Riding a marble pony

The house that burned was the second of three houses on a short dirt road that ran north from another dirt road about three miles east of Maud.

The first house was a newer house and painted white. The house at the end of the road was a big house with a big yard and beneath three old oak trees. The yard at that house was dirt, because grass did not grow in the shade of the oak trees.

Our house – the house that burned – had a metal roof. People called it a tin roof, but these days it’s known as galvanized metal. The front porch was as wide as the house. The living room was, too, and then there were a couple of bed rooms and the kitchen/dining room. The house had never been painted.

Down by the road was a family cemetery surrounded by a wrought iron fence and with around 10 graves. One grave had a double tombstone, extending across the heads of two graves. That tombstone made a great horse for a 5-year-old boy.

I rode that stone pony across prairie and plain, splashed across streams, sped from pursuing Sioux and Apache and Comanche as well as did Bob Steele, Lash LaRue, Red Barry or any other Saturday-afternoon serial star at the picture show in town. That marble horse and I were champions of all underdogs, defenders of the rights of all people to own guns and horses.

That rock-steady Cayuse never let me down.

Until one day the sandy ground shifted and the tombstone fell over and I did not have time to jump off. At first, I was shocked. This isn’t supposed to happen! And then came realization that a heavy marble tombstone lay across my right leg. Realization came from pain. I was trapped. I pulled. That hurt. I did the next-best thing – I yelled.

“Help!” I shouted in a shrill, 5-year-old voice. “Help me! Help!”

I don’t know how many times I yelled, but then I saw Carolyn, my older sister, running down the dirt driveway, and Momma not far behind.

Momma didn’t ask what happened. That was obvious. She grabbed at the tombstone and Carolyn took a hold and they both lifted. But the marble was heavy.
Momma saw a tree limb then, from a persimmon tree. She took the limb and shoved it beneath the tombstone. “When I lift, you pull him out.”

And that was how my Momma and Carolyn saved me from certain death, had I laid in the summer sun, trapped by the heavy tombstone, all afternoon.

The ground was sandy and soft, so I had no permanent damage. But that was the end of my tombstone riding.