They were Sister, Little Sister....

They were Sister, Little Sister, Boy, and Prissy and their mother let them run wild, to my father's disgust. But playmates were scarce on the farm and they lived close by, in the house reserved for our hired hand.

On this day, I ran as fast as I could, but Sister was bigger than me and Little Sister recognized the danger before I did and got a head start. So, I trailed those two as we circled our house, screaming in terror.

Boy was chasing us with a very large butcher knife. Thank goodness Prissy was at home with their mother. She was just a toddler. He'd have gotten her for sure.

Every time we reached the door to our screened porch, the one in the lead would peal off and gain sanctuary. There wasn't time for all of us to crowd through, Boy was gaining on us. He'd said he was going to scalp us and we didn't take it as an idle threat.

My mother heard the ruckus and came to investigate. Was I ever grateful, I hadn't made the porch yet. When she took the knife away from him, he threw a tantrum. Mercy, the words that kid knew. He might have been only three or four, but he had the vocabulary of a drunken sailor.

When my mom took Boy home to his mother, the only concern she expressed was for her favorite knife.

I was about 5 years old and spent a lot of time trying to understand about them. Sister and Little Sister had light brown hair and freckles. Next came Boy, who was an Indian and cute as he could be, then came Prissy with tight blonde curls.

Momma told me, when I asked why they didn't look alike, that Boy was from another marriage. That explanation didn't help a lot, because I didn't know what "another marriage" meant. I never questioned the lack of originality in their names, because names were way down on the list of what was odd about that family. To me, anyway.

As was often the case with hired hands and their families, they moved on in a few weeks. Long before I'd figured them out.

Lookin' back, I often wonder if anyone rescued Boy before he used that knife and think, perhaps, it was already too late the day he chased us around that old farm house.