Aunt Bill Gives Advice

Note: This article is written by Aunt Bill, a back woodsy character sometimes portrayed by Billie.

Thank goodness Billie asked me to write this – I shore have been  a-wantin’ to give these folks some advice.

You see, we’ve got a new, young doctor here on the mountain and him and his bride come by the Windy Knoll the other day when I see’d she’s in a family way.  Law me, these two is so young – what in the world do you think they know about having and taking ker of babies?  Y they don’t have no idey about how life is about to change fer them.

I didn’t ask no questions – I just stood there and looked at how young they was.  I don’t know if she plans to go a hospital to have this little ‘un or not (she probably will since he’s a doctor), but when women used to have theirs at home, they always put a knife under the bed to help cut the pain. Now, she needs to stay in the bed nine days and if she’s able she could set up a little on the tenth day.  If she don’t take ker of herself now, she’ll have to pay fer it when she gits older.

But about that little ‘un – I want to offer a little advice that might help.  They ort to have several belly bands ready fer when he gits here they’ll need ‘em.  And would you believe they already know hit’s gonna be a boy?  I can’t believe they’s a way to know that, but in this day and time there ain’t no telling what folks know.  I hear on the TV about I-phones, I-Pads, Kindles and the like – I guess out of some of them devices they found out.

Well, catnip tea is another thing they’ll need to keep handy.  If that baby comes here with the colic – they’s gonna need all the help they can muster up.  I heared one time about a family with several little ones and one night when they’s all a-cryin’ the daddy of the bunch slipped a little white lightin’ in the bottles of the least uns.  He said they had the best night’s sleep they’d had in a while.

Another thing, they need to let the baby fall off of the bed before he’s a year old – if they don’t he won’t live to be grown and wouldn’t that be a sight.  And they need to be shore and bite off his fingernails – if they don’t do that he’ll steal and they don’t want that to have to put up with the rest of their life.

When he gits to toddlin’ age and she needs to git her work done, she can set the bedpost on his dress tail and that’ll keep him in one place fer a while.  My granny used to do that and then she’d give him a feather with sorghum on hit.  Talk about busy – that’d keep him busy.  My granny had four boys and she had a sight of work to do.  They said grandpa put her churn on some rockers and she’d tie her least ‘un in a box and fasten the box on top of the churn.  That way she could rock the baby and churn while she arned.

I appreciate gittin’ this off my chest and I do hope this young family will have a long stay here on Sand Mountain and learn about our style of country livin’.