Beech Tree News Network

Garey’s mom, Agnes, spent the past week with us.  My daughter, Natalie, is away for her two-week AT with the Guard.  Agnes came to help me with my granddaughter, Sabria.  Sabria loves her “Aggie.”  She lets Agnes read from the Mother Goose nursery rhymes book—something she won’t sit still long enough for me to do.
    Mother Goose rhymes are a particular love of Aggie’s.  As I listen, she recalls a musical that she took part in during elementary school.  A play in which she, Agnes, was Mother Goose.  She was chosen for the part because she loved to sing, and did, often.
    “Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey,” Agnes sings to Sabria.  They are on the couch in the living room.  I am listening from my place at the kitchen sink.  Sabria sneezes.
    “Scat kitty cat!  Your tail’s on fire!” Agnes tells her.  Sabria laughs with delight.
    A few hours later, Sabria is in the kitchen with me, whining over some little something that I won’t let her put into her mouth for fear that she will choke on it.
    “Cry baby cry.  Stick your finger in your eye then go tell Papa it was I,” Agnes’ lilting refrain drifts into the kitchen and taps Sabria on the shoulder.  She stops whining and returns to the living room, where she climbs back up into her Aggie’s lap for more rhymes.
    Agnes continues with a version of “This Little Pig” that I’ve never heard: This little pig said, “I want some corn.”  This little pig said, “Where you gonna get it?”  This little pig said, “Out of Pa’s corn crib.”  This little pig said, “I’m gonna tell.”  This little pig said, “Wee, wee, wee, I can’t get over the door sill.” 
Agnes is a treasure trove.  At Sabria’s urging, she reaches back in time and finds, “A little girl standing on a burning deck, eating potatoes by the peck.  When her father calls her, she can’t go, because she loved potatoes so”; and “Liza, Liza, get out of that tater patch and pull them drawers up.  Don’t you know them taters have eyes!”
I laugh.  Sabria doesn’t get it, but she laughs also.  It’s like watching an episode of “Sponge Bob” and picking up on the innuendo that gets past a child’s radar.  I’m so glad my granddaughter has this woman.  A woman who, in spite of the many hardships she has lived through, has held on to delightful memories she can pass on to her great-granddaughter.
After dinner, our family sits together in the living room, flipping through channels on the TV, trying to find something we all can watch.  Sabria sneezes.  Before any of us can bless her, she sings out, “Scat kitty cat!  Your tail’s on fire!”  We laugh, which pleases her and Agnes.
I predict that one day Sabria Grace Hughes will be an awesome grandmother.