Pearl's Papa......

I always enjoy the stories of my friend Shirley. So I asked her to allow me to run this story tonight. I think you will like it too. Shirley often writes under the pen name of Pearl.  Thanks, Shirley!  Pat

by Shirley McMillan

I guess I'll always be Daddy's little girl.  In spite of the fact that he gave me a belt whipping for nothing more than my hiding on top of the house for hours (I was convinced they liked my teenaged sister best), the good times far outnumbered the not so good. 

From the time I can first remember, I was trailing around after my daddy.  I followed him to the big barn through feed lot mud to get hay for the cows.  I braved the cow pies, flies, and bumble bees to get in and out of the little barn, where shelling corn on the old corn-sheller and playing in the bin full of hard yellow kernels was heaven to me.  Though I tried, I never accomplished getting milk out of a cow.  I was a great side-kick, though, as Daddy faithfully slopped the hogs and fed the cows after a long day as a minimum-wage carpenter. Hog-killing day was a time of excitement--from the dipping and cleaning of those huge beasts, to the cooking of cracklin's and hog's head and the stuffing of sausage sacks my mama had sewn.

As I grew into adolescence, Daddy helped me venture out by saddling "Ribbon", our faithful old horse who was almost ready for the glue factory.  As I rode horses and bicycles with the cousins and neighbors, I learned enough about life to ask Daddy embarrassing questions like, "Why do you have the dog penned up, Daddy?"  (A boy cousin had told me she was going to have puppies!) Daddy let me know after the third time I asked, determined to have an answer, that "little" girls weren't supposed to ask questions like that.  I shouldn't have been surprised, considering that he was a man so modest that he seldom ever came out of the bathroom less than fully clothed (even in his undershirt)!

In spite of the fact that I was a girl, Daddy let me help out on the farm.  From "driving" the hay truck as it coasted along in neutral and helping stack hay in the barn, to actually driving the tractor to cover the soybeans Daddy was planting for hay.  I eventually was trusted to drive the hay loader. I got to know my daddy quite well during those years.  I probably saw him a bit through rose-colored glasses, but he was and is pretty special.  He and Mama had me in church every time the doors were opened, and sometimes when they were not (they cleaned the church every Saturday for $10 a month for years!)  His sense of humor is unsurpassed (though not greatly appreciated by Mama!), and I guess I just now realized that he's a songwriter, because I've never heard "My Gal Don't Wear No Perfume" and "Ain't No Use In Me Workin' So Hard" coming from anybody's else's lips!

I think we kids must have had him wrapped around our little fingers!  I remember him in his carpenter overalls, giving my teen-aged brothers a dollar as they were about to leave for a date (gas was $.20 or $.30 a gallon back then!) A little pouting was known to change his mind about not letting me have the car to go to Gurdon on Friday night when I was in high school. He did check the mileage that night when I told him we would go to Arkadelphia. We sort of told the truth, just not the whole truth!  I'm sure he also became suspicious when during my senior year I accidentally missed the bus every day and was "forced" to drive the car to school!

His fathering instincts and fun carried over to his grandchildren and now even to the great-grandchildren.  I think he discovered the meaning of the scripture that says when you're older, people (in this case little people), will lead you around where you don't want to go!  I'm so thankful that they, too, can be "Daddy's little girls" or “Daddy’s little boys” to their Grandaddy Hershel!

In Memory of Hershel Manning 1919-2001