from killing the doctor. They said the child's mama hadn't cried or said a word but just sat staring at the little corpse and didn't even want Guy Pickle to take her to the funeral home.
I still didn't really know who they were talking about, though. The next day Mama got me all dressed up like we were going to church, but we went a different way than the way we'd go to church. "There's Lois's stop." I said. Mama nodded but didn't say anything. "Are we going to see Lois?" I asked. Mama hugged me and said Lois was already in heaven. "Why?" I said "Did she want to go with her daddy?" Mama said she guessed God needed her. "But she's my best friend; I need her." Then I decided Mama was lying. Lois wouldn't go to heaven yet. We both had to go to second grade when summer vacation was over. I remembered how proud Lois and I were when we looked at our report cards and saw how Mrs. Whitehead had written "Promoted to the Second Grade" on both of them. "My mama's going to be the proudest thing of that," Lois said. "She always said I could pass if I'd just listen to Mrs. Whitehead instead of jabbering all the time." When we pulled up to Lois's house, the first thing I saw was Carl Honeycutt standing beside a big water oak tree. He was wearing blue pants, a white linen coat, and a navy blue tie. He seemed to be cying but he had his back turned away and I'm not sure. "Lois'll think he's a sissy," I thought. Lots of people were standing in the yard all dressed up for church just the way we were. We got out and went in the house. The living room was filled with flowers - the odor was overpoweringly sweet and made me feel sick. A little white coffin was sitting in the middle of the room. Mama guided me over to the coffin. Lois lay there in a little white dress with blue lace. Her hair was curled around her face with a blue hair ribbon, but her skin was too white. You could barely see the freckles I loved across her nose. Her mouth looked funny, too - probably because I was accustomed to seeing her crooked grin. And I missed her big blue eyes. "Lois, Lois!" I cried out "Lois, wake up!" Mama tried to make me hush, but I started to scream. Lois's mother walked in then. When I saw her, I broke away from Mama and ran to her. She caught me in her arms and we both began to sob. I'll never forget those hard sobs - they seemed to come from the very center. She held me tight. "I want Lois to play with me tell her to please wake up, Mrs. Goodlink." "I know," she said "But my baby is dead. Dead! I hate God! I hate Him! First He takes my husband, and now my baby!" "Then I hate Him, too," I said.
Mama told Mrs. Goodlink I could ride in the car with her. Carl rode with us, too. We watched the man lower the coffin into the red earth at Greenbrier Cemetery. Mama took me home just across the cotton patch from the cemetery and tried to get me to sleep, but I kept seeing Lois's pinched white face on the white satin pillow.
As the summer wore on, I would visit Lois's grave every day and put flowers on the little mound of dirt. A couple of weeks after the funeral, I watched while they dug up the little white coffin and put it inside a shiny copper vault. Then they buried the vault and put up the tombstone - a white angel with its wings spread. On the back, it said she was born in 1942 and died in 1950. There was a nice little picture on the back. Lois had her hand under her chin and that crooked smile I loved.
Within two months poor Mrs. Goodlink died, too and was buried next to Lois. Folks said she grieved herself to death. Then I had two graves to visit and keep supplied with flowers.
End entry - AWM
I remember that Santa Claus also brought my sister and me cute little cowgirl outfits when I was 5 and Pam was 7. I imagine these gifts helped Mama remember her dear friend. A friendship that stayed with her throughout her life. Rest in Peace, Lois Goodlink. We will not forget you.
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