The Butterfly Dance

It was a windy night. The crabapple tree scratched against the bedroom window. Ivy woke up.
“What time is it, Ivy?”

“I don’t know, Sister, but I can’t sleep”

I got up and followed her into the living room. Heat still radiated from the wood stove. Rain pelted the windows. I could see her reflection in the windowpane. Strands of blonde hair escaped from her pigtails. She spread her arms wide and did a little pirouette across the carpet. It was the butterfly dance. We had invented the dance. She always said I was more graceful. “I wish my arms and legs were long like yours.” Ivy examined her own form. Even draped in her loose flannel gown the baby fat was obvious.

“Poison Ivy. Two by four. Can’t get through the kitchen door.” How she hated that rhyme. I knew she heard it every day on the school bus and during recess. She had been so anxious to start school. I had told her school was going to be fun. I hadn’t warned her how mean the other kids could be.

On her first day of school, we’d walked together down the rutted lane to the dirt road. Waggles followed us. “Go home, Waggles. Go Home.” The little dog ignored me. He stood in the lane, wagging his tail like always, with a puzzled look on his face.

“Ivy. I better go put him in the house. Wait here.”

I carried the squirming dog back and left him in our room. As I ran up the lane I could still hear him Waggles barking. I hated leaving him as much as he hated being left.

We waited by the mailbox for the school bus. I had no trouble climbing up the steps but Ivy did. She looked down at her chubby legs and frowned “I wish I had long legs.” Ivy thought our cousin Jess would be nice to her but he wasn’t. He scowled at her as she climbed awkwardly onto the school bus. “Hurry up. Can’t you move any faster than that, lard ass?” At least there were no other children on the bus when we got on.

When Ivy got up in the middle of the night, she just wandered around the house. Sometimes she danced in front of the big windows. Sometimes she cut out paper dolls from the Alden catalogue. Sometimes she looked through the picture albums. Tonight she was drawn to the album. I sat down beside her on the sofa. Before she started first grade she only looked at the pictures but now she was able to recognize some of the letters and she could even make out some of the names. There was a picture of a little girl with straight brown hair. She was standing with her hands on her hips, frowning. Ivy sounded out the letters under the picture R-O-S…”Rose” she whispered triumphantly. “That’s Mama when she was a little girl.” On the same page was a picture of her mother with another little girl. This little girl was laughing. She had curly blonde hair. Ivy thought for a second she was looking at a picture of her sister but that couldn’t be. She studied the writing under the picture “Rose and Pearl 1935” As she turned the pages of the album she found other pictures of the two little girls. In almost all of them her mother was frowning and Pearl was laughing. In one picture the girls were standing at the edge of the water. Their wet dresses clung to their legs. Their hair was wet. Ivy recognized Pungo Creek. The little girls were holding hands. Both of them were smiling in the picture. “Rose and Pearl – Baptism – 1939”.

I remembered the day that I had gotten baptized in Pungo Creek. Mama had said I was too young but Aunt Sarah disagreed with her.

“But if thou shalt confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” she said, quoting the bible as usual. “It don’t say anywhere in there that a young one can’t believe.”

From the time we moved to Pungo Creek, I attended Sidney Freewill Baptist Church. Church was important to me.

I had no friends and nothing about rural life excited me. I didn’t really like fishing, gardening or raising chickens. I preferred dressing up so on Sundays I dressed up and went to Church. I collected my one-month pin for perfect attendance – then three months – then six months – then a year. Every Sunday, without fail, I got ready and waited for the Church Bus that would transport me to Sidney Freewill Baptist Church. I collected the two-year wreath that encircled my one-year pin and then each year I added bars that hung from the wreath. These attendance pins show up clearly in my school pictures.

Not long after my four year bar was added to the wreath, I made my way up the aisle to the front of the church accompanied by the sweet, sad strains of “Just As I Am” and dedicated my life to Jesus. I remember thinking I looked particularly nice that day. I was wearing back patent leather shoes – unspoiled – fresh from the Alden Catalogue Company and a full skirted dress of red dotted Swiss – new-sprung from Aunt Sarah’s sewing machine. My unruly blond hair was held back by a grosgrain ribbon. I told Reverend Linton and the assembled congregation that I wanted to be saved. Not to be outdone, moments later Ivy – outfitted in a matching red dotted Swiss and patent leather shoes - followed me up the aisle. I was mighty vexed at Ivy’s intrusion into my moment of glory but no amount of glowering could persuade her to return to her pew.

“What are you doing up here” I had hissed. “Get back to your seat.”

“I want to be saved too,” Ivy had whispered back to me.

“The Lord be praised.” Reverend Linton had sung out. “These dear children stand here before you today ready to dedicate themselves to the Lord. I’m going to have to throw the wee one back, but this one is ready to know Jesus as her Savior.” He laughed as he touched me on the head. Ivy walked reluctantly back to her pew.

For the next few weeks we had taken turn baptizing each other in Pungo Creek. “I’ve got to do this right” I insisted. “There are going to be a lot of people watching.”

I put my left arm behind Ivy’s back and took hold of her right hand. “Hold your nose, Ivy. Okay. Get ready. I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Ahhhhh-men” On the “ Ahhhh” I dipped Ivy under the water and I brought her up the “men”. “Now you do me, Ivy.” Then we traded places and Ivy played the part of Reverend Linton. “When you’re old enough to get baptized, Ivy, you are going to be perfect.”

When the day of the baptism finally came I was ready. I was wearing a gold dress, made especially for the occasion by Aunt Sarah. I joined hands with the line of men and women waiting on the bank. I was the youngest. We walked into the creek. The sound of our old piano wafted out of the open windows of the front room. The choir was singing “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand…”. As I reached the stake where we were to line up for the baptism the wind began to howl. Reverend Linton had to shout to be heard over the wind. Pinecones rained down on the congregation that watched from the creek bank.