Tin Roofs

If you have never lived in a house with a tin roof, you have missed an experience. Mostly, the thrill comes when it rains. I've heard it rain so hard that it would block out all other sound. Other times, it was just a gently rain that made it about impossible to stay awake.

I remember once, my sister and I, were just little tots. Mama sent us over to the neighbor, who was also our landlord, to buy a dozen eggs. We didn't have egg cartons, so we had to carry them in a brown paper sack. You had to be really gentle with the bag or the eggs would squash together and crack.

We were on our way home, about a half mile, when a summer cloud came up behind us. We were just kids but we watched the weather. For one thing, you couldn't chop cotton when it was raining so we got a break and we could sit in the house and break beans or something. Sometimes we'd get to cut corn off the cob. Yeah, kids with knives. We learned early to use tools without cutting our throat.

Well, we started walking faster so we could get home before it started raining. Getting wet would not have been so bad but being wet with it lightning was not so good. Even then we had sense enough to get in out of the rain. It seemed the cloud was determined to catch up with us. Finally, we started running. I held the eggs with one hand and pulled my little sister with the other hand. I was the runner in the family and her little legs were barely touching the ground.

Even with pulling her, carrying the eggs and running; I still remember looking back and seeing the big drops of rain hit the dust behind us. We rain faster. Just as we topped the steps onto the porch it started to rain very hard. The old house had a tin roof as well as the porch. It pounded down with a roar but we were dry. We had outrun the storm and were safe under our tin roof. The eggs survived although a couple were cracked.

Later Mama and some of the other kids told me they had been watching us and the rain trying to catch up with us. They smiled at our speed and victory over the cloud.

If there was no work to do, I had a haven from our large family and the clutter of the day. When I saw a rain cloud coming, I'd take off to the barn which also had a tin roof. There was nothing more peaceful than lying in the loft on the big bags of cow feed (cotton seed and crushed corn) and listening to the rain and thunder while I watched it puddle up in the barn yard.