Aunt Puss & Others: Old Days in the Piney Woods Page: 46

                                
Mama
MAMA was a serene, gray-eyed woman with soft brown
hair. I keep in my heart two pictures of her. The first is as
she appeared to me when I was a child; then she wore a
tightly buttoned basque and bustle. Her snug-fitting basque
showed off her straight, slender figure, which narrowed to
the proverbial hourglass waistline. Soft, pleated rushing
edged the collar of her dress, making a frame for her heart-
shaped face, which resembled a cameo.
Mama died when she was only thirty-five, but in my
second picture of her she is not young. I see her body
thickened by hard work and child-bearing and her face
penciled with lines of care. But the eternal spirit of youth
that is inseparable from courage, love, and faith in the good
shone in her eyes, in the set of her lips, and the lift of her
chin until the day she died. Here she remains in my mind
the authentic picture of the pioneer mother.
Nature to Mama was the expression of God, His mag-
nificence and simplicity. She saw His handiwork all about
her. When I was thirteen, Papa planted his family in the
deep solitude of a great pine forest where spiritual truths
seemed to come to Mama spontaneously; the protective
bark on the tall pines, the changing hues of the long-tailed
chameleons, the warmth of sun after rain, all represented for
her the goodness that is God. She talked with her children
about these things and made lasting impressions on us all.
She seldom appeared lonely, seeming to find ample com-
panionship in the gray squirrels and the flash of a cardinal's
wing. She asked for no music lovelier than the song of the
wind in the trees. No opera or pageant could have stirred
her as did the beauties of spring in the forest. I have seen
her face light up with happiness at the sight of a hillside
Aunt [46] Puss