As I was writing my
book Leave Him? I felt the need to do
a little research in order to be authentic; after all, how can you accurately
describe something you have never personally experienced? I went to the store
and asked for a can of Bruton Scotch Snuff. The packaging looked much like I
remembered although the container was now made of plastic instead of the tin of
years ago. I had observed my great-grandmother ‘take a dip’ every time I saw
her as I was growing up.
To a young girl ‘taking
a dip’ looked a lot like eating dirt and the spitting that was required
afterward, done as discreetly as possible into a jar kept out of sight, was
still appeared nasty-not something I wanted to do. As a kid, I was more
inclined to try smoking, making my own cigarettes out of a brown paper bag rolled
around a weed called rabbit tobacco; it was a cleaner habit. I had smelled of
Grandma Pate’s snuff, but I never tried it.
It took a bit of
courage even as an adult to rake the brown powder in between my lip and teeth-
all in the effort of research. The things we writers must endure. As the powder
moistened the power of the snuff was released. I held it in my mouth long
enough to figure out what it tasted like and pondered the appeal it must have
had on a woman in her eighties. I then had what I needed to write the following
scene, but you can bet that I was not interested in adopting dippin snuff as my
new vice.
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Ella Mae
The hours
passed more slowly when a body got too old to stay busy. The slow ticking of
the clock and less need for sleep gave plenty of time for the mind to wander.
Ella didn’t take having a mind that could wander for granted. She had seen many
who lived to see their eighties lose all their sense. She looked down at her
wrinkled hands as she sat in her chair.
“These hands cause me much pain. Every time I move my fingers the
pain shoots up my arm to the shoulder. It feels like knives are stabbing
through it, if my hands rise at all.”
Fighting the pain, she reached over to the side table to get her
snuff can. She opened the lid of the Bruton Scotch Snuff can, put the wooden
paddle in and withdrew enough for a dip. After a few seconds the familiar
earthy taste filled her mouth. Her thoughts were a little clearer, and her
heart beat a little faster.
The morning sunlight brightened the otherwise dreary room. Her
eyes had gotten so bad that she couldn’t see to sew or read. Plus she could
hardly walk in the house, let alone walk in the yard alone. The metal walker
helped her balance and get up and down, but it proved so cumbersome she had no
way to get it down the steps by herself.
Remonda, the youngest of Roselle’s kids, was the only one still
living at home, so the house was a lot quieter than it had been when all of her
five children lived with them. Ella Mae had grown accustomed to the noise of
the teenaged girls fussing with each other and the younger Gary and Remonda
playing. With Remonda gone to school during the days and Hoyt and Roselle
working, the silence seemed to surround her. Ella Mae thought about that. These
past few years were the first she had really been alone, and they dragged out
since there was nothing to do.
She still cooked every now and then, but mostly she just sat and
dipped snuff. She thought back to the first time she tried slipping the brown
powder between her teeth and lower lip a few years after she had left Harvey…
She opened the door to see
her friend Sally’s broad smile and twinkling eyes. Her hands were behind her
back. “I’ve got something for you. It’s gonna be great.”
Ella Mae reached for her
friend’s arm, but she twisted away from her. “Not yet. You gotta come out on
the front porch and sit in the rockers with me.”
It was a warm, early summer
day, and Ella Mae had been working in the house most of the morning with her
mother. She wanted to get the gardening done in the afternoon and knew she
would be bending over about a thousand times, so sitting a spell would be a
welcome change.
She sighed a bit and looked
at Sally. “Well, you gonna show me what you got now?”
Sally smiled again as she
unfolded the top of the small brown paper bag and reached in and pulled out a
can of Bruton Snuff.
“I think this is just what
you need to calm yourself when you think of Harvey. I read about it in the
paper. The advertisement says that it has a soothing effect, plus it is
supposed to be good disinfectant for the mouth.”
Ella Mae smiled at Sally.
“You beat all I ever seen, always searching for a cure for Harvey Pate. I’ve
seen women dip that stuff and spit that brown slime on the side of the street.
Why do you think I need to take up that habit?”
“Awe, those ole women you
saw doing that were just unrefined. You and I are going to be sophisticated
dippers. The advertisement in the paper showed one woman using this wooden
paddle like this one to put the snuff in her mouth while another woman, wearing
the prettiest dress, carefully spit into a small jelly jar. I got everything we
need to try it. See.” Sally pulled an empty jelly jar out of the bag and sat it
on the floor between them and then she reached in and found a small wooden
paddle that she sat in her lap.
Ella Mae laughed out loud.
“See, it is making you feel
better already.”
She smiled. “You make me
feel better, Sally. You always make me feel better. I don’t know what I
would’ve done without you. You have been the one to get me to take another step
all my life.”
“Awe, now I just do for you
what you would do for me. Ain’t that what we’re supposed to do?”
Sally twisted the top of
the can of snuff until it came off. The sudden loosening filled the air with an
unexpected brown powdery cloud that flew up Sally’s nose. Ella Mae watched her
friend’s nose wrinkle and her eyes squeeze shut as she let out a huge sneeze.
Ella Mae laughed and said,
“Well, that stuff has already got you good. I’m not sure we need to go puttin
it in our mouths if a sniff of it can do that.”
Sally sneezed again,
gathered her composure, then explained, “I just didn’t expect the top to come
off like that and the can to be so full. It smells pretty good. Here take a
whiff.”
Ella Mae carefully held the
can under her nose just far enough to see what the contents smelled like.
“It’s not that bad, just
different, like cinnamon. Looks like dirt though. I have memories of making mud
pies with my sisters when I was little and remember them tricking me into
taking a bite. I hope this tastes better than that.”
“Well, I’ll be brave and go
first to prove it’s okay.”
Sally plunged the wooden
paddle into the snuff then carefully slipped the powder between her lower lip
and her teeth. Ella Mae watched her friend smile then say, “Come on you try
it.”
Ella Mae followed her
example then the two of them rocked waiting for the presumed effect. As her
mouth’s juices moistened the snuff, she felt her heart start to beat a little
faster. A small calming started, maybe it was taking a minute to rock and just
breathe or maybe there was something to this snuff stuff after all.
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