Farewell to Tomboy Ways aka And Then There Were Three

By Jane Chambers Greenwood, my grandmother....

The edict had come from Mother that Lulu and Nina, at 16 and 13, were now too old to join in tomboyish games at school such as Town Ball or Stealing Goods. This last was a rough and tumble contest over piles of big pine burrs on each side of a line drawn across the sandy yard.  Leaders chose sides and the object was to prevent the crossing of the line by the opponents seeking to steal the burrs, and safely reach the home base.

The 2 girls must now wear ankle length skirts and no longer fight with boys.  Soon they began to walk sedately about the grounds, arm in arm with other girls in secret conference about such matters as water-wares, bustles or how to curl the little finger away from the cup handle.

They were now allowed to read certain of Augusta Evans Wilson’s novels: Inez, Infelece, and Macaria, but never, oh never, St. Elmo or At the Mercy of Tiberius.  The famous author of these thrilling books lived in a beautiful mansion (“Spring Hill”) near Mobile, and many letters from her to her mother were treasured by her mother as literary gems, so that questions arose in our minds.  What could such a lady write that should be forbidden to the young?  Her heroines, invariably sad and penniless orphans, fainted away under the admiring glances of any gentleman who had not previously asked permission of their guardian to address them with a view to matrimony.

Often these beautiful maidens were described as standing beside alabaster urns, rejecting for religious reasons, and well round phrases, proposals of some dark and handsome infidel, especially if no one could be found who knew his grandfather!  They fell ill of brain fever.  They took all but the very last vows of a cloistered nun.  They never laughed, seldom smiled, and rarely took any sort of sustenance except tea.

I wondered why any man, hero or villain, ever pursued them, but I dared not express this wonder since I had read about them, in surreptitious snatches, hidden in the deep orchard grass or the barn loft.

Since the defection of Lulu and Nina (Ida was already a matron), we “three least ones” banded ourselves together in tormenting the deserters, who now sat in the house piecing quilts.  They had to wear sunbonnets outdoors lest they freckle; we ran bareheaded and barefoot over the fields and woods.  And we built a treehouse out of a huge wooden box that had come from O.B. Loveman’s in Chattanooga filled with the family’s dresses, suits, hats, and shoes, all ordered from a beautiful catalogue.  This box was hoisted, after hours of toil, into the lower limbs of a big while oak in the yard, and was intended to become the permanent home of “all us three.”  A quilt and three pillows provided the furnishings, but the very first night a screech owl in the top of the tree changed our minds.

This enterprise was not a total loss, however, as it provided a perfect sentry box from which to observe, unseen, the strange behavior of the bashful beaux who began to ‘happen by,’ as they would remark, and sit for hours on the vine shadowed gallery.  Our sisters sat primly, their long skirts hiding all but the toes of their new button shoes, fanning themselves languidly with palmetto fans, listening to stilted conversation, interlaced with quotations from Byron and Tennyson.

We were quite willing to chaperone the courters and the courted far beyond our usual bedtime, even when winter came and operations were moved indoors, beside the hearth fire.  But we never, by open observation or peeping through vines were we able to find a clue to the enigma of courtship.