My Third Grandma

By Ilene H. Kingsbury

(Previous part)

Part 2 – Butcher Knife

We were children of eight and hungry. We stood about Grandma Morgan’s kitchen and edged to the small, squat cabinet she called a valet, and we looked longingly at three loaves of hot bread. Just to smell them was a challenge in self-control. When she wasn’t looking we ran our hands over the dome of crust, and in enough attempts would manage, quite accidentally, to break off a crunchy layer as big as the palm of the hand and hope it wouldn’t be missed from the loaf. Before we knew it, there were crumbs at the corners of our mouths, and our looks of marked innocence were replaced by those of complete satisfaction.

At this point in the game, for she played along with us if we persisted long enough, Grandma would push us aside and approach the bread with quite resolution. This was her move of defeat. She no longer resolved to save all three loaves for a regular meal.

From the center drawer of the valet she claimed the most amazing butcher knife in all Beaver County. It was long and slim and curved at the last third toward the tip, and its handle was of carved ivory. Odd designs of intertwined vines graced the hilt, along with a sort of motto in a long-forgotten and ancient language. We were afraid of this knife, for we knew it wasn’t meant for carving up bread.

Once, out under the cherry tree, Grandma had told us that her father had used it in a war in India against white people. Whenever she said white people in just that tone we shivered. We also took another look at her skin. Yes, it wasn’t exactly like our own. It had a sort of golden, burned, and leathery look such as one sees on finely tooled handbags of the higher Palomino shades. Up to that time we had confused the name Indian with India and guessed that she was a Navajo who had been stolen or traded for a trinket. Most of our parents were certainly under that impression, but only because they hesitated to pry, as they called it.

In our community there were a number of squaws who lived in the homes of the whites and were called Aunt or Grandma. We knew of at least one of them who had been stolen a a child, taken to Old Mexico as a slave, brought back north again on mule back, and traded off for a fat, young steer. But that Navajo ex-slave girl didn’t look exactly like Grandma Morgan. True, their eyes were jet black, and looked all-yearning. Their hair remained black and straight to fragile old age, and their complexions were dark and oily and brownish. But each came from ancient heritages on opposite sides of the earth. Only by the most extreme circumstances were they ever to meet or speak a communal language or be called sister by their religious fellows. In fact, it was this peculiar religious heritage that was, in a measure, responsible for multiple races living in a desert settlement in North America.

I guess it was the butcher knife that was the constant reminder of the heritage of Grandma Morgan, formerly of India right around the world. Its like has only been found in the Smithsonian Institute in a wing dedicated to India, Burma, and Hindustan. We were a little afraid of that knife, with its point so fine one could have written a letter with it. And we early understood that no one, except Grandma, yes, no one on earth, could use it for any purpose whatsoever. After all, hadn’t this little creature carried it all the way around the world wrapped in a piece of coral silk? And wasn’t it her father’s father’s father’s?

Her use of that sword, for that it was, was as startling as its appearance. She tested the new bread for temperature, and then tucked the loaf under her arm high above the waist. The bent arm sort of balanced the loaf and her fingers steadied it. Then she picked up the sabre and began to swipe it through the air, first into a pat of homemade butter and then swiftly back and forth across the butt end of the loaf. Only a hummingbird with its sword bill longer than its body could move faster than that historical weapon.

After this thorough buttering, she tackled the loaf, still held under her arm, with a sawing motion of the knife. As the slice almost slid to the floor, she gracefully bent toward the valet and let it fall, face up, on a little plate. Generally we were allowed to have the first pieces, depending on whether we were girls or the littlest. You will note that various ages and sexes had smelled that baking wonder from far down in the lot. We lined up, feeling starved to death at the mere whiff of golden crust. Needless to say, we ruined at least one loaf for consumption at a regular meal, whether it was the usual bread and milk supper or the hot dinner at noon when the farm hands had their big meal of the day.

The more we ate, the smaller our appetites became, until at last we just sighed our gratitude. At that moment, then, Grandma wiped off the blade of this weapon of her departed forebears and reverently laid it in its shallow place, motto side up. The elaborately carved words could be easily read, if one knew a language thousands of years old, and Grandma did, or so we believed—The Peace of God Be With You.

It certainly didn’t look like that much writing to us, only three or four curvy designs, a little more golden in the area where Grandma’s fingers pressed it for buttering. But she always read the markings aloud as she shut the drawer, and we believed her interpretation. Perhaps, as she said the words, she felt less homesick for her father’s father’s father’s land.

(To be continued)