I grew up with a touch of "Kentucky hick" as my "mother tongue." Maybe not pretty to some, but familiar to me. Comforting. It's where I learned, I "reck-in," not I suppose so. "Fixin' to" was another that still rolls off my tongue. Vowels were drawn out---pronounced for a slightly longer period of time than other folks required. The "widow woman" (redundant, I now know) down the way would "sit a spell" on her porch each day. You get the idea.
Maybe that's why I was drawn to choose the book Song of the Cardinal (1903) to read. Or maybe because both hubby and I have an affinity for bird-watching, the cardinal being a fave of this Kentucky born gal.
Most likely it was chosen because the author, Gene Stratton-Porter wrote one of my all time favorite books, Keeper of the Bees, published in 1925, the year after her death. A real "keeper" for me on my bookshelf!
Song of the Cardinal has so much "good" written below the story line as it tells of how just a beautiful bird can make a difference in the life of someone who was aging and rheumatic and could hardly put his hand to the plough.
Check out Stratton-Porter's "good" as well as beau-TEAful dialect:
Song of the Cardinal has so much "good" written below the story line as it tells of how just a beautiful bird can make a difference in the life of someone who was aging and rheumatic and could hardly put his hand to the plough.
- "The Cardinal had opened the fountains of his soul; life took on a new colour and joy; while every work of God manifested a fresh and heretofore unappreciated loveliness. His very muscles seemed to relax, and new strength arouse to meet the demands of his uplifted spirit." (p. 103)
- "An' if it hadn't a-compassed a matter o' breakin' your word, what 'ud want to kill the redbird for, anyhow? Who gives you the right to go 'round takin' such beauty an joy out of the world?" (p. 134)
- "----all full o' life 'at you ain't got no mortal right to touch 'cos God made it, an' it's His!" (p. 135) "....but God knows 'at shootin' a redbird just to see the feathers fly isn't having dominion over anything; it's jest a-makin' a plumb beast o' yerself. (p. 136)
- "I felt most too rheumaticky to tackle field work this spring until he come 'long, an' the fire o' his coat an' song got me warmed up as I ain't been in years. .....D'you ever stop to think how full this world is o' things to love, if your heart's jest big enough to let 'em in? We love to live for the beauty o' the things surroundin' us," (p. 138)
- "To my mind, ain't no better way to love an' worship God, 'an to protect an' appreciate these fine gifts He's given for our joy an' use.....Worshippin'....."Getting the beauty from the sky, an' the trees, an' the grass, an' the water 'at God made, is nothin' but doin' HIm homage. Whole earths a sanctuary . You can worship from sky above to grass under foot." Well said, Mrs. Geneva "Gene" Stratton-Porter!
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| Taken through my kitchen window February 2014 |
Not a book for everyone but the dialect was "sorta" familiar---comforting as in days of yore.
