Ms. Tidewater Turns Killer

Ms. Lavinia Jackson Tidewater, one of my neighbors on Ridge Hollow Road, is one of the oldest living citizens of Deerflat that can still remember her own name and address.  Vinney we call her.  No Mrs. or Ms. or ma’am.  Just Vinney.  She’s gotta be at least a hundred cause she remembers when the Cumberland River last froze over and that was 1908.  I looked it up.  Vinney knows every soul in Deerflat and pretty near everything there is to know about ‘em as well.  What she don’t know for fact she suspicions.  Vinney claims relation to the Harlon Stubach family, original settlers and founders of Deerflat, the Stubachs what got rich marketing watermelons.  Most folks in these parts know Vinney’s lineage and agree there ain’t a Stubach anywheres in her wood pile but seein’s how her claimin’ such doesn’t harm a soul we tend to let it slide.  Sides, who’d want to argue with a woman her age anyways.

Vinney is an animal lover.  I don’t mean she appreciates nature or is one of those high minded conservationist, she just takes to animals the way a soldier on leave takes to a pretty girl.  She just loves ‘em.  Livin’ alone as she does since she lost her husband Newburn back in ’28 she feels a might more accompanied havin’ all sort of animals around.  Now when I say Vinney lost her husband I don’t mean he passed, I mean she lost him.  Vinney and Newburn were married back in ’28 and went to New Orleans on their honeymoon.  The second day they were there Newburn went out for a pack of store bought smokes and didn’t come back.  After waitin’ a couple of days Vinney packed her things and came on home and hasn’t seen nor heard from Newburn since.  If you was to ask Vinney about her marital situation she’d tell ya she been contently married these eighty plus years and when Newburn finally does come home with them smokes he’s got some tall explainin’ to do.  Personally, I doubt Newburn’s comin’ back.

Vinney’ll take in any one of God’s creatures that happens to cross her path or whose path she crosses.  Funny enough, she ain’t never been bit, scratched nor clawed by any one of ‘em.  I guess animals can sense Vinney’s harmless and means ‘em well.  She tends to ‘em, feeds ‘em and gives ‘em a dry place to bed so I’m supposin’ their mighty content, or as content as a creature can be.  Vinney’s got everything on her place from a three legged fox she found on the side of Polk Road up near the Church to a danged old emu, one of them big tall foreign birds what can’t fly she got from Dinnie Russell.  At one time Dinnie bought about a dozen of these things claimin’ they was gonna make him a rich man.  Dinnie never got rich but the coyotes got fatter eaten those stupid birds.  When his herd got whittled down to one Dinnie gave it over to Vinney.  Coyotes kept sniffin’ ‘round Dinnie’s place for another month or two lookin’ for supper I suppose.  Dinnie says they looked a little sadder every time he saw ‘em and at least he ain’t the only one lost out on emus.

It’s common knowledge in Deerflat that Vinney hates two things with a passion only a woman of her age can maintain.  She hates vegetarians and hypocrites.  Claims they’re one and the same.  Vinney will let ya know right off all vegetarians are two-faced, claimin’ they won’t eat the meat of any creature yet, at the annual fish dinner down to the Church, they’re the first ones to line up.  Well, a fish is one of God’s creatures and them vegetarians ain’t nothin’ but hypocrites.  At this point I’m usually tempted to point out that Vinney herself claims marriage to a non-existent husband, which seems to me to be a bit hypocritical, but I keep the thought to myself and let it go by as what we’ll call a technicality.  Vinney, though she has a strong love for animals, will eat meat and enjoys it as that’s what God intended.  Don’t claim to be a leaf eater in her presence and not expect to be branded a hypocrite by Vinney.  She hates ‘em. 

Haskell Sizemore’s place butts up against mine on the north side.  Haskell’s a pig farmer now but at one time back twenty years or more he tried his hand as raisin’ a few cows.  When the market for pigs took off Haskell decided to get rid of the cows to make room for more pigs.  He sold ‘em all but his young bull to Paramore’s General Store, I suppose for butcherin’.  He’d settled on the same fate for his bull, even though it’d become quite the family pet, when Vinney stepped in.  She’d heard ‘bout Haskell’s intentions down to the General Store and seein’ how she couldn’t abide the thought of him butcherin’ such a fine animal she’d take if from him if he’d give it.  I never really thought Haskell’s heart was in killin’ that young bull so he gave it over to Vinney and she led it off down the road to her place.  Problem was, that young bull considered hisself a pet as well and kept wantin’ to go home, home bein’ the Sizemore place.  Once a week that bull’d just push his way through Vinney’s flimsy fencin’ and amble down the road to the Sizemores and push down Haskell’s fence to make hisself at home.  As a result, at least once a week Haskell’s pigs was all over the neighborhood and had to be rounded up which was becomin’ just a might tedious.  After a month of these goin’s on Haskell was fed up and let Vinney know as much.  Haskell stated as how he was gonna shoot that danged bull, as he’d intend from the start, the next time it took down his fence and let the pigs run.  Of course Vinney bowed her back up and allowed as how he’d better not.  Truth be told I believe Vinney was getting’ tired of that young bull’s shenanigans as well.  She surprised us all a couple of days later by callin’ up Haskell and lettin’ him know she was gonna be gone about three days visitin’ her neice over to Ransom County and during that time he could do as he pleased with that ole bull.  I don’t know how Haskell responded to her offer over the phone but when Vinney returned from Ransom County there was near ‘bout 250 pounds of prime beef meat packed away neatly in her old back porch freezer and the issue was put to rest.  Seems true neighbors almost always find a decent answer to most neighborly problems.

At any one time Vinney might have upwards of two dozen cats and dogs millin’ around in her front porch yard, usually ‘round feedin’ time.  Vinney always allowed she wouldn’t see no animal mistreated nor neglected and they all deserved to be attended to if possible.  You can’t lay claim to lovin’ animals at the same time you’re turnin’ your back to their condition.  Vinney’s got an eight foot shallow trough by the side drive she fills with food twice a day for her ‘critters’.  They all eat from the same trough which works out good somehow or another.  They all seem to have developed the same taste as none ever turn their noses or beaks up at the food and as far as I know there ain’t no breakfast or dinner fights to speak of.  Come the fall of every year though, Vinney does start havin’ problems with possums.  Possums are God’s creatures for sure but they’re also thieves and they trouble Vinney no end.  Sometimes in the evening she’d look out her kitchen window at see more possums feedin’ than dogs, cats or critters.  I suggested she might try puttin’ out some food just for the possums but put it up high like where her own critters can’t get to it.  Maybe that way the possums’d stay out of the critter food.  Vinney took my advice for once and took to settin’ out a pan of leftovers on top of the well house where only the possums could get at it.  Problem solved.

Late one evening as Vinnie was carryin’ a pan of scraps out to place on top the well house she found a possum settin’ there waitin’ on her.  When she went to set down the pan that possum bared its teeth and started hissin’ at her.  Vinney was taken aback to say the least.  None of her animals had even so much as shied away from her much less hissed at her.  Once she got over the shock, she admitted later, she got plumb mad.  She went to set the pan down again and that possum lunged at her tryin’ to take a bite out of her arm.  That must have done it.  Vinnie grabbed up a piece of stove wood from the pile beside the well house and beat that possum to death.  It was only afterwards when she was tellin’ me about it she got to feelin’ pretty bad.  I tried to ease her mind by explainin’ that the possum could have been sick or even rabid and she did the right thing seein’ as how he might have been dangerous.  Vinney just shook her head and wouldn’t let it go at that.  To her way of thinkin’ she was a hypocrite now and she can’t abide a hypocrite.  Here she was known throughout Deerflat as an animal lover and she’d gone a beaten a poor possum to death with a piece of stove wood.  What would people think other than that she was nothin’ but an old hypocrite.  I told Vinney I didn’t think folks would consider her a hypocrite seein’ as how the possum did hiss at her and did try to bite her.  Her beatin’ the thing to death would be considered a technicality I’m sure.  I don’t think she bought it.