Little made a big difference
By Bill Shepard
One of the things I remember most about my early childhood was how little it took to make a big difference!
One songwriter wrote, “Little is much, if God is in it.” God must have been in the little things of my childhood for they made a great difference!
We didn’t have much money in those days, but that didn’t seem to be so important. In the place of money, my folks had credit at the “Company Store.” Old Fred, the delivery man, brought groceries to our house every time my mama sent a grocery list to the store.
Lima beans, cooked tender and fat back meat, fried to a crisp, graced our table nearly every day. Plenty of big fluffy biscuits browned in the wood stove, and black Luzianne coffee, sweetened to taste, rounded off nearly every meal.
Now who could ask for more than that? I wonder how many of you right now would like to sit down to a meal like that!
You could have it, too, except that the doctor has advised you to leave off the fatback. See what I mean? All the money in the world can’t buy what most of us had back in those years of “hard times.”
Good health, good appetite, lima beans and fatback meat were a blessing from the Lord.
The little garden behind the house furnished fresh vegetables in the summertime. Old Tom, the village handyman, would plow the land, and Mom and Dad would plant the seed on “Good Friday.” They said that seed planted on that day would sprout and come up better.
Anyway, by early summer, there would be plenty of fresh vegetables to grace our table and what a difference they would make!
You see, we didn’t have fresh fruits and vegetables every day throughout the year, like folk do now. Lack of electricity and refrigeration made that unlikely, if not impossible. Even a small piece of ice was a real treat to have at Sunday dinner. What a difference a glass of cold tea could make!
Sunday dinner with fresh butter beans, corn and squash from the garden, accompanied with a glass of iced tea was a feast for a king! And I had that during those so-called Depression years!
What an extra surprise would be added when a big fresh watermelon from a nearby farm would be found on the table. We only had watermelons in the summer when the farmer would load his wagon and come through the village crying with a loud voice, “Watermelons, watermelons for sale!”
With a nickel or dime, one could be purchased and what a treat it would make when sliced and passed around to everyone present.
So many things that we take for granted today were missing in those days, but love and concern for one another was always in good supply. Even when my parents denied me the things that I wanted, either by wisdom or necessity, I always knew that they loved me and were concerned about my welfare.
They cared about where I went, with whom I went, and what I did. Dad’s old razor strap that hung on a nail behind the kitchen door helped to keep a mischievous boy on the straight and narrow path.
When a child is raised in that kind of environment, he is not living in poverty. The really important things of life are not purchased with money or stored on the shelves in the store! The intangible things such as love, kindness, tenderness and mercy are born from within and given off to one another.
These are the things that can make a great difference in one’s life. These were the things with which my young life was blessed.
When the poet, Whittier, wrote “Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot Boy with cheeks of tan,” he could have been pointing his finger directly at me.
The fields and pastures were my playgrounds. The woods and streams were mine to explore. When the day ended, a blanket of tender love enveloped the humble dwelling where I “laid me down to sleep!”
The knowledge that a “Heavenly Father” watched over us all only added to the comfort and secure feeling of the day, so nothing was really lacking. I would not trade the memories of my childhood with those of the rich and famous.
Did not the “Master Teacher” tell us a long time ago that a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses?
We find our happiness in the “little things” that we learn to appreciate. The little things can make a big difference!
