Between the High Knob

and the

Devil's Backbone

Stories from Southern Illinois

written and illustrated

by Norma Jacke Tucker

A book to make you laugh until you cry -- great reading for all ages. A child's-eye view of life in the hills of southern Illinois during the Depression -- molasses making, one-room schools, holidays and celebrations, floods along the Ohio River, fluorspar mining and T.B. A triumph of life and faith.

This collection of stories includes seven original scratchboard drawings.

Excerpt from Between the High Knob and the Devil's Backbone:

The first farm we owned was at Sodom. Mount Pleasant was that place's real name, but at one of our revival meetings, a foreign-bred preacher likened us to that sinning city and the name stayed long after he'd gone.

The biggest depression we'd ever had was hamstringing our country in those days. Dad and Mother both said it was the worst. We were too proud to accept Mr. Hoover's spare flour. Dad said it was for poor families who didn't have able-bodied working folks. Lord, how we worked! Mother gardened, canned, sewed pretty things out of feed sacks and had babies. Dad, who was called Vevas by everyone but us kids, was a fluorspar miner. Dad worked every shift they'd allow at the mines, but their schedules were faltering and some of the diggings were closed down. He farmed too, and us kids rode the drag and spit dust at two of the stubbornest mules in the world.

Those mules could cause Dad to lose his religion by two days after the Sabbath. A good cussing seemed to be most helpful, and us kids would clod 'em, good. Dad wouldn't lay the black snake on them though, even when they had it coming.

Mother and Dad had some jim-dandy fights over the motivation of those mules. She said he mustn't use profanities in front of the young ones.

He claimed all he said was, "You devils get the Hell out of here!"

Mother cried, because at this rate we'd all go to damnation, wouldn't we?

"And if so, not hungry," retorted Dad.

So they'd fight. We kids scattered to the winds for a playtime. The mules nibbled grass and Mother and Dad braced up at each other, telling each other how farming should be done.

They both took a pride in their place and made pretty rock spar designs around the flowers in the front yard. There was no money for wall paper, so they freshened the kitchen with neatly pasted sheets from old magazines. Dad pasted one sheet upside down. Mother claimed it was done with intent, and they jawed over that. It did make it a bit awkward for reading purposes, for it was the Campbell's Soup ad and he'd placed it ever so near the dinner table.

Prosperity was just around the corner though, and we rejoiced in the news. It depended a lot on giving the dirty Democrats a chance to right the wrong that the Republicans had done. The price of corn would go up soon because Prohibition would be repealed. Then the government would be okay again. Meanwhile we raised corn for meal and preserved any foodstuffs we could manage. We all peeled peaches and Mother hung bags of them on the clothesline to dry. Our old mules, Jim and Nig, happened on them as they dangled in the sun. They ate them all. Dad couldn't work the mules for two days, the diarrhea was so bad, and Mother covered her head with her apron and cried like Judgment Day had come. And so the time went.

Dad said he was glad to read in the papers that the depression was over, for he shore wouldn't have known it other wise. Mr. Roosevelt, a crippled man who was probably a Jew, was willing to give his hand a try at running the country. We were borned Republicans but we were hopeful that any kinfolks of Jesus might have an insight into politics.

Us kids hung around the doors eavesdropping on talks about hard times. Elmer Collier only had one bag of flour left and nothing coming in. Hosie Hogg's family was hurting. The hard shell Baptists held services, and we all prayed, except some of the men hung outside, passed the bottle and eyed the girls. Aunt Senie, who was everybody's aunt and nobody's aunt, sat and rocked to and fro, singing,

"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
And sinners washed beneath its flood
Lose all their guilty stains..."

There were two kinds of people, good and bad. We were good. The family who stole our hen's eggs before we could collect them were bad or hungry, I guess.
While we were at Sodom, my brother Hurschel David and I had typhoid. Mother sent samples of the school well water to Springfield. The well was declared unfit. The Board of Education told her to mind her own business. They were plenty mad at Mother for interfering. Our mother, Eula Tucker, was a small bundle of dynamite -- about four sticks tied. We moved away. Our new farm lay up on Karber's Ridge, between High Knob and the Devil's Backbone ....

Copyright (c) 2000 by Norma Jacke Tucker and Joyce Leacy Brown

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher.

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