The Grass Cutter

In 1988 I wrote a piece about a young lady. It is a character study.


The Grass Cutter

As I was driving home from shopping, I noticed a bicycle lying near the curve of the driveway below our house. This was unusual, for we had never had a visitor come by this means of transportation. Living ten miles from town in either direction all of our visitors came by car, truck, van or motorcycle. As I came nearer to the house I could see a dark haired female through our front windows. This wall of windows give considerable light as they extend upward seventeen feet and horizontally for fifteen feet. I drove around to the porch at the back of the house and entered by the back door as is my custom. Before I could get through the kitchen and into the living room I heard a voice call "I guess you wondered who the woman was here with your husband. I'm Linda from the restaurant where Mr. Keaton eats sometimes."

I had not recognized her until she clued me in. "Oh yes, I know you Linda, how are you?" I said, but was quite startled by her changed appearance. On the few occasions when I had stopped by the combination restaurant and grocery store Linda had been disheveled and without make-up and in very casual clothes. The Linda I saw now was petite, tanned in stylish summer apparel with dark curls tumbling all around her face.

"I was so bored", she said "and I was riding my bicycle and remembered Mr. Keaton saying he lived out this way so I thought I'd stop by to say\hello.

"That's great", I said. " We don't get many visitors and we are always glad when someone stops by."

We chatted and she explained that she no longer worked at the store which her step-mother owned. She was tired of working those long hours, from four in the morning until eight at night. She has gone to live with her sister about two miles from us near some property we owned. But now, she explained that she was restless and bored and wanted something to do.

Getting the grass cut in my husband's vineyard has always been a problem and he had been worrying with it all morning. I teasingly said, "You can help Glenn cut grass."

"Well, I've never cut grass before but I'm willing to try it."

"Oh, I was just teasing Linda".

"Well, I'll do it. I need something to do to get my mind off things".

I insisted that I was only teasing. It was hard work and hot outside, so maybe she had best forget it.

But she was hooked on trying to cut grass, and nothing Glenn or I could say would dissuade her from coming the next week to try her hand at grass cutting.

Before she left she put a package of cigarettes on my table and said "I want you to keep these for me. I'm trying to stop and I can't take them home with me or my family will kill me."

"Don't leave them here", I protested.

But she insisted and I put them in a drawer and forgot all about them until the third of July when my son-in-law was here. He was getting ready to set off fire crackers for our own private Independence Day celebration.

"I wish I had a cigarette to light these with." he said.

Being the ever efficient mother-in-law,I opened the drawer and produced the cigarettes. He took two and put the rest back. Thus Linda had two less to smoke.

The next week Linda arrived in her white Reeboks, her shorts and shirt all set to try grass cutting. Glenn put her to work on our yard and surrounding grassy areas.

First he introducrd her to the self-propelled Sears mower. It wasn't long before the motor stopped and he had to show her how to start it again. At this point, he to go to town on some sort of business and left me to supervise Linda. I put on my work clothes and began an outdoor project of my own . Soon the mower stopped again and Linda and I tried to start it.

"Mr. Keaton did something with this thing, she said." It was the throttle.

I said "Let me hold it and you pull on the cord." By our combined efforts we got the mower working, and she set off again."

Linda took several breaks to have a cigarette. I stopped with her and had water or lemonade as we talked. I learned some things about her. She tanned easily because she was descended from the Cherokee Indians. She took medication for epilepsy. She was married for ten years and had been divorced for ten. She worked for ten years in a health food store in Buckhead. And I learned that when she left Atlanta and came here to live, she came to a screeching halt.

She worked for her church in Gainesville, cleaning the building on Saturdays. She attended church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. She talked with her hands. She lifted them up and out in front of her and stretched her fingers apart and pointed them inward. This she did when she wanted to make a point.

Some days later, Glenn left to go to Arkansas for a week. Linda called and said she wanted to come and cut grass again because she really enjoyed it. I said, "Come on if you want to." She did. I told her she could go to the vineyard and do whatever she could. I kept working on my project outdoors, which was a considerable project. I could hear the motor stopping occasionally and once a shower came up, and Linda kept right on mowing. She was an odd sight, not much taller than the handle of the mower and leaning into the machine as she followed.

When she got ready to leave that day I said, "Why don't you leave your phone number and take mine, so we can talk about cutting grass.

The next time I saw her, she came riding up with a young man in a blue truck. He drove up to the screened in porch and stopped. Linda got out and came in where I sat reading.

"I came to get the bicycle" she said. "When I told my sister I had left her bicycle on your porch she didn't look too happy." I had driven her home two days before because I had given her a bag of apples and she couldn't carry them on her bike. We chatted a few minutes about unimportant things and the young man put the bike in his truck. She said , "we're taking the day off to go to the mountains." And off they went.

The next day she did not show up. It did not matter one way or the other, but the next day she showed up in her now grass stained Reeboks and the new striped shorts,with sad things to tell me. She had gotten in trouble she said, because she had gone to the mountains. She had a fuss with her sister and brother-in-law. They felt she had neglected her duty by not coming and cutting grass. I reiterated that grass cutting was her choice, and if she did not want to do it, I did not care.

She was still upset and told me she had been to talk to their minister, and he, too, told her she had done wrong. But she was happy about one thing. She had been to church the night before and she said it was a good meeting, that the Lord was there. But because of the row with her sister she had trouble praising him. I said, I understood that, as I had the same problem when I was angry with Glenn. I also told her that she should not be so hard on herself, that I felt too often Christians did that to themselves. And as God knew what was in our hearts, He was the One to consider,not anyone else. She said the young man's live-in girl friend, got angry with her for going off with him, but she said they were just good friends and that was all. I believed her and assured her that if she had a clean heart, God knew it and to stop worrying.

She cut grass in the vineyard and I worked on my project, and we left grass cutting very open and loose when she left.

I did not see Linda again. I made no effort to contact her. I think that something happened to keep her from calling, or coming by. Many years have passed and I often wonder what had happened to this young lady who lead a somewhat disjointed life.

It would be nice to see her, and to know that her life was back on a positive course.