MAMA JEAN

MAMA JEAN

“I heard this music down by that sycamore tree across from the hay meadow, Mommy?”

“That’s just Mama Jean callen her children, Laddie.”

“I didn’t see no one.”

“No, you can’t see Mama Jean, but she’s there.”

“Why can’t I see her, Mama?”

“Mama Jean lived over 300 years ago, but her ghost is still here, right on this land.”

“I’m not goin to play down there no more with some ghost callen people.”

“Oh, Mama Jean ain’t going to hurt you, Laddie. She was a fine women, a good women. You see, she was free. Had papers to prove it. But she stayed on with the Colonel and Mrs. Elsie Mae anyway, and lived in a small shack down where the sycamore is now. The Colonel paid her a wage and she worked hard for them.

One day, when one of the slave ladies died in child birth, it left one fine healthy boy with no mama to care for him. Mama Jean asked for the baby to raise even though she was just a growd girl herself. She cared for that boy, nursen him when he was ill, and played with him, and taught him right from wrong.

Toby grew up straight and handsome and when he was three Mama Jean went to the Colonial and asked for papers to make him free. The Colonial “Hurrumphed” but Mrs. Elsie Mae saw that he signed the paper, and Toby could grow up a free man. She did such a good job of rasin that child, that other orphans were brought to her to raise. She worked night and day to feed and care for those children. At night time she bundled them all together and with arms around them sang happy songs and lullaby’s, and when they were all sleeping she kissed each one and laid them in their place for the night.”

“Mommy, why is she callen for her children?”

“Well, one night a terrible storm blew in from the Atlantic. Mama Jean must have been caring for 12 or 14 little ones then. That storm blew and blew so that trees were falling in the woods. Lightning flashed and the howling wind was louder then the thunder. Rain crashed down on the roof. All the children were crying and Mama Jean was shushing them and saying they would be all right. Then water come right up from the swamp and started to come in under the door.

Mama Jean grabbed those children and carried them outside two by two through the waist deep water, and placed them on a little hillock. While she was getting the last baby a giant oak fell on the cabin and crushed it to the ground. Mama Jean was killed. Then a great surge of water swept across the fields and washed all those poor babies down into the swamp and bayou.

After the storm the Colonel and Mrs. Elsie Mae searched and searched for those children but could not find one of those poor souls. Sadly they buried Mama Jean by the wreckage of the cabin. So she wouldn’t be forgotten, Mrs. Elsie Mae hung a wind chime from a nearby tree. That’s when folks said the sound of the chimes was Mama Jean callen for her lost children.

Through the years when the chimes rusted and fell to the ground, other mothers would hang up new chimes in honor of Mama Jean so she could keep callen. Just three years ago I replaced the chimes myself.

“Mommy, won’t Mama Jean ever find her lost children?”

As sad as it is, after 300 years, I don’t suppose so, but she keeps callin.

“Another thing, Mommy, when I was down there hearing Mama Jean’s chimes, I heard faint tinkling sounds comin from the swamp.”

Story ID:	4358
Written by:	Dick Dunlap (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Fiction
Location:	unknown USA
Year:	2008