Red Onion Mountain

Book summary

In 1941, young Price Mullins discovers the power of writing as he navigates life on Red Onion Mountain with his best friend Billy, his family, and the challenges of growing up without a father. When tragedy strikes, Price makes a poignant decision to honor his teacher's memory. RED ONION MOUNTAIN is a touching coming-of-age story set in 1940s Appalachia.

Excerpt from Red Onion Mountain

Chapter one

My Defining Moment- I Think

My name is Price Mullins and I’m in Mrs. Collins fifth grade class. Now I realize

that my being in the fifth grade doesn’t mean a whole lot in world experiences, but today

I think I may have had me one of them things that they call life defining moments. I’m

not positive as of yet, but I’m leaning toward it pretty hard.

It all began at school when I was throwing acorns at an oak tree after I had done all of

my eating for lunch. Now I must have picked me up a good two or three handfuls of

them things to toss at that big ole tree and do you know that I didn’t hit that stupid thing

nary a time! I was getting so frustrated that I thought I was going to bust.

But I was determined to hit that tree before I died or at least until we had to go back

inside the school house so I reached down and scooped me up a few more acorns to

throw when she came up behind me, Mrs. Collins that is, and asked me if I was going to

spend my whole life throwing acorns at that there tree.

I told her I was just doing it temporarily, you know, just to pass the time until

something better came along. Finding a way to pass the time until something better

came along is kind of what fifth graders do most of the time. Either that or finding

themselves looking at their best buddy and wondering how in the world they were going

to get something off before they got home and their mommy seen ’em.

Mrs. Collins then put her hands on her hips and said a body couldn’t make money

throwing acorns at a tree or at anything else for that matter and that I should put my

energy usage to better things. Why even as dumb as I am I know you can’t make no

living throwing acorns at a tree.

That’s when she began talking to me about not wasting the day and how precious a

thing time was (scolding me apparently wasn’t considered a waste of time in her book)

and then she began asking me what I wanted to do with my life.

Why she was throwing questions at me faster than I could ever throw a handful of

acorns, that’s for sure!

I told her that I hadn’t given it much thought on what I wanted to do with my life (which of course was a lie- I once thought about being a pig farmer until I found out what a pen full of pigs smelled like on a hot summer day in which case I’ll take my chances with acorn throwing), but I soon realized that even if I hadn’t given my future life much thought that Mrs. Collins apparently had given considerable thought to the matter of my life’s work because she pretty much told me right then and there what I was going to be doing when I got up big. You know how fifth grade teachers are.

She said since I wrote good stories in English class that I ought to be a writer.

I was so shocked by her words that I dropped my acorns.

“A writer?” I said to myself. This ain’t good- this ain’t good at all. I can’t be a

writer. Why I don’t like writing, math, or anything whatsoever that even looks like

school work in the smallest way. So to say that I might be a writer one day is something

that I find so depressing that it makes it difficult for me to go on. Those stories I wrote in

English class was just homework, that’s all they was.

However, she told me to give it a try because I had a great talent and I shouldn’t

waste it. I told her that I didn’t know of any stories right now that I could write and she

told me that I should keep a little journal and write things in it every now and then. I

could tell a joke, write a poem, tell what I did during the day, you know- just stuff.

Well, when she got through telling me her plan for my life’s work, I began

thinking about it and when I went home I began thinking about it again. I guess by your

reading this you can tell what I decided.

But I promise you that they’ll still be no math!

That night after supper I told mommy what the teacher told me about I should try and

be a writer. She seemed happy about it and went on and on about how important writers

were.

I asked mommy if she knew of any important writers and she told me no. I guess the

writing field hasn’t really grabbed a hold of society as a whole just yet.

Mommy then wanted to know if I was going to write me non-fiction or fiction. I had

no idea what she was talking about. She then told me that non-fiction was true stories,

like in a newspaper article and fiction was stories made up like anything my Uncle Willie

says.

I told her I hadn’t decided that yet. That’s when she told me about an aunt of hers

that tried to be a writer, but gave it up when she got married. I think she was the same

aunt that won a tobacco spitting contest at the fair on her honeymoon. I assume her

husband was either proud of her unusual skill set or maybe having second thoughts over

what he had just done.

Anyway, mommy gave me some old envelopes and scrap papers to write on that she

had laying around the house and I piled them up on a table in my bedroom and tried to

press all the wrinkles out of ’em as best as I could with a flat rock I got down near the

outhouse.

I then marked on the top of one of the sheets, MAY 1941 and I’m going to write down

all the things that happen to me here on Red Onion Mountain.

I don’t know what will become of it, but I reckon I’ll find out soon enough.

Now I’ve been doing me some thinking and I have to say that I’ve never really seen

my mommy like this before. You know, impressed with me. She’s just so busy and all.

She is always working, trying to make money for my three older sissies and myself.

She’ll do anything for money. Cook, clean, sew, whatever needs to be done, she can sure

do it. And she’s great at it too.

I don’t have a daddy. Not long after I was born he killed himself with a shotgun.

Chapter two

Love Circles

Mary, that being my oldest sissy, has a boyfriend and he comes over to our house just

about every day since they got going good together. He’s tall and skinny. To be honest he looks like a pine tree without any limbs on it. I swear we’re all afraid to have him go out into the woods by himself in fear that someone might try and cut him down for firewood.

Now that Mary has a boyfriend me and Suzie and Sally, thems my other two sissies, have been teasing her something fierce. I don’t think Mary likes it too much, but we sure do.

The boy that she likes is named Junior. They met at the store that his daddy owns. Mommy always goes in there and trades every Saturday, well if she has enough money and if she doesn’t she has to wait until the next Saturday.

I reckon when Mary and Junior saw into one another’s eyes over a stacked pile of castor oil bottles that they decided right then and there they had to have each other. But just between you and me I think meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend over a pile of castor oil bottles should be considered a dire warning, but of course that’s just me thinking on this here paper.

Funny thing about Junior is that I don’t know what his real name is. I know he’s a Junior, but I don’t know what he’s a Junior of. The store owner is called Wart and I don’t think that’s his real name unless of course he was raised by frogs or a witch one. And I know that mommy wouldn’t allow Mary to hitch up with a family that had a witch in it, although I would be curious about the frog family idea.

It’s kind of odd that my not knowing his real name just occurred to me as I was writing this. I guess writing does help you think- well if you can call this thinking.

Anyway, I seen Mary and Junior holding hands yesterday as they walked around the

house, seems like that’s all they really do. Why they’ve already worn a path all the way

down to the dirt. They don’t really talk much when they walk either. Unless of course

they’re yelling at me to stop throwing rocks at them. Otherwise they just kind of

giggle and smile. They probably get so dizzy walking in circles that they can’t think of

anything to say.

Mommy told me and Suzie and Sally to stop teasing Mary and her boyfriend. Mommy said one day we’d fall in love and we wouldn’t like a bunch of kids making fun of us.

That’s probably true, but if I do fall in love I hope we do more than just walk in circles

around the house like some sort of crazed cow.