The Green Thumb In the Garden

The Green Thumb In the Garden

Clyde Byrd

I was seven in 1954, in Alba, Pa., population 175. My parents, my grandpa, two sisters and two brothers shared an antebellum house in town. I was in second grade in the one room school where the boys liked to tease me but they mostly left me alone. My name is Bess by the way.

I spent most of my time at home with my family. I loved my doll, Daniel Boone, who was my one very private secret that I only shared with Cindy, my friend at school. Cindy and I had just tons of secrets, mostly made up stories about boys.

That particular summer, dad had tilled the garden out back early and he and mom had had great luck growing nearly everything.

Our house was on a corner. At the front of the house was main street and on the right side was a dirt road running up to the highway... well both streets went up to the highway.

Anyhow, I was out in the side yard riding my tricycle up and down the dirt road when I noticed that Dad’s friend Frank had come to visit. They were in the side yard by Frank’s beige Hudson coupe catching up on things and I caught pieces of their conversation when I heard Dad say to Frank, “Reggie (my mom) has a green thumb in the garden.”

That startled me and I ran to the house and called my best friend Cindy Crawford to tell her the news.

“Cindy, I just heard Dad tell his friend, Mr. Hoose, that Mom has a green thumb in the garden. Do you think it’s magic?”

“Holy cow, Bess! There’s a thumb buried in your garden.”

“But, if Mom's got a thumb in the garden it must belong to somebody? And if it’s green it has gangrene and it needs to be dug up and thrown in the garbage. But how am I going to find it in time to keep Mom out of jail without getting caught?”

Cindy chimed back, “Oh jeez, I wanna come over and help.”

“I’m going to have to go into the garden at night. Dad would kill me if I trample his blessed tomato plants, so I will have to see if I can look for the thumb without getting caught. So, no, you won’t be able to help me, but I wish you could.”

I ended the call with Cindy and started planning my investigation. I could start that night since it was a Friday and I wouldn’t have school the next day.

So, that night I went to bed wearing my dark blue overalls and a dark shirt. I had my own flashlight that Dad had given me to look for night crawlers.

I waited in bed until I was sure everyone was asleep, then I snuck out the side door, across the back yard, past the chicken coop to the garden. I grabbed a hoe that was leaning against the back of the chicken coop and started scratching around with it looking for the thumb between the rows of beets and carrots.

But the hoe scraping the rocks made a terrible racket so that slowed me down a whole lot. It also got the attention of the next door neighbor, Mrs. Schwartz, who called Walter Wilbur, the Alba town cop, to the scene. He parked in our side yard only to find Dad coming out the door with his double barrel twelve gauge shotgun.

Both Dad and Walter Wilbur had large flashlights and I could see them heading for the garden. So I tossed the hoe and belly crawled between two rows of corn. I knew it wasn’t a great hiding place but I tucked myself into a tiny ball. And in no time I had flashlights shining on me and the jig was up.

Well, by then, the entire household was up and all the lights in the house were on. I noticed that the Schwartz’s lights were on too.

I started crying, wailing because I knew I was in trouble again. So Dad frog marched me into the house with Walter Wilbur close behind. Thankfully Mr. Wilbur had holstered his pistol before we entered the house.

Mom, took me onto her lap to calm me down and, soon, I stopped crying. Everyone in the house had gathered on the sofa and chairs in a circle and I was set on the rug in the middle to explain what I was doing in the garden at 11:00 at night.

So I put my lower lip out as far as it would go and poutfully explained, “I was looking for someone’s missing thumb. I heard Dad tell Frank Hoose, that Mom had a green thumb in the garden. I knew that if that were true, that Mom could go to jail. So I knew that the only way to save Mom from going to jail was to quickly find the green thumb and hide it somewhere else where it wouldn’t be plowed up. Besides, it had gangrene.”

I looked up at eight pairs of eyes staring down at me as if I were a ghost. Then I heard a chuckle that turned into Walter Wilbur bursting out with a roar of laughter.

I’m pretty sure that Dad didn’t think there was anything funny about it. But Mom had a big grin and Grandpa started his own belly laugh. All of my siblings remained very quiet, not sure what to do or think. They were all subject to Dad’s temper.

The shotgun lay in Dad’s lap and remained a warning to all of us that the garden was his and Mom’s domain.

“I’m sorry if I did something wrong," I sobbed, “but now Mr. Wilbur knows about the thumb”, to which I started crying again.

Mom reached down and picked me up to her lap again and squeezed me and said, “Oh Honey, you are not in trouble. Having a green thumb just means that I am good at growing vegetables and flowers. Mr. Hoose understands that. It’s just an expression that adults use all the time.”

So, once again, I was tricked by grown ups talking nonsense.

Dad popped the shells out of his shotgun and leaned it against the sideboard. When he stood up Mom and Mr. Wilbur stood as well. And in that moment of silence the phone rang.

Mom answered it. It was Mrs. Schwartz from next door calling on our party line to find out if we were OK. Mom said, “Oh, Helen, you have to come over for coffee to hear this one. But we are all OK. See you in the morning.”

The End