<< Back 5/1/02 Following the sage advice of old Granny Wikle By Gary Carden When I was a child in Rhodes Cove, Jackson County, when the Cove was a network of dusty trails and dirt roads, we had a neighbor in her 80s who loved gardening above all else. Each day was spent, weeding, hoeing and moving through the lush corn and the velvety ropes of tomatoes and beans like a watchful mother. “Well, I jest never seen the beat,” said my Granny. “I mean, I got termaters, too, but they’re jest middlin’ fine. Her’s is sorta scary!” Let’s call her Granny Wikle, which wasn’t her name, but I have no wish to distress her grandchildren. Some said that she sang to the corn and talked to the tomatoes like a doting mother. “Why you purty thang,” she’d say to the Carolina Big Boy, “you done growed since yesterday, bless your heart.” Some said that when she came to the garden each morning, when the Cove was still wet with dew, that the pea vines would rise to meet her, hovering about her face. That’s probably not true, but there was something different about Granny Wikle’s garden. Neighbors leading their cows to and from the communal pasture on the ridge above the Cove would halt to consider that rustling acre of greenery that seemed to grow as you watched it, alive with bees and hummingbirds. Often, they could hear Granny Wikle humming, cajoling, plucking and weeding. In late summer there would be baskets by the trail, filled with Blue Lake string beans, sugar peas and silver queen corn. “Take what ye want,” she would tell the neighbors. “I got more than I need.” In time, Granny Wikle’s health began to fail. She walked with difficulty, using two walking sticks. In the summer, she would leave the walking sticks at the edge of the garden and crawl down the rows weeding and kneading the soil. Word had it that her children tried to divert her attention to more fitting activities — knitting and quilting, for instance — but Granny Wikle was having none of it. “It’s a bit unnervin’,” said my Grandpa, “to be walkin’ past thet garden ‘n see the corn shakin’, the tomaters swayin’ ‘n nary a sign of human being. Jest the sight of thet lusty garden ‘n maybe the sound of Granny Wikle, cluckin’ and mutterin’ as she crawls up ‘n down the rows.” Sometimes, my grandmother would walk down and call to Granny Wikle, just to be neighborly. “How’s hit goin’ with ye, Mrs. Wikle?” she would call. “Ho! Agnes is thet you out thar?” said Granny Wikle. “Gonna be a hot ‘en,” says my grandmother. “Bet ye fry a aig on a flat rock out here.” “Cool in here,” sez Granny Wikle. “Want a mushmelon?” “Well, now if ye got one to spare.” Then, the old woman would come to the roadside bearing a great green and yellow stippled melon. “Thar ye go,” she would beam and go crawling back into the cool recesses of sheaves and leaves. Granny Wikle told me a story once when I was 12 and riding my bicycle up and down the Cove trail. I was trading “funny books” with her grandson, and Granny was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, no longer able to make it to the garden. She sized me up as I stood there and concluded that I was “John Lyndon’s boy.” “First time I seen ye, ye wuz‘bout three and naked as a jaybird.” “Wuz not, neither!” I protested. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what she was talking about, but I didn’t appreciate being described as “naked” in front of Tina Lou, Granny Wikle’s 13-year-old daughter. Granny Wikle smiled. “I was picking some kashaws and talking to the okra, when I seen ye comin’. Oh, ye wuz a-picking ‘em up and a-laying ‘em down, running naked down the trail. Well, right away, I knowed that ye was running away from home. I crawled over to the edge of the trail and hollered at ye as ye wuz passin’. I sez ‘Whar ye goin’, little naked boy?’ Well, ye seen me, ‘n I thank it brought ye up a bit short, seein’ a old woman crawlin’ through the corn. “Hey! ye said to me, and come over and stared at me. ‘What ye doin’? ye said. Well, I’ze a guard, I sez. My job is to watch fer little naked boys ‘n find out what they are up to. Whar ye goin’? Do ye know what ye said?” I had a pretty good idea. Even though I couldn’t remember this particular episode, I had heard my grandmother talk about the fact that I “took to running away” between the ages of 3 and 5. The old woman poked me with a bony finger, prompting me to speak. “I guess I said I was running away to find my mother.” “Thet’s it, exactly,” she nodded. “Said ye was goin’' to Knoxville. I axed ye if ye knowed whar Knoxville wuz ‘n ye pointed down towards the highway. Well, you had no business runnin’ naked down the highway, and I knowed that yore pore grandmother would be along any minute as soon as she missed you, so I talked to ye. Told ye a story about a ladybug that lived in the lettuce patch, ‘n thet she was gettin’ married. Afore long I seen Agnes comin’, scared to death and red in the face, runnin’ down the trail. I hollered and axed if this little naked boy was hers, and she allowed as how he wuz. “He heard us talkin’,” she told me. “Arthur told me thet this young’en’s mother, Irene, was in Knoxville, ‘n I guess he heard it.” “She took ye on home then” I still live in Rhodes Cove and the trails and dirt roads are mostly asphalt now. The place where Granny Wikle’s garden used to be is a parking lot. Spring is here and sometimes, when I drive by that vanquished garden, I have a momentary vision of Granny Wikle, crawling through the green jungle of her garden. When she could no longer tend it, she used to sit on the porch and shout at her grandchildren, advising them how to weed and hoe. Gradually, the garden lapsed into a kind of “average fertility” because the grandchildren lacked the touch. Granny Wikle would shake her head and say, “Ye don’t love it. Love them punkins, love them yeller tomaters!” I could do with a Granny Wikle now .... somebody who would call to me from the roadside and advise caution and divert my attention until common sense arrived. When I was 12 years old and standing on her porch with my “funny books,” she said, “Knoxville!”and laughed. “Honey, ye need to stay in Rhodes Cove!” She was right.