A 40-year-old Midget in a Little Girl's Suit
By Bette Nunn
Smashwords eBook Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© Copyright 2010, Bette Nunn
All Rights Reserved.
Smashwords eBook Edition
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ISBN: 978-1-60414-268-6
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Cover art by Shelley Suter, Martinsville, IN
DEDICATION
This story is dedicated to Abby Huff, her husband Tony and son Dustin and wife Jessica and to Denney and Candy Walls and their children and grandchildren and to Ed and Shelley Suter and their children and grandchildren and to the children and grandchildren of Bette Nunn’s late husband, Kenneth Nunn.
It is also dedicated to all people who have had similar circumstances and memories in their lives and to anyone who likes to laugh.
Thanks to Shelley for preparing the pictures for this book and for designing the front and back covers. Thanks also to The Reporter-Times and to Managing Editor Brian Culp and Julie Varnell for helping me retrieve some information from my old columns.
A 40-year-old Midget in a Little Girl's Suit
By Bette Nunn
Abby at about 9 months old
On Sept. 6, 1965, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby girl came into a family that was already pretty grown up. Friends and neighbors might have thought that was a disadvantage for baby Abby, but her family has always given her a lot of love and attention throughout her life and they all have remained close.
Her mother, who is the author of this book, was going on 35 years old when Abby came into the world. Her brother, Denney Walls, was 15 years older than little Abby and her sister, Michele "Shelley" Walls, was 11 years older than her baby sister.
Denney called Abby "Miss America" because she was such a beautiful, smiling baby girl. Throughout her life he has grumbled when she wanted something but has never denied her anything she needed. Sister Shelley loved her so much that she mothered Abby from the time she first set eyes on her. It was like the whole family had a new “doll” to play with. And she was a good-natured baby.
For the birth, Abby's mother had taken two weeks' vacation from the newspaper where she worked in downtown Martinsville, Indiana. Then it was back to work as usual and Abby stayed with a couple of good babysitters, Leona Rhoden and Sue Stout, until she was kindergarten age. Abby was very fond of both of those families and they also learned to love her.
Abby was always full of laughter and she never wanted to sit still. She watched television occasionally but she really liked being outside and romping and playing. She enjoyed sports after watching her brother play baseball for years. And she was a natural for competition.
When she was 5 years old, her father, Abe Walls, and mother split up. That was hard for Abby because she was very close to her Dad.
Both parents remarried, so by the time Abby was 6, she had a stepfather named Kenneth Nunn. Although he would play games with her and entertain her, he was a strict disciplinarian, which changed the atmosphere around Abby's house quite a bit.
As Abby grew bigger, when he'd make her mind, she'd sometimes get mad at Kenneth. She'd hold her hand to the side of her mouth, point at him with a finger on the other hand and secretly whisper, "I hate him."
It was around this time when her stepfather called Abby "a 40-year-old midget in a little girl's suit."
Kenneth was a flooring contractor and subcontractor for most of his life. He was a master craftsman and could install hardwood floors and all kinds of ceramic floors with complicated designs. In his work, which covered more than 50 years, he met up with people of all shapes, sizes, races and nationalities and he was never disrespectful to any of them. He was a very polite man. He came up with the description about Abby before it became politically incorrect to refer to someone small as a midget, though he never really thought much about political correctness. He was really trying to say that although she was small and young, she had the ability to think faster than some 40-year-old adults.
He laughed when he gave Abby the new definition, but he knew she was already smart enough to manipulate those who cared for her into doing just about anything she wanted them to do. It might take begging or coaxing or crying or sulking, but she knew when to bring on the tears or do whatever it took to get her way. Her mother loved her so much that Abby could rarely do anything wrong in her eyes. She was also the baby of the family, so her mother certainly wouldn't spank her.
Abby Anne was named for her father and maternal grandmother, Anna May Denney (Carmichael). And Abby was so funny! She said things that would make a tin man laugh. Because her mother had written about her often in a newspaper column called “Mama and Me,” she had saved many of the things Abby had said and done. This fact, combined with a lot of memories, made this story possible.
KENNETH WAS HER PLAYMATE
Abby at about 6 years old
One evening, Kenneth was playing like he was her horse and letting her ride on his back around the living room. Abby was giggling and holding onto him, giving him a little whack once in awhile to keep him moving. Her mother was sitting on the couch watching them play when Kenneth decided to crawl over to her and give her a kiss. As Kenneth and her mother kissed, Abby frowned. In a disgusted manner, she demanded, "Mother, don't kiss my horse!"
Kenneth often played games with her and checkers were one of their favorites. If she tried to make a move that wasn't legal or if she threw a fuss because she was getting beaten, he'd quit playing with her immediately. It was one of life's lessons that he taught her, to play fair or not at all. Since she wanted him to play games with her, she learned fast how to play fair, but she also learned something else, respect for Kenneth.
When Abby was 5 years old, her mother and stepfather called her the "greatest sprayer of all times." They expected her to improve as she learned to distinguish one can from another, but in the meantime, she "starched" the clothes in Raid and she "waxed" the floors in furniture polish.
When someone mentioned Miami, Abby thought she heard “My Ami.” She immediately connected that to her Dad, who had talked about Miami and taken her to Miami once. She would correct the person by saying, "That's not your ‘ami;’ it’s my Daddy's 'ami!'" She really thought it belonged to him.
About the same time she looked inside her puppy's mouth at its tooth formation. She studied for a moment and said, "Mommy, guess what? My puppy is a vampire!"
There was one evening she was trying her mother's patience by making repeated trips to the refrigerator. She wanted her mother to peel an orange and her mother knew she wasn't hungry. Abby begged and annoyed her mother so much that she agreed to peel the orange but threatened to "squash her like a bug" if she failed to eat it.
Later her mother discovered the orange only partially gone. She lost her cool and demanded that Abby eat it. Her mother asked, "Why did you have it peeled if you didn't want it?"
Abby came right back - "I didn't peel it - you did!"
Abby occasionally remembered part of what she had been taught concerning other people's property. The summer before, her mother went on a bike ride with her and some of her friends. Her mother thought that a visit to the cemetery might prove interesting and educational, but when they reached the entrance, Abby balked. "But, Mommy," she said, "We can't go in there - 'cause we don't know anybody who LIVES there."
Abby’s mother always hated to take her to the doctor when she needed an immunization or a shot for an illness.
Abby was petrified of shots and once when her mother was sick with a violent headache Abby was also ill. She had a strep throat and her mother was worried about her. Her mother felt so sorry for her and when Doctor Leon Gray ordered a penicillin shot for her, her mother was even more sorry. Nurse Moyne Fulkerson told Abby to take a deep breath and pant like a dog. Bravely she did and she was ready to let out a yell to the heavens as she gasped for her next breath.
“No need to yell now, honey,” her mother said. “It’s all over.”
That fear would haunt Abby the rest of her young life but she would never forget how to pant like a dog when getting a shot.
IT WAS FUN TO BE AROUND ABBY
Because Abby was such a fun person to be around, Brandy, Denney and Candy’s 5-year-old daughter, loved to visit her. Brandy was almost as funny as Abby. Candy’s daughter Angel, often called “Nonnie,” usually came too. She was a smart, sweet little girl but would often fight with her little sister if she visited when her mother wasn’t with her. When small, she had big eyes and chubby cheeks.
Once Denney had taken Brandy out in the woods to hunt mushrooms. While he crossed an area that was too tough for her, he placed her on a bank and let her watch him across a ditch. In a few minutes, Brandy, who was a little dutchy, yelled, “Daddy do mushwooms walk?”
“No, Brandy, mushrooms don’t walk,” he said.
“Well, I see one cwalin’ over here by me.”
When daddy came to her rescue, he smiled. Her crawling mushroom was a snail.
Once when Brandy came to visit she couldn’t get over her Papaw Kenneth’s magic trick. She was carrying around a chocolate chip cookie and he told her he could make it disappear. A lover of magic, Brandy quickly handed her last cookie to him. When he swallowed it and said, “See, it disappeared,” she began to yell, “Mamaw, Papaw ate my cookie.” She never forgot it and didn’t want to see any more of his magic tricks.
THEIR TRIP TO NASSAU
The summer after Abby’s mother and Kenneth were married, they decided to take Abby and his three youngest children, Twiggy, Curtis and Ronnie, to the Bahamas. Twiggy was 11, Abby and Curt were 7 and Ronnie was 5. The trip was an experience that none of the family would ever forget.
On the way down there, they drove all day and stopped at a motel with a swimming pool near Cordele, Ga. The children were hot and tired and couldn’t wait to get into the pool.
Abby’s mother and Kenneth told them they could get into the water while they took the suitcases out of the car but not to go down the high winding slide that was in the water. They were only in the water a few minutes before Curtis decided to go down the slide backwards. He bounced off the end of it, striking his head and almost knocking himself out. Right behind him, going backwards was the second daredevil, Miss Abby. She did exactly the same thing and ended like Curtis with a big “goose egg” on her forehead and a black eye.
Kenneth and Abby’s mother took them and the other children to the hospital there. It seemed to be a Hispanic hospital with the staff speaking only Spanish, which none of the family understood. Finally the staff made it known that Curtis and Abby had suffered a concussion but that they would be all right. The rest of the trip they wore a shiner and bruise that looked as if their parents had beaten them. But they all survived the trip down there.
It was raining when they left the Miami Airport on what was called a “prop jet.” As they got farther along, they ran into air pockets, which made it seem like the plane was falling. The wind and rain were so strong that the plane shook and the wings were flapping in the wind. One of the pilots was back at the coffee bar when the plane shook so much that he was thrown from side-to-side. One of the stewardesses fell down.
Abby’s mother was frightened and her stepfather was concerned, but they tried not to show it.