“But, Louisa! We didn’t know she would swallow the Penney!”
No amount of apologetic stuttering could dissuade my mother from heaping blame on her contrite cousins.
After Sunday family dinners on Crittenden Drive, the men were accustomed to entertaining the children in the front room while the ladies cleared the table and washed the dishes in the kitchen at the rear of the home.
Following World War One, John and Karl Link discovered tins of food left by American troops in a field near their home. Opening the tins, they declared that if food could be this good in America, they must make their way to that land of plenty. And so they did, to be welcomed by relatives in Louisville, Kentucky.
On this Sunday afternoon, these tall magicians who had delighted our amazed group a few minutes previous with flourishing handkerchief tricks were now frowned upon by my mother as sacrilegious scoundrels.
Karl was a master of stage presence and he “swallowed” the Penney several times to the applause of his young audience who did not see him slip the coin down the cuff of his shirt.
Taking a deserved bow, he placed the shiny coin on the table and proceeded to tell a story about the “old country”.
We never heard the end of that story as my sister, Jean, age three, rushed over, grabbed the coin, and gulped it down with a happy smile.
She had done magic but nobody applauded especially my mother whose entrance struck terror in the hearts of the grown men who “Should have known better than to show them that trick!”
I was frightened as she snatched my sister, Jean away from the magicians, and whisked her down the hall where in the kitchen, she began feeding her mouthfuls of bread as a remedy for coating the magic Penney.
Needless to say, the Sunday afternoon entertainment committee no longer included a magic Penney act and although my sister Jean suffered no ill effects for her part in the escapade, she was kept under the stern supervision of the kitchen ladies for a prolonged length of time that extended into months of exile from the living room.
My mother eventually forgave her cousins for their theatrical performance.
John went on to form his own electric company and Karl went into the insurance business.
Sunday afternoons remind me of Crittenden Drive and the relatives who once gathered around an apple-green kitchen table that now sits in the corner of my basement.
In a long-ago time, relatives talked of potatoes and green beans. Or was it just this Sunday afternoon?