Full Speed Ahead: My Journey with Kit

After a while, we arrive at a tidy cabin perched in a patch of sunshine, surrounded by pine trees. Kit runs ahead and a spry lady with bright white hair comes out of the cabin and swings Kit around in her arms. Buddy dances at her feet. Eli coos and Mrs. Littlefield bounces him on her hip.

The white-haired lady, who must be Aunt Millie, says she wasn’t expecting such a surprise. She’s beholden to Mrs. Littlefield. And Eli has grown up so fat and sassy! Mrs. Littlefield says she’s worried. She’ll have to wrap him in her feather quilt when the weather gets cold. He’s outgrown all of his winter clothes.

Aunt Millie invites everybody inside. But Mrs. Littlefield says she’ll have to decline. She has a cow who needs help being milked. She takes off back down the hill. Aunt Millie looks at Kit, Buddy, and me. We’re footsore, weary, muddy, and disheveled. She says that Shakespeare would say we look like we come from “the edge of doom.” How about we come inside and get cleaned up?

The cabin is the complete opposite of Mom’s and my apartment. It’s tidy, but overflowing with plants in pots, stacks of books, maps on walls, and comfortable chairs covered with quilts. A tall lady named Miss Myrtle greets us. She has a comfortable, twangy voice. She volunteers to take Serena to town to telephone Kit’s parents to let them know that we’re here.

I ask if Serena is the name of her car, and Kit, Miss Myrtle, and Aunt Millie laugh. Miss Myrtle explains Serena is her mule. They don’t have a car. Kit says that she’ll have to phone her neighbors. The Kittredge family turned off her phone after Dad lost his job.

Kit and I watch Miss Myrtle saddle up Serena. I don’t get too close. I’ve never met a mule in real life, and I’m surprised at how big Serena is. Her legs are long, her ears are big, her tail is thick, and her hooves look heavy. But Buddy scampers fearlessly at her feet as if they’re old friends. Serena stands calmly while Miss Myrtle swings herself into the saddle. Serena hee-haws once, and then they go off on a steady pace.

After Miss Myrtle leaves, Aunt Millie offers Kit and me chunks of honey-scented homemade soap and rough linen towels, and we scrub ourselves clean. Our clothes are sweaty and damp, so Aunt Millie washes them and hangs them on the sunny clothesline. She gives us dresses to wear. The material is gorgeous—as light and cool as a breeze on my skin. The long skirt makes me feel graceful. She also gives us soft knitted socks to comfort our blistered feet.

We sit in the shade on beautiful handmade quilts and eat delicious green salads with chunks of fresh tomatoes and relish, served in smooth, hand-carved bowls. I ask Aunt Millie if she and Myrtle made the bowls, and she says all of it was made by the womenfolk around here. Most were gifts. Some were in return for favors.

Aunt Millie explains that money was scarce around here before the Depression. But it’s even scarcer now. But people take pride in sharing their creations, and when they don’t have much, they’re especially proud. So it’s easier to trade creations for favors than real money. Just like how Mrs. Littlefield gave us dried apple slices instead of money.

Reminded of Mrs. Littlefield, Kit and I tell Aunt Millie how we found her cabin. We tell her about the mountain waterfall, the train ride, the railroad bulls, and Mr. Birdseye. Aunt Millie nods. Folks have lost a lot because of the Depression. But a man like Mr. Birdseye proves that some people haven’t lost their kindness. She explains how when the coal mines went out of business and closed, the miners lost their jobs, and the school where she taught was shut down. Because her house was tied to the school, she lost her house, too. So Myrtle invited her to move in with her. But as they say, whining is like giving a wristwatch to a hog. It’s a waste of time.

When we’re done talking, the three of us, plus Buddy, all get up to go to the schoolhouse. Aunt Millie says they have books we can borrow. Buddy watches Aunt Millie dust the windows to let in the sunshine, and Kit and I kneel in front of the bookshelf to browse. I pull out a book called the Waste-Not, Want-Not Almanac. It’s a scrapbook. There are handwritten recipes or short paragraphs about gardening, sewing, making preserves, and getting stains out of clothes. Other pages have labeled sketches of plants and vegetables. Some pages have scraps of cloth glued to them or dried flowers pressed on them. There are blank pages, too, as if space has been left for new ideas to be added.

I ask Aunt Millie who made it. It looks homemade. Aunt Millie smiles. Kit made it. And it’s a terrific book about smart penny-pinching, Depression-beating ideas and advice. Kit, overhearing us talking, speaks up and says Aunt Millie taught her everything she knows: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Aunt Millie nods. That’s why it makes her mad as a hornet to see so many books gathering dust on the shelf. A book is like a brain—it needs to be used. Kit looks around. Maybe they can turn the schoolhouse into a library. People could come in and borrow the books.

I say that’s a great idea! But Aunt Millie says it’s impractical. After the mine closed, most of the men left to find work elsewhere, leaving the old folks, women, and children alone working as hard as they can, tending crops and animals. Folks are scattered all around. So they’re too busy and working too hard to come to borrow books.

But Kit and I are both determined to find a solution. She and I know that we could fight back against the Depression and make lives a little bit better if we could find a way for them to get books.