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There is a gravel road in western North Carolina named Darkbranch. As soon as you cross the bridge the road gets steep. Shadows from the mountain's trees are cast long, making the road below seem cold and foreboding even in the Summer when there are no icicles hanging on the rocks. I imagine that is how the road got it's name along with it having a stream flowing beside it. The mountain folk called a small stream of water, a "branch". They would walk up the branch to find the "spring" where it bubbled up through the dirt and rocks so as to fill their buckets with fresh cold mountain water. Many of my people have walked that old road and there are many strange and a few funny stories to tell.Daddy pried a huge, mostly flat rock out of the bank. I was only five years old, but I knew enough by then to stay away from him when he was working on something. If whatever it was didn't turn out right he would become furious and throw it or beat it with a hammer. When he couldn't do either one of those things he looked for me and judging by the size of that rock I already knew the first two things were not about to happen. I think I was probably holding my breath for as long as I could, because when that old rock rolled out into the road, I let out a squeal of pure joy. Daddy laughed out loud and my two younger brothers ran over to take a closer look, but me, no I still kept my distance, because at five, I'd already learned to tread softly.That big rock was placed across the "branch" so we could cross over without getting our feet wet.Our little two room house was just a little ways up the side of the mountain. There were only two or three steps up to the porch close to where it was connected to the house, however the other side of the porch was very high off the ground.
When daddy was gone, momma would let me go under that porch to play. That is about the time when I first started to daydream and try to comprehend some things. I just didn't understand why I got so many whippings. Why did I have to climb up on the apple box and wash dishes? Why did I get smacked when my little brother, Charlie, had a dizzy spell and fell down? I felt like I could only laugh if daddy was gone or if daddy was laughing. I would squeeze into the small space between the wall and the dresser. That was my crying place. My happy place was under the porch when daddy was gone. There I would gather my locust shells and I would build corrals for them. They would be beautiful horses and they all belonged to me! Momma told me how the locust sheds it's skin and leaves it behind because it doesn't need it anymore. She said they were ugly, but they couldn't hurt me.I did not think they were ugly. They were my beautiful locust horses!
