With a determined face, my brother Verne marched out in the field beside our farm house. We younger brothers and sisters followed, forming a solemn procession. He carried a shovel and "the body." As he began to dig a hole in the sandy soil, his siblings gathered round.
Holding up a large piece of yellow tablet paper Verne had earlier peppered with holes using his Daisy BB gun, he intoned, "We're here for this simple graveside service to bury someone who needed to die." He held up a bullet-riddled piece of paper. Sunlight glanced through the tiny holes.
"On this paper," he continued, "you see the letters C, A, N, T." He knelt down and laid the paper in the shallow grave, then threw a shovel of sand over it.
Wiping his brow, he said, "Today we bury CANT." He threw in another shovel full. "From this day forward CANT is dead. I don't want to ever hear its name spoken again."
He threw in the final scoop of sand and grandly patted the mound with his shovel. Unable to keep straight faces any longer we all exploded with laughter.
I must have been about six years old the day we buried CANT. My thirteen-year-old ingenious brother, having gotten sick and tired of hearing the constant complaint "I can't" every time he told one of us to do something, decided on this creative way of getting rid of that horrid response once and for all.
We moved to the northwest corner of Arkansas from the sand dunes of western Nebraska in 1942. Arriving late one night, in a caravan of trucks and trailers, what fun we'd had exploring every nook and cranny of the rambling old two-story white house we were seeing for the first time, as we determined everyone's sleeping spot.
Resourceful Verne explored further and found a three-room log cabin outside near the barns. He claimed this house and talked mama into papering the front room to cover the holes where caulking had fallen away from cracks in the logs. "This is the only room you kids can come in," my brother ordered. We could hardly have fit in the tiny kitchen anyhow, with its potbellied cook stove that also provided warmth in the winter.
I loved to go out to the small cabin when my brother wasn't home. I'd climb up the steep steps on the side of the living room wall and peek into the forbidden attic room, Verne's private bedroom. There I imagined living in a different, secret world. The log walls, still holding their cement intact, joined a tapered ceiling -- covered with the shiniest wood. Verne's bed was always neatly made, not sloppy like in our house, where we had two or three beds in each large upstairs room, and two or three kids in each bed.
My eyes always turned to a picture hanging on his wall, a picture Verne had painted, of a ship with sails. If no one caught me I would sit on the top step gazing at that picture until I imagined I actually saw those sails moving in the blue sky, as the ship rested on the green, choppy, white-capped ocean. To a young girl, living with only the bare necessities, it appeared exquisite.
Unlike his brothers and sisters who did the least we could get by with, Verne worked with intensity, putting up hay, milking cows or hoeing corn. He always did his best no matter how mundane the task or how little thanks he got. He carried a pride, a skill, an artistry to everything, becoming an amazing example to us. Though being the second oldest in our family of twelve kids, he often assumed the elder brother role. We didn't always appreciate that position, thinking he was bossy and expecting too much from us.
Each of us kids had to learn to play an instrument, regardless of talent, as part of our Wiggin Family Band. Verne became proficient with a trumpet, and also played in the school band. When he married and had seven children of his own, he taught each one to play an instrument. Now they entertain us with gospel music at our annual family reunions.
Back before teenagers had cars, one day papa drove up the lane to our house in a Model A Ford. He handed the crank to fifteen-year-old Verne, who learned to drive it by coasting down the hill between our house and the red barn. Before he got his license he was driving us kids back and forth to school in the "city." It's not surprising that years later Verne bought and piloted an airplane.
Verne became skilled in diverse professions -- carpenter, mechanic, inventor, farmer. But I believe his greatest accomplishment and influence came through becoming a preacher boy. To this day he preaches in little country churches at every opportunity.
I don't recall if burying CANT made us more compliant, but it must have shaped a lasting impression. Because, as all twelve of us kids grew up, we excelled in situations and careers far beyond our humble upbringing and education. It seems no one has been able to tell us "you can't."