I Heard Mom Scream                                                                                                                  October 31, 2019

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Halloween makes me think about screams.

 

My first Halloween experience I can remember was while we were at Ouachita. I don’t remember the trick or treating, or even the candy, but I was fascinated with the light inside a Jack-o-lantern. Pop was carrying Jerry and I was walking along side. 

 

The pumpkin was sitting on the steps of a house. There was a candle inside (no battery powered lights then).  We stopped and I stared. “How did they get the candle inside?” I couldn’t see how the top had been cut and replaced so I tried to figure in it went in through the eyes or the mouth. I was still trying to figure it out when Pop and Jerry began to move on up the street. So I was left puzzling over it until the next Halloween.

 

There was another scream that I remember very well. 

 

The church at Malvern provided a parsonage for us to stay in on weekends when my dad came up there to preach. I was playing in the backyard that Saturday. The yard was not fenced in either at the back or the front but it was safe for me to be unattended. 

 

Jerry at about a year and a half old had a little red roller with a clear plastic dome on top. Cartoon characters painted around the bottom between the two wheels. A handle was the right length for Jerry would push it all around the house, the porch, and everywhere else he might go. You could always tell where he was by the noise it made as the balls inside popped up and down. It was his favorite toy and since he was just learning to walk, he enjoyed pushing it everywhere. 

 

It was easy for Mom to know where he was because she could hear the “Pop!” “Pop!” “Pop!” of the marbles as they hit the see through top. On this warm spring day, with the front door wide open to try to keep the house cool, Mom turned her back involved in some housekeeping. Jerry thought it would be fun to push his roller out the front door, onto the porch, down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Since the sidewalk went from the house to the street, he didn’t stop at the end of the sidewalk but continued to push it into the street.

 

Mom, realizing the sound was getting further away, went to investigate in time to see Jerry walk into the street and a huge dump truck roaring down the road.

 

What I heard was the loudest scream I had ever heard in my life. Somehow I knew it was my mother screaming. I rushed around the side of the house and ran into the front yard. What I saw first was the largest dump truck I had ever seen. There in front of the truck was my brother with his roller toy, looking up at the truck that seemed awful close to him. My mother,still screaming, ran into the street to grab him into her arms. That probably scared him more than the truck did. 

 

The truck had stopped. The driver had his window down and in a soft voice that could just barely be heard over the clatter of the diesel engine, said, “I wouldn’t hurt your little baby, lady.” 

 

I guess the truck driver wouldn’t hurt Jerry, but he almost gave my mother a heart attack.

 

Psalm 33:18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.