I think my brothers, sister, and I would be described as a normal happy bunch of kids. We had fun working and playing together, but we also had fusses and fights. Within a couple of hours or so they would be forgotten and we would be friends again.
One of the aggravating things that G.B. would do was to kick my shins as I sat across the table from him. Then I would kick him on the shins. After we got enough of it we would quit. But one day at lunch he and I sat down across the table from each other before the rest of the family did. I should have been up helping get dinner on the table for the family and G.B. and should not have sat down before Mama called everyone to the table. But there we sat, staring at each other across the table.
“Don’t you dare kick me in the shin,” I told him.
The temptation was too great for him. He kicked me lightly on the shin and I kicked him back. Then he really kicked me, hard, right on the shin. It really hurt and it made me angry. Without thinking what the result could be, I took my fork and threw it towards him. I saw the fork as it sailed across the table. I saw it when the sharp pointed prongs hit him on the inner arm about halfway up from his wrist. And I saw the fork as it stuck in his arm, stood there, then start quivering back and forth.
What had I done! What had I done! For a moment I was petrified too, because he just sat looking at the fork in his arm. I was scared. I was so scared. “I must get out of here. Run Lorine and hide” the thoughts were running through my mind. I jumped up from the table, ran through the kitchen, out the door, down the basement steps and to the farthest, darkest corner of the basement. I hid behind some lumber Papa had stored there.
Now what was I going ot do. Sooner or later I knew G.B. was going to get me. Mama had called to me as I ran through the kitchen but I had kept on running. “So I guess I will just stay down in the basement forever,” I thought.
I stayed there for hours. But supper time came and I had no dinner so I was hungry. “I will starve to death if I stay here.” So just before dark that day I came up from the basement. I crept into the house hoping that no one would see and I could get something to eat. But Mama was waiting for me with a switch from a peach tree. She switched me good and all the time she was shaming me for what I had done.
G.B. knew she was switching me so that satisfied him. I was very sorry for throwing the fork at him. Mama was a very calm and quiet person. She never spanked or switched us. Her strategy was to talk calmly to us pointing out we should not do what we had done. This is the only time I ever remember her switching me.