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East of Bogue Chitto

EAST OF BOGUE CHITTO
By James W. Buie

“East of Bogue Chitto” is a panorama that I put together in pen and ink/watercolor over a ten year period of time.  It represents my earliest childhood memories. It was first done in separate panels in pencil sketches  and then in the last few weeks of the decade the panels  were merged into a panorama using pen and ink and then enhanced with watercolors.  There were no photos available to go by from that period of time of the early 1930’s.  All was done from my  memories. (Mama & Papa Buie’s house is based on a photo taken in the 1970’s, long after the house was abandoned.)

THE SPRING AT THE OLD BULLOCK PLACE
The spring is located about fifty feet down a slope west of the house.  Passersby would stop for a drink at the boxed-in spring.  In their day,  Choctaw Indians stopped here to be refreshed by the sparkling spring water or maybe even camped nearby.  Though there was a water well back of the house, my Mother often chose to come to the spring for a bucket of water .  Sonny and I went there to play.  There were always a few crawfish in the bottom of the spring.

THE OLD BLACK POT
A big black pot sat just back of the house.  This was a gift from our great grandfather, Wilson Turner Buie.  It was lost for years from his backyard when a creek overran its banks and swallowed the pot.  Years later the pot showed up,  out of the sand of the creek.  Wilson Turner gave it to our mother, Ira Lee.  She used it often…to prepare cracklings  for crackling bread…to boil Dad’s work clothes…to make hominy…to heat bath water… and maybe other purposes that we have forgotten about.  The pot was passed down to by brother, Bob.  It occupied a spot in a flower bed.  It became thin and fragile and during a cold winter cracked open and was finally discarded.
At the “Old Bullock Place” on both sides of the road Dad raised cotton and corn and some sugar cane.  He also worked at a lumber mill at Norfield, south of Bogue Chitto.  Across the road was a barn of sorts and a milk cow.  There was always a pig that provided sausage, salt meat, tenderloin cooked and sealed in glass jars in its own grease  to be enjoyed  at breakfast from time to time.

We followed Dad behind the plow and helped him put seed in the ground  in the Springtime.  In the late summer we picked cotton using cotton sacks especially made for us by Mom and her Singer sewing machine and finally rode atop the cotton in a wagon to deliver the cotton to the gin in Bogue Chitto,  just east of the railroad tracks.

BOSS THE DOG
Down the road just east of the Old Bullock Place, about a quarter of a mile toward Pleasant Hill Baptist Church,  was the home of Mama and Papa Buie.  There was no electricity or telephones in that rural area.  Papa Buie owned a German Shepherd dog name Boss.  Boss became the letter carrier between the two homes.  Papa Buie would put a written message in a paper bag and tie the bag around the dog’s neck and say, “Go to Clarence’s house.”  When he arrived at our house, Dad would remove the paper bag, read the letter, and write a reply, put it in the bag and the bag around Boss’s neck and say, “Go home,” and away he would go.  We had our own Pony Express,  except it was not a pony,  but a beloved dog.  
Down this same gravel road Sonny and I walked one cold February morning to our grand parent’s home to stay until Bobby, our younger brother, would be born.  He was delivered at home  by our family doctor.

MAMA AND PAPA BUIE’S PLACE
Papa Buie was a farmer.  He and Mama Buie had six daughters and a son.  With only one son, Papa Buie was concerned that there would be grandsons who would carry on the family name.  He got his wish when Clarence and Ira Lee had three sons,Clarence Jr., James, and Bobby.  Papa Buie served as a deacon at the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church for thirty years.  When someone was sick in the community he was the first one to arrive in his buggy with plenty of food for the family.  He was known in the general area for his ability to operate the vats of a syrup mill.  If the boiling cane juice was not brought off just right, it would turn to sugar.  He was an expert at preventing this and was often hired by the owner’s of the syrup mills to render this service. Papa Buie would allow Sonny and me to put the copper handles on the new syrup buckets.
Meal time at Papa and Mama Buie’s house always began with the blessing being asked by Papa Buie.  Sitting at the dinner  table reminded me of a worship service.  No laughing or talking…only politely asking for food to be passed to to you and to be excused from the table when the meal was finished.  One evening Dad took us to Mama and Papa Buie’s  house to eat supper.  Mama Buie had baked cornbread.  She crumbed the cornbread in our plates, poured fresh molasses over it,  and topped the cornbread an syrup with whipped cream.  Only with the passage of time did I learn how nourishing a dish this was.  
Mama and Papa Buie’s house was strictness and a lot of love.  It was a delight to go to Mama and Papa Buie’s place.













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