Christmas Serenades (eBook)

A NOVEL OF TRADITIONS WITH THE FAMILIES OF CADES COVE

Catherine Astl (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
248 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-9484-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Twelve Chapters. Over a hundred years of memories. 'It's our way of remembering who we are.' Christmas Eve 1925 - Cades Cove, Tennessee, is alive with the sounds of cowbells, rifles, firecrackers, and love. A young couple courts under the unique Appalachian tradition of serenading, growing closer as the season unfolds. Aunt Becky Cable regales the community with stories of days gone by, while everyone tries to set aside the looming tension over the national park that threatens to take their land. What will they do if that happens? Where is their place in this new world?

Catherine Astl holds a Master's Degree in English - Literature and Curriculum from Southern New Hampshire University, a Bachelor's in English-American Literature from University of South Florida, and is a graduate of the International Summer Schools Shakespeare and Literature program at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. She also holds an Associate of Science degree in Legal Assisting and worked as a civil litigation trial paralegal for 27 years before switching to her current position teaching English Literature. Catherine lives in Wesley Chapel, Florida, where she spends time with family and friends, reads, writes, travels, and scours bookshops to add to her personal library of 2000+ books which is always expanding. After writing a trade magazine column, two non-fiction books and two novels, all of which received much acclaim in the academic and literary fields, Catherine began focusing on the stories of the people who lived in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park before it was a park. 'Oliver's Crossing - A Novel of Cades Cove', was released in 2020, immediately going to the publisher's best seller list. Next came other bestsellers: 'Gatlin's Gateway - A Novel of Gatlinburg', 'Mountain Mulekick - A Novel of Moonshine in Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats', 'Home of the Soul-A Novel of the Walker Sisters of Little Greenbrier Cove', and 'Black Bill-A Novel of Walker Valley and Tremont in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park'. Catherine is hard at work on her next Smoky Mountain historical novel.

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Twelve Chapters. Over a hundred years of memories. "e;It's our way of remembering who we are."e;Christmas Eve 1925 Cades Cove, Tennessee, is alive with the sounds of cowbells, rifles, firecrackers, and love. A young couple courts under the unique Appalachian tradition of serenading, growing closer as the season unfolds. Aunt Becky Cable regales the community with stories of days gone by, while everyone tries to set aside the looming tension over the national park that threatens to take their land. What will they do if that happens? Where is their place in this new world?But that worry is for another day. Tonight, after a Christmas tree decorating party and a school Christmas program, they run between houses, sing carols, and make memories that will last a lifetime. In the morning, they'll rise with the mountain mist, prepare for church, and go visiting on Christmas Day. Join us in our beautiful valley for a very special Christmas Serenades - to remember where we came from, to hold on to our way of life if only for tonight while the glory and shadow of America's newest national park grows ever closer. Let us all belong to where the mountains sing. For tonight. Forever.

Textauszug

CHAPTER TWO

SECOND STOP:
LET’S GET READY AND
GO VISIT THE CABLES

“Here’s a list, John and Paul…” 

A couple weeks before Christmas would be preparation time. Mothers handed sons and daughters a list and sent them on an adventure to the general store with the admonishment, “...and hold tightly to those five dollars. And the eggs. They should fetch a good price in exchange…look how big they are! And so many varieties: brown and white and speckled. Tell anyone at Uncle Russ’s that we wish to trade. You’re like to see Mary Jane, but if it’s one of their kin mannin’ the store, tell ‘em all the same.” 

We get to go to Uncle Russ’s store! John and Paul were excited. Both boys peeked at the list, excited as if it were Christmas morning itself. Trips to the general stores weren’t frequent, but greatly anticipated, and fond childhood memories stuck even to the adult mind like a burr on a sheep. 

List for Mary Jane:

Candy.

Nuts: walnuts, pecans.

A bolt of cloth – enough for eight dresses. Ask Mary Jane if she has prints, perhaps flowers.Blue works best, doesn’t fade as much. If not, a soft rose or yellow.

“Remind Mary Jane, or whoever is minding the store, that the corn crop was good this year and we got plenty of cash if we need to bring her more than the five dollars and the eggs can buy…”

“Boys,” Mrs. Oliver said, leaning down to meet their eyes. “I never saw a dollar ‘til I was twelve. Back then, we relied only on corn, not cash. Can you imagine that?”

The boys’ eyebrows raised, surprised.

“Cash wasn’t used a lot in the early years of the cove. Our great-great-grandfolks had to wait for corn prices to rise. Back in 1825, corn was only 6.25 cents per bushel! But nowadays, a good corn crop could fetch a dollar a bushel. So, we use a bit more cash these days to buy from the general stores. And the Sears catalog.”

The boys nodded, understanding. They too, had not seen much in the way of paper or coin money, yet they saw more than their parents’ generation. 

“Should make it with these five dollars.” Mrs. Oliver spoke to her son, John Winston Oliver, and his cousin, Paul Hembree, both six years old, as they waited for final instructions.

“Let’s see…nuts are thirty-five cents a pound. Get three pounds. We’ll need ‘em for all the serenaders! Then, get five pounds of coffee for Pa. Five pounds is a lot, but it’ll keep us from havin’ to go to the store to get more for awhile.” She looked at the wooden ceiling while trying to calculate the remaining monies.

“Ask Mary Jane – Mrs. Burchfield – to look at the list and my notes about a bolt of flowered cloth…try to stay under $1.00 for that. So, that leaves $1.75 for candy and fruit – likely apples. That should be enough but offer the eggs too…they should fetch twenty-five cents for a dozen. We got three dozen right there, so that’s a little less than another dollar. Mary Jane buys those eggs for twenty-five cents and then sells ‘em for thirty-five cents a dozen.”

“If we can buy ‘em for just thirty-five cents, why do we have to chase the chickens every mornin’ to fetch the eggs?” John Winston cried. “Or run to the Cable’s blacksmith shop so he could make more horseshoes in such heat if we can just buy ‘em? Or order ‘em?” 

“Because, my son, we still hunt and fish and trap and build and invent most anythin’ we need. And if we can’t, we just do without. We don’t have that much money and the money we do get goes mostly to shoes. They’re two or four dollars for a pair! And we got twelve people to keep in sturdy shoes…that’s between twenty-four and forty-eight dollars!” 

John nodded his understanding at his mother – he hadn’t realized it added up to so much money!

With money and eggs in hand, and a better grasp of what it took to buy just a few things, Paul Hembree and John Oliver sprinted down the packed dirt path towards the general store that held all magical things to two six-year-old boys growing up within waves upon waves of misty blue mountains. 

John Oliver was the son of John Oliver.

Yes, they’d say, we realize we like to name all our sons John Oliver, and we reckon anybody’d get confused…how to tell us all apart? There’s been at least one John Oliver in this cove ever since 1818! Which one you talkin’ about? neighbors and even close family would ask. That’s why nicknames ‘round these parts are so important. Here’s how it works, the current six-year-old John Oliver would explain. John Oliver was the first one and he and Luraney would have seven living children, who then gave them fifty grandchildren. So, there’s a lot of us Olivers! As for myself, my Great-Grandpa, Elijah Oliver, was one of John and Luraney’s sons. That original John Oliver didn’t name any of his sons after himself. Reckon he wanted them to have their own name. So Great-Grandpa Elijah had William, who was my Grandpa. Then William had John W. Oliver who then had me, John Winston Oliver. They call me John W. Or Little John ‘cause I’m only six. When I grow up, I’m like to name my own son, John. Or on second thought, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll name him somethin’ else. 

For his part, Paul Hembree was the six-year-old son of Mary Jane Abbott Hembree, who was the daughter of Elizabeth Oliver, William’s sister. Elizabeth’s father was also Elijah, who was the son of the original settlers, John and Luraney. Too much for me to recall! Paul would say. I know John W. and I are cousins, but other than that, let’s just all say we’re kin and go on to the store! 

The Burchfield store was located on Forge Creek Road on the western side of Cades Cove. The road ran north-south, but from there, if you took the other road that ran towards the east, the route made for an almost straight line to the Consolidated School. 

Wooden steps, built on the right side of the Burchfield general store, led to a small porch providing much-welcomed shade during the dogwood days of summer. In winter, the shingled overhang provided a respite from driving snow, ice crystals hanging from the edges of the roof and floor of the front porch planks. The whole building leaned backwards a bit, foundations created from smooth stones made for surprisingly mostly-level floors, but even the flattest and most uniform creek rocks couldn’t make up for slight deviations. Thus, smoky mountain floors were never truly straight and even. No matter. Makes a harmony for the feet; keeps you young to always have to be aware of where your feet are at, old timers would chuckle. Think on it…no forest floor is even. No creek bed, no crop field, nothin’ in nature is perfectly even. So why should our floors be?

On any given day, Uncle Russ would have been sitting on the porch, dressed nicely in a long-sleeved white shirt with a black or gray jacket, trousers matching. He was always so kind! C’mere youngins, he’d say. Now don’t tell your Mamas but here’s a candy stick for each of ya’ll. While they sucked on the sweet sticks, Uncle Russ would look at the list, gather the products, and write down any extra goods he gave to each family, in case there weren’t enough eggs or potatoes or corn or dollars in their little hands. Pay no mind, just tell your Pa to settle with me next time he comes up to the store. 

Uncle Russ – Russell Burchfield – had just built the store this very year, having operated another nearby, at another location in the cove. It was his pride and joy, stocked with everything the community needed.

He’d enjoyed a few months of new shelves full of farm equipment, flour, coffee, bolts of cloth, sugar, kettles and skillets. Candy and nuts and fruit were towards the front. Nails and screws and hammers and blacksmith tools were in the back, and ammunition boxes lined the side shelves. He had only a few months operating his new store, as an early and mild spring melted into a rainy and hot summer. Proud of what he could provide to his community, he had been ignoring his cough, too frequent and too much lately, a raspy rattling in his throat getting worse and worse until one morning, he did not rise from his bed, and a few days later, did not wake up. 

Oh, how they mourned for ‘everyone’s Uncle Russ’ as they called him! That cardinal perched on his roof, folks recalled, for an entire week before God finally took Uncle Russ home. Afterwards, the redbird watched as they buried their beloved neighbor, storekeeper, fellow resident of Cades Cove, flowers piled high on his grave, praying, on their knees, praying so very hard for comfort, saying their goodbyes with earnest and aching hearts.

Now, it fell to Mary Jane Burchfield, Uncle Russ’s practical, loyal, and strong wife, to run the store herself. Her heart heavy, but determined, with memories of Russ guiding her every move, it was particularly hard during this happy season.

Uncle Russ had loved Christmastime. When the Burchfield’s other general store was in...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-9484-1 / 9798350994841