DECEMBER 2

Chapter 2

My Grandpas’ Boots

“My Grandpas’* Boots” is a fictional short story that had been mulling around in my brain for a long time.  

Personally, it’s one of my favorite stories.  A story about forgiveness, generosity, and finding common ground.

Enjoy!

*After you finish the story, you’ll realize the apostrophe in Grandpas’ is correctly placed.

“Son, I notice you’re scowling at my scuffed boots. Like me, they’ve been around a while and have quite a story to tell. You’ll understand why I wear them proudly when I finish their tale.”

These boots are six years older than me, and I’m almost seventy. Their history goes back to the years after the Civil War. That war was hard on my hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana. General Banks and his retreating Union army left behind smoldering ruins in the spring of 1864.

My grandfather, Abram B. Terry, wasn’t there. He was a prisoner of war in a New York Union prison. When the war ended, he returned to Alexandria and the destruction he encountered deepened the bitterness he felt toward all things Yankee.

We called Grandpa Terry “Pops.” His only son, my father, was seven when Pops limped home from the war. He’d lost his left leg and replaced it with a stout dogwood crutch, and a heart that was harder than the hickory peg leg he now wore.

Pop’s full name was Abraham B. Terry. His first act on returning from the war was going to the courthouse and changing it to Abram B. Terry. He didn’t want any name that linked him with Lincoln, whom he personally blamed for the war.

# # #

Seventeen years after the end of the war—in the year 1882—Pops was still angry about it and the disaster it’d brought to the Red River cotton country. He disdainfully referred to the previous Reconstruction years as “Deconstruction.”

However, an event happened in the cold weeks before Christmas that year that changed his heart and our family’s destiny.

In the midst of this post-war economic vacuum, several Unionists bravely arrived in Alexandria. These so-called “carpetbaggers” were treated with scorn and suspicion.

Pop’s only son—my daddy—was now twenty-three and still single. Father and son operated a sawmill south of town. On this fateful day in December 1882, the two of them were going to the bank.

Pops, seeing a man wearing a faded Union greatcoat, said, “Hey Bluecoat, have you come back to see if there’s anything you didn’t burn the first time?”

The man, who was sitting at a checkerboard balanced on a whiskey keg, looked up with a disarming smile. “I don’t want to burn nothing. I might catch fire, too.” He lifted his right pants leg, revealing a wooden peg.

Pops squinted. “Where’d you lose that?”

“One of your snipers got it on the last day at Vicksburg. They say I was the final casualty.”

Pops leaned on his crutch revealing his own wooden leg. “Lost mine in ‘Pencil-vain-ya.’” He hobbled closer. “How far’s yours gone?”

“To the hip.”

Pops grimaced. “I guess I ought to be thankful for below the knee.”

“Mine started below the knee too, but Ol’ Sawbones just kept cutting.” Bluecoat winked. “Told him I’d shoot him if he went any higher.”

“Bluecoat, you lost your right laig.”

The man moved his checkerboard. “And I see you left your left one somewhere up north, Reb.”

“Yep, they buried it in a stump hole at Gettysburg. Pickett’s Charge. July 3^rd, 1863.”

Bluecoat grinned. “I guess we’re even then.” He scratched his long beard. “July 3^rd. Was that a Friday?”

”It was.” Pops stared down the street. “A Friday that changed my life.”

Bluecoat said, “Friday, July 3^rd. Same day I lost mine. If I remember—”

Pops interrupted, “I was crawling away from the stone wall when they captured me and sent me to one of y’all’s prison camps near Elmira, New York. That’s where I cooled my heels—or rather heel—for the rest of the dang war.”

“Like I said, we’re even.”

Pops’ face reddened. “I lost a lot more than a laig up there.”

“I’m sure you did.”

Pops placed his right foot beside the Yankee’s left one. “What size do you wear?”

“9-E.”

“Me, too.”

Bluecoat extended his hand. “My name’s Plott. Hiram Plott from Illinois. Just arrived down here with my wife and four daughters.”

Pops studied the open hand. “I don’t shake hands with the enemy.”

Bluecoat shrugged. “No hard feelings. It’s over on my end.”

Pops turned away. “It won’t ever be over on mine.”

That exchange should have ended any chance for friendship between the two one-legged Civil War veterans. But my father said in the coming weeks, Pops would faithfully stop by and harass Hiram Plott at the Yankee’s makeshift whiskey barrel office from where he watched the river traffic while buying and selling cotton.

My father remembered Christmas Eve of ‘82 as unusually cold for Louisiana. Hard times led to low expectations for presents. He never knew how his mother—my grandmother—did it. She scraped up enough money to buy a Christmas present for Pops: a brand new pair of riding boots to replace the patched and resoledone he’d been wearing since the war.

When Pops opened the box and saw the boots, he began crying, realizing the personal sacrifice that was behind this gift. Slipping the left boot on, he said, “Fits perfect.” Glancing down at the spare right boot, he tapped his wooden leg. “I‘ll keep that one in case my hickory stump sprouts a foot.”

What happened next is why this story is memorable. My grandfather called to my daddy, “Son, let’s go downtown.” Pops, carrying a tote sack over his shoulder, kept looking down at his new boot. “I can’t believe Elsie got me a new boot.”

In spite of the cold, Hiram Plott was at his usual spot, drinking coffee and staring across the checkerboard and the empty chair in front of it.

Pops unshouldered his sack. “Got something for you, Bluecoat.”

Plott glanced up as he moved a red checker. “Crown me.”

My grandfather pulled the new leather boot out of the sack, tossing it against the barrel and scattering the checkers. “See’uns, I can’t use the right one, thought you might could.”

Plott picked up the boot. “9-E, huh?”

“Yep.”

He slipped off his own muddy boot and replaced it with the new one. “Fits perfect. That’s right nice of you.”

Pops nodded at his own matching boot. “Christmas gift.”

Hiram Plott extended his hand. “I appreciate it.”

Pops didn’t hesitate in grasping the outstretched hand. “You’re welcome.”

Plott motioned to the empty chair. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee, Reb.”

Pops hobbled over. “You like checkers?”

“Like the air I breathe.”

Pops moved a black checker. “Loser pays for the next cup of coffee.”

On that Christmas Eve in 1882, the two veterans began their weekly Friday checker match that continued until the first one died in 1921. They never called each other by their given names; it was always “Bluecoat” and “Reb.”

They shared boots for the remainder of their lives, but that’s not all they shared.   Eventually, they shared grandchildren. Hiram Plott’s oldest daughter eventually met my father, and as you can guess, Bluecoat’s daughter and Reb’s son fell in love.

They are my mother and father.

The two checker players were my two grandpas—Abram Terry and Hiram Plott.

To me, they were Pops and Gramps.

I’m their oldest grandchild, born three years after that first checker game.

I sat with them on many future checker Fridays and learned a great deal. They taught me much more than defending against double jumps and protecting your corner. I learned the valuable truth that two men with opposite views and backgrounds can find friendship if they have at least one thing in common.

In this case, a boot for the left and a boot for the right.

My Grandpas’ boots.

You can order a copy(s) at Christmas Jelly here.

Although My Grandpas’ Boots is fictional, Hiram Plott was my mother’s great-grandfather. This is one of my mom, Mary Iles’ most famous recipes. 

Mary Plott Iles

Dry Creek Pecan Pie

“I was given a cookbook when Clayton and I married nearly sixty years ago. I’ve been baking pecan pies by this recipe for that long.”

½ c sugar

¼ c butter or margarine

1 c light corn syrup

¼ t salt

3 eggs

1 c pecans

1 recipe Plain pastry

Cream sugar and butter. Add syrup and salt. Beat well.

Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add pecans. Pour into 9-inch pastry–lined pie pan. Bake in a moderate oven (350°) 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.