There were other ways too, even for the very, very young. To try this fortune it had to be a very mild winter when flowers came early, for this was a fortune for St. Valentine’s Day. “The lad sets out early on his quest,” Aunt Lindie explained. “He knows to look in a place where there is rabbit bread on the ground—where the frost spews up and swells the ground. Close by there will be a clump of stones, and if he looks carefully there he will find snuggled under the stones a little Jack-in-the-pulpit. He plucks the flower and leaves it at the door of his sweetheart. Though all the time she has listened inside for his coming, she pretends not to have heard until he scampers away and hides—but not too far away lest he fail to hear her singing softly as she gathers up his token of love:
|
A little wee man in the wood he stood,
His cap was so green and also his hood. By my step rock he left me a love token sweet, From my own dear true love, far, far down the creek. Some call his name Valentine, St. Valentine good, This little wee man in the wood where he stood. |
When Aunt Lindie finished singing the ballad she never failed to add, “That is the best way I know to try a body’s fortune. My own Christopher Reffitt was scarce six when he left such a love token on my step rock and I a little tyke of five.”
Many a night they told riddles at Aunt Lindie’s until she herself could not think of another one. Some of the young folks came from Rough Creek away off on Little River and some from Bullhead Mountain and the Binner girls from Collins Gap. If several of the girls took a notion to stay all night, Aunt Lindie Reffitt made a pallet on the floor of extra quilts and many a time she brought out the ironing board, placed it between two chairs for a bed for the youngsters, Josie Binner, her hair so curly you couldn’t tell which end was growing in her head, always wanted to outdo everyone else. Some said Josie was briggaty because she had been off to settlements like Lufty and Monaville.
No sooner had they gathered around the fireplace and Aunt Lindie had pointed out the first one to tell a riddle, than Josie popped right up to give the answer. It didn’t take Aunt Lindie a second to put her in her place. “Josie, the way we always told riddles in my day was not for one to blab out the answer, but to let the one who gives it out to a certain one, wait until that one answers, or tries to. Your turn will come. Be patient.”
Josie Binner slumped back in her chair.
“Now tell your riddle over again, Nellie.” Aunt Lindie pointed to the Morley girl who piped in a thin voice:
| As I went over heaple steeple There I met a heap o’ people; Some was nick and some was nack, Some was speckled on the back. |
“Pooh!” scoffed Tobe Blanton to whom Nellie had turned, “that’s easy as falling off a log. A man went over a bridge and saw a hornet’s nest. Some were speckled and they flew out and stung him.”
“Being as Tobe guessed right,” Aunt Lindie was careful that the game was carried on properly, “he’s a right to give out the next riddle.”