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"I have a spare room where
you can stay until you make up your mind where you want to go.” Weldon
had gone from his visit at Chilocco to his Uncle Leon and Aunt Vee’s
home in Ponca City.
The tired man unloaded
his duffle bag into that room and left it on the floor. Just as he had
always done in his Uncle’s home, he dropped down into a waiting bed and
went to sleep. Weldon could go to sleep in an instant.
“Weldon must be really
tired.” Vee told Leon.
“Yeah well. You know he
is.” Leon knew Weldon as well as his own son because of the many trials
he and Vee had to take him through after his Mother’s death.
“He’s been through a time
of it, and it will take a while to wind down.”
Leon’s Oklahoma
colloquialism saw him always using an expression learned as a child or
of which he even made up. It wouldn’t have been Leon if he had said,
“He’s been traumatized and must have time for adjusting.”
“Someone’s honking
outside.” One of the children told their parents.
“Well, look at this!
Mariah is here.” Leon was always the one to answer the door.
“Tell her to come in the
house.” Vee instructed Leon.
Mariah, continued to honk
her horn and they knew she had no intention of leaving her car.
“Tell Weldon to get his
things, I’ve come to take him home.”
It was an order given
with a voice to say she wasn’t interested in socializing and for that
matter didn’t seem happy her brother had come to his Uncle’s home and
not hers.
Weldon was standing in
the middle of the floor by this time and had picked up his duffle bag.
“I’ll go on with her.
There won’t be any peace if I don’t.”
Weldon and Mariah had
always been close, but for some reason he wanted to spend some time with
his uncle.
“I’ll be back over when I
get a car and am more settled.” Weldon half turned and spoke to his aunt
and uncle as he was walking through the door toward his sister’s car.
At Chilocco I worked
through the last part of my senior year. Mother was always having to
come up with a dress, casual play clothes, a swim suit or some other
garment for this or that activity. I appreciated her choices because I
knew how hard it was for her to come up with extra money. When I was
selected to run for prom queen, she came after me to take me to Ponca so
she could have a dress altered to fit. The dress was a soft, muted blue,
silk One of my friends bought me a matching necklace. I was ready for
the prom.
“What is Weldon doing,” I
was curious because I had not seen him since he visited me at school.
“He’s working, driving a
truck, hauling pipe line,” Mother always seemed to know where he was and
what he was doing.
“Uncle Dean came up the
other day to see me.” I told Mother.
“He did? What did he
want?” Mother asked.
“He brought me a long
flat box from Mariah. She sewed me a beautiful dress and I wore it to
the social that week-end. It fit just perfectly. I wonder how she did
that?” I asked Mother.
“Very carefully, I’m
sure.” Mother was smiling because we both knew what a perfectionist
Mariah always was.
I often thought about
Weldon and didn’t think too much about what he was doing. I knew he was
busy, but I was too young to know about the hearts and minds of the
Jones men. Their values were imprinted upon their genes with such a
depth there was no end to their feelings of dedication to society. It
would only be after years of living that I would I realize the great
dedication they had to achieving that dream of bringing a finer way of
life through so many avenues and to have the moral courage to stand
alone in what they were doing. One of the Jones men of ancestry had this
written about him:
He was greatly
successful, financially. In fact, he left enough money to build and
maintain a hospital in Sherman, Texas. However, as successful as he was
financially, he was as unsuccessful in his personal life. |
