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Tinsie's Story: A Quilt's Reflections
 Tinsie's Story: A Quilt's Reflections
Benny & Patty Morton
PROLOGUE
He was a very small baby, still warm from his mother's womb. I held him first. Caswell Everett Morton cried, as Mammy, her head covered with a red bandana and face wet with sweat from helping Tinsie with her birthing, lay us upon Tinsie's breast. Cas searched for and found her breast, his waililng ceased as he fed. I will remember that one moment more so than the rest, I expect. I have so far, these many years.
It was the summer of 1863 and the war of Northern Aggression was raging. Tennessee, along with his brothers, Gabe and Bo, had left the farm to help drive back the scourge of the North, leaving Tinsie and Mammy-a woman who had been a slave on Tinsie's grandfather's farm in North Carolina-to hold the place together as best they could.
The small plot that Tennessee had chosen for the garden sat along a steep hillside beside the home place, next to a small laughing spring that trickled down the mountain behind the house. He had hoped the plants might take hold of some of the moisture and something would grow for them to eat. There had been no other ground, and although the garden was on the hillside, it was the flattest land they owned.
The house jutted out of the arms of the mountain it sat halfway upon, flanked by a small ridge on either side of the house. Just like a large flat rock sticking out of the hillside, their home fit right in with its natural surroundings. From their large wrap-around porch, they could see the valley open before their eyes. It was breathtaking. The little garden produced rocks and snakes, both basking in the sun as it scorched everything in sight that summer.
It had been unkindly hot. Tinsie and Mammy worked under the sun's relentless wrath and managed to coax a few plants to take hold and produce. At least there would be something to put on the table. One thing was certain that summer: Cas was all over the place and had to be watched constantly, lest he get into something he should not. Their worst fear was that he might slide through the porch railing and fall to his death to the hard ground below.
Mammy watched him closely while Tinsie worked the garden, stealing glances from her position under the sun's relentless glare. Later, the two women would change places, after Tinsie would pull up a cold drink from the well beside the porch. It was that way most of the summer of 63'-until that day.
Cas was hot as fire. It was not the summer's heat, but the heat of a sudden fever. He held me close to him, as if he were cold and I could feel myself burning along with him.
Tinsie could barely see for her tears, her feet covering the length of the dirt road swiftly. Her cries were loud, but there was no one to hear them. She ran toward Mrs. Liddy's store, clutching me as I held Cas firm. I knew long before she reached the store that little Cas had gone to live with the angels.
I held him first and I held him last.
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The story of 4 generations of women in the mountains of eastern Kentucky is narrated by a heirloom baby quilt(its voice in italics). Our book is already published and available at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...icforumforw-20
Benny
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I'd love to do a review on this book, as I've done several reviews for Amazon and other literary companies... You can see for yourself the caliber of my reviews in the Sketched In Review section 
Tree Good
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