My Mother and The "Clean Handkerchief"

My Mother reminded me every time I left the house, to make sure I had a "clean handkerchief". I thought that piece of cloth was a necessary evil when one had a runny nose, so I didn’t worry much about not having one, if I didn’t have a cold. But to my Mother, this was a first-aid kit. She invented ways to use a handkerchief.

My Mother always walked with a purpose. She never slogged along in a leisurely pace. As she walked fast and held onto my hand, we raced down Hall Street towards the church every Wednesday night. We would be making good time and as soon as I took my focus off keeping up with her - down I’d go on my knees, where the tree roots had buckled the sidewalk. Mother would pull out her clean handkerchief, wipe my tears and use the dampness to clean off the dirt. She would then refold the hankie so the clean part was toward the wound and tie it around my knee. And as I hobbled on, I would remember my Sunday School verse: "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

Mother could not bear to see a child with a dirty face! Mother’s handkerchief always came in handy. She would spit on the end of her clean hankie and rub the dirt off my face. How I hated those spit baths! Mother justified it by saying that all the mother animals of the world, cleaned their children that way.

Mother wrapped and tied my Sunday School money in the corner of the handkerchief on Sunday night, for the following Sunday offering. All week I would finger the coin in the handkerchief, wishing it wasn’t "God’s money" and I could spend it on candy. I played with it by throwing it in the air and watching the handkerchief trail behind the weighted end, where the coin was securely tied. Sometimes I would twirl the nickel end of the hankie to see how fast I could make it go. One day I took my well-worn handkerchief to church and gave it to my teacher, who could not get the knots out. She gave it back to me! Now what was I to do? Mother would really be unhappy with me for playing with the hankie and tightening the knot. (She had cautioned me many times.) I worried about it all during the long service and then it occurred to me, that I knew the only secure place to hide it. The house we lived in was high up off the ground and it was such a scary place that not even the dog would go under there. I sat on the front steps of the house and when I was alone, I wadded up the hankie. I gritted my teeth as I placed my arm down through the heavy spider webs and I tossed hankie as hard as I could! That hankie with "God’s money", tied into the corner, went skimming under that house like a pebble. And that is where it is to this day