On Our Arkansas Kinfolk

Zora was pedaling her bike lazily up and down Main Street dodging puddles from the afternoon rain shower…looking deep in thought but light as a feather. Martha had been watching her from the grocer window. Zora was usually hard at work on a project or two, so seeing her drifting along like that wasn’t normal.

It was ten after two. Martha didn’t expect customers for a bit and decided to see if the girl had something on her mind. She finished arranging the strawberries and walked to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

Zora soon came back around.

“Hey Ms. Martha. Bananas coming soon?”

Martha cocked her head. She wouldn’t be ordering bananas for some time yet.

“Soon enough. Got strawberries and asparagus to hold you over. What you doing, Zora? You look deep in thought.”

Zora stopped her bike and leaned on the handlebars.

“Ms. Martha, you know I just got back from visiting relatives up in Arkansas, right?”

Martha nodded slightly.

“Heard something like that. How’s the family?”

“Oh, they’re lovely people. Real down to earth. But I suspect they make moonshine.”

Martha chuckled.

“Wouldn’t surprise me. A cottage industry old as the hills. Is that what’s got you thinking?”

“Thinking? No, not thinking so much. I’m just running through some of the conversations in my head. Been bothering me, sort of, that they talk a little differently.”

“Older folks you talking about?” Martha asked.

“Yeah. Come to think of it, mostly the older folks. My great-uncle asked me if I wanted a sodee. I wasn’t sure what he meant. I looked up at him and he was holding a Dr Thunder and a Mountain Mist. I said, ‘Oh! A Coke! Sure I’ll have the Dr Thunder.’”

Martha nodded slowly.

“Perfectly sensible conversation.”

Zora rested one foot on the pavement and spun the pedal slowly.

“But that wasn’t the only thing. Later my aunt said she had an idee. Then my cousin mentioned my great-grandfather Elta, but she said Eltie. I thought maybe that was just a nickname.”

“Probably wasn’t,” Martha said.

“That’s what I’m starting to think. Seems like anything that ends with an ‘a’ up there doesn’t stay that way long. It sort of wanders off and comes back as ‘ie’.”

Martha leaned against the doorframe.

“Happens like that. Elta turns into Eltie. Atha turns into Athie. Idea turns into idee. Soda turns into sodee.”

Zora grinned.

“I kept hearing it everywhere. After a while I started wondering if maybe the letter ‘a’ just isn’t allowed to finish a word up there.”

“Well now,” Martha said, folding her arms, “I reckon there’s one exception.”

Zora tilted her head.

“What’s that?”

Martha pointed north with her chin.

“Arkansas.”

Zora laughed and pushed off again, coasting slowly past the feed store.

“Well,” she called back, “I think I like sodee better than soda.”

“Careful, child,” Martha said from the doorway. “Hang around them kinfolk too long and you’ll start having idee’s.”

She watched Zora roll down Main Street and disappear around the corner, then turned back inside to the strawberries.

Most us in Lousisiana have Arkansas kin somewhere up the line.

Some of them must have just gotten lost or tired on their way down, and decided they got close enough.

Martha considered that probably the next time Zora picked up a zydeco song on her radio she’d hear “ay-ee” and imagine cousins having a chat.

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