I was scared to death of the neighbor’s son, who lived next door to my grandmother.
This particular day in 1954 in Franklin, Neb., was no different. No sooner had I opened the screen door and parked myself on Grandma’s front steps, leaving the grown-ups to visit inside, when I heard Jimmy’s threat: “You better not be thinkin’ of playin’ in that yard, little girl. I’ll come over and punch you good if you do. Hey girl! I’m talkin’ to you.”
I had no idea what 7-year-old Jimmy looked like. He always stood concealed in the lilac hedge that separated his folks’ property from Grandma’s, hurling verbal threats from under cover, but I didn’t need encouragement — I went inside to stay because Jimmy had scared me again.
My father was sitting in the living room conversing with Grandpa and soon asked me why I chose to be indoors. The inside of Grandma’s house was usually the most boring place for a 5-year-old to be on a hot Midwestern summer’s day. Being too shy to hold the center of attention for long, I blurted out my predicament to my father’s interested ears.
He listened patiently, then rose and took me by the hand, leading me outside to the yard’s mulberry tree, and said, “Next time you decide to play outdoors, you take this with you.” He reached up into the tree, broke off a two-foot-long sucker, stripped off its leaves with his jackknife and handed me the bare branch.
“If Jimmy threatens you, look him straight in the eye, just like I am doing to you, and say, ‘If you aren’t nice, Jimmy, I will use this.’ You keep looking him straight in the eyes. Stare at him until he looks away. You’ll know he believes you when he looks away first. When he does that, you will know you have won. And I bet he won’t threaten you again.”
I looked up into my dad’s face, paused long enough to consider his advice, all the while hoping that once again my father was correct, then set my jaw and took tight hold of the stick.
Not long after, I was back outdoors. The branch was laid carefully within reaching distance on Grandma’s two-foot-high porch. It wasn’t long before I heard Jimmy’s hissing voice close to my ear. He had gotten braver, leaving his protective lilac hedge, preparing to deliver his punch: “I’m gonna beat you up if you play in this yard.”
My heart skyrocketed to my throat, but my hand slowly reached for the stick. Just as slowly, I turned round and faced him. Finding his eyes and, miraculously, my voice, I said, “This is MY Grandma’s yard, and if you aren’t nice to me, I’ll use this stick.”
Jimmy unclenched his fist, his face turning the color of dry summer grass, and I was amazed when he stammered, “I … I … I was only kidding.”
I believed him because he did what Dad predicted. I saw his eyes widen and then drop to gaze at the stick. “Well, I wasn’t,” I said.
After that incident, Dad started calling me by the nickname “Mustard.” I figure he must have been watching from Grandma’s living room window. On the ride back home, while sitting in the driver’s seat of the ’50 Olds, he asked me, “Patti, that stick work OK?”
Looking up to the rearview mirror, I saw my dad’s eyes warmly gazing into mine.
“Yeah, Jimmy wants to be friends.”
The mirror flashed back Dad’s eye-twinkling grin. And over the next several visits, Jimmy and I became good friends and played together often.
Looking back, I still do not consider myself brave. I am just plain timid when it comes to dealing with frightening situations. But I give credit to my father and his attempt to provide me with armor at an early age.
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