Once Upon a Ruby

ONCE UPON a RUBY Ruby was our storyteller, she could spin an A-1 seller. Tell us bout a buck or doe, escaping lions or wild-boar foe. She could give a giant rock, spirit and life, and make it talk. If something got in her way, she’d tell us how she made it pay. She’d tell what cousin Emerald’s done, bout Auntie’s cows when she lost one. She’d know a trickster loose in town, and on our lake, who just might drown. There were times in summer storms, when dusk was filled with rice fly swarms, and Saturday races were loud in sound, that Ruby, we knew, would come around. She’d come for tea and rhubarb pie, and told us how her well went dry. But that’s not all she came to say, we learned her car had run away. The beastly car that she adored, had left her on its own accord. It ran over her, and both her legs, and left her like two broken eggs. She crawled up hill, in volcanic dust, on belly, then knees, because she must! To reach a phone for nine, one, one, to say the beastly car had won! The E R fixed her with a cane but, truly she was not the same. Her get-up-and-go, just got up and went, that metal beast was now for rent. And that’s our Ruby, that’s our gem, from her journeys, these stories stem. Many faceted yarns she spun, and wove country tales of caution and fun. -Edlynn Nau ©February 7, 2019 (A tribute to our cousin: Ruby Davis Glebe, in celebration of 104 years of THE MOST splendid stories told to our family) July 23, 2014 ~ February 03, 2019