Out of the Frying Pan

Kentucky Legends & Lore, Part 3

Uncle Hayes spoke up. “Well, there you have it, boys, another legend born. It’s all how you take it, if you believe in something hard enough, it can happen. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think there is haints and may have run into a few myself, but some things are just foolishness folks make up or say about someone.”

In case the word was unfamiliar, “haints” was the word hillfolks used for “ghosts.”

My uncle continued, “Why, look, around the other side of this hill here at our Aunt Rainy. Sure, she’s a little different, she chose to live the way she does. She don’t bother nobody and she ain’t evil.”

“You talkin’ about the witch woman on the other side of the hill?” Mr. Johnson asked.

“Now don’t go saying that, Carl, she ain’t no witch. She just has the powers, a gift, that’s all. And I told you she’s my aunt, and she’s these boys’ great aunt.”

“She’s still mean and ornery,” Mr. Johnson insisted. “I can’t even speak to her, and dang, how old is she anyway?”

Uncle Hayes thought for a moment. “I don’t know, late eighties, early nineties. She just likes to be left alone.”

We just sat there, listening to them going back and forth.

“Back when I first bought this place,” Mr. Johnson said, “I thought I’d be neighborly so I went around the hill to introduce myself and before I even got a word out, she asked me what I wanted. So I told her I was going to be her new neighbor. You know what she said next?”

We all shook our heads no.

“She said, ‘That’s good. That there is your place and this here’s mine, so why don’t you head back over there?’”

“That sounds like Aunt Rainy.”

“Well, I stomped off, I even forgot that I had brought her a pie, thinking we could share it and get to know one another better.”

Uncle Hayes nodded. “She don’t like to be given anything either, it makes her feel beholdin’ to a person.”

“Heck, I’m afraid of that little old woman,” said Mr. Johnson. “Shoot, you know I ain’t afraid of no man, but that woman, she spooks me. I went over there another time, it was after I had my phone put in. I thought it’d be nice to let other people in the Hollow know I had it, so if anyone ever needed to use a phone, they could stop by my place. Well, I went to her place to tell her about the phone and she was out on her front porch. Standing up there, glaring at me, she looked so mad to see me that I kept my distance and just hollered up to her about the phone. I know she heard me because she hollered back that she didn’t need one. I thought maybe from that distance she didn’t recognize me, so I reminded her that I was her neighbor from around the hill. She hollered back, ‘I recognize you,’ then turned and went inside without another word.”

“That’s our Aunt Rainy,” said Uncle Hayes. “What my dad told me about her is she wasn’t always like that. At one time many years ago, she was in love and was going to be married but something happened and it didn’t come to pass. The place she lives in, my Great Grandpa owned the ground and the small house was part of his wedding gift to her. They had plans to make it bigger as they needed it. Whatever happened, she moved in alone and just turned away from people.”

Uncle Hayes paused for a moment, then continued. “I said she had a gift, she was born with the gift of healing. She was taught by her grandmother to know how to use all the plants in these here woods, to make healing remedies and salves. Sometimes, though, all she needs to do is touch a person. But now if she doesn’t know someone or if a person ain’t with someone she knows, she won’t have nothing to do with them. It’s a shame, some folks knew about her past, but now they only know what they see of her, so they call her a witch woman.”

My uncle turned to me. “Show him your hand and tell him what happened, Mike.”

I held out my right hand, palm up. Mr. Johnson leaned down to look at it closely.

“I don’t see nothin’.”

“That’s right,” I said. “One day I was working with Grandpa in his blacksmith shop and I was holding a barrel ring with tongs while Grandpa fitted the rivet in. Somehow the rivet came out of its place on the anvil and when Grandpa hit it with the hammer, it landed inside my glove, right in the palm of my hand. I let loose of the tongs and yanked the glove off and the rivet had burnt partway through the glove. It was red hot, my skin was burnt and a piece of my skin was missing, it came off with the rivet. Grandpa took me here to see Aunt Rainy, he said she could ‘take the fire out.’

...To be continued...