This week, the plum tree out beside our house is full of plums that are just beginning to ripen.  As I’ve gone out each day to pick a handful to put in the fridge, saving them for a batch of jam or some plum dumplings, I have been transported back to a certain summer in my childhood.

It was the summer I turned eight or nine, I honestly don’t exactly remember which – somewhere about 1962 or 63.  I do know that my little sister Caroline was a sweet, plump baby of either one or two years old at the time, and my cousin Morgan was as well.  My cousin Beverly Sue and I would swap babies and play house with them.  She had only brothers and I had only sisters so it was quite the treat to have a little doll baby of the opposite gender to hug and play dress up with on those hot summer days!

Daddy and my Uncle Carl, oh I loved both these men so much, had taken work over by Mountainburg Arkansas.  I think it was some kind of road or bridge construction.  Men in those days, much like today, would do about anything to feed their families.

Since school was out, Mama and Auntie Alene, who was my daddy’s older sister, decided to find a way to move both our huge families over to be close by where the men folk were working.  Daddy and Uncle Carl found a lovely old two-story house that sat just off the railroad track.  It was in poor shape to be sure, and was much in need of a new coat of paint; but it had big open rooms and lots of lovely leaded glass windows.  Perhaps the memories of that house, and the summer we spent there, are why I love houses of that style even today!

Anyway, Auntie Alene and Mama worked out an agreement that Mama and her four little girls would have the upstairs of the house, and Auntie Alene and her four boys and one little girl would have the downstairs – or perhaps it was the other way around, I honestly couldn’t say!

We would all share the eat- in kitchen and each family would buy their own food and cook their own meals.  Oh, of course occasionally one or the other of them would cook for the entire brood of nine children and four adults.  And so, life moved pleasantly on for us all as the long summer days seemed to fly by.  The afternoon train was the highlight of our day as we all waited to see the conductor lift his hat in a wave to us as he drove the mighty engine alongside our yard.  He must have wondered about the family with nine children and two mama’s!

Regardless, it wasn’t long before the big old plum tree out beside the house started dropping these luscious ripe plums; and of course we children were delighted.  Mama told me one afternoon that if I would pick enough plums to make plum dumplings that she would teach me how to make a batch.  Of course, I was so excited that I could hardly wait!  Immediately I began gathering the best plums I could find and putting them in a bowl in the fridge.

Each day, I would gather ten to fifteen ripe plums and add them to my stash.  This went on for several days in a row.  After a few days, when we came downstairs for breakfast one morning, I noticed that quite a few of the plums in my bowl were missing.  The next day more plums were missing.  Mama spoke with Auntie Alene to see if she knew who was taking the plums.

It got to be such an issue that they both exchanged heated words over it, Mama wanting to know if it was the older boys, Dexter and Michael, and Auntie Alene insisting that it wasn’t.  Finally, late one night after everyone was in bed, Mama slipped down the stairs and hid in the pantry.  Sure enough, a little while later the two young teenagers came into the kitchen giggling to each other.  Pulling the fridge door open, they each took a handful of those wonderful plums.

Mama stepped out of the pantry, flipped the light on and yelled for Auntie Alene to come quick.  It was a madhouse for just a little bit!!!

Well, long story short, Auntie Alene about wore those boys out with Uncle Carl’s worn leather belt,. The next morning she made them get a ladder and climb up in that tree and pick as many ripe plums as they could find.  They made short work of filling that bowl, to be sure!

Then, Mama and I made a big old pot of fluffy plum dumplings.  We made more than enough to go around – and we shared. . . even with those boy cousins who had been so very ornery. . .

To this day, I never taste a ripe plum that I am not transported back in time to that big old faded white house in Mountainburg, Arkansas.