Great-great aunt Ida was very different from all the other young ladies that lived in the early part of the nineteen hundreds in the mountains of western North Carolina. She wore pearl earrings in her pierced ears and was known to dip snuff and use the juice from elderberries to color her lips. Ida was a very superstitious woman. She claimed to have known at a young age that she never would marry. When her great niece Betty asked her how she had known that she would never get married, her answer was a strange one. It went something like this:
“Well, Betty, I just knew I would never marry when I set a backward supper and no man for me showed up at my door that night. You see, if you set a backward supper, the man you are to marry is supposed to come to your house that very night. My man didn’t come. Instead, I saw something frightening at the door. So, I knew marriage wasn’t for me. You should set one for yourself and see if your man will show up. But, you need to be prepared if your man don’t come. You’re liable to see something entirely different than a man and that’s a fact. What I saw I can hardly tell, it sends shivers down my spine even now, and it’s been almost seventy years since Rosie and me set our supper. But, it’s worth doing. Rosie met Jim that very night. I knew that night that I need not set stock in getting married. It would be single for me until I die. No, honey, it’s not hard to set a backward supper. Don’t you know how to set a backward supper? Well, let me tell you how. This is the way my granny told me to do it, for she did it too, and if you do it, maybe you will see your future husband.
Okay now, first you must make sure that you and anybody else you are setting the backward supper with, stay absolutely quiet. That means no talking whatsoever. When my sister Rosie, and me set our backward supper, it was very hard for us not to talk. Your grandma Rosie and me are such big talkers you know. Rosie would talk the shoes off of your feet. Oh, but, back to what I was telling, no talking, so singing, no noise at all. Now, I mean none. You are supposed to be very somber through it all. You can’t even hardly crack a smile. Rosie and me thought on sad things. I thought about not meeting my future man. That thought was awful sad and it kept me somber, but Rosie, you have no idea how sad the truth is.
Next, you must set nine items at each setting. That means one plate, one saucer, one cup, one knife, one fork, one spoon, a drinking glass, one napkin and one bowl . That all adds up to nine. Rosie had a setting, I had a setting and then we set a setting for each of our ‘men’. Next, you must have nine dishes of food to eat. I remember we fixed some good pork tenderloin that we boiled on the cook stove until the meat was so tender that it fell apart when I forked it. We also fixed hanovers with a generous piece of fatback to season them with. Rosie made the biscuits. She always made them a little better than I could. I put on a big pot of taters and cooked a mess of pintos. We set out some of daddy’s fresh molasses and rounded out the meal with a print of butter mommy had churned the day before. Two kinds of preserves was set on the table and all of these things added up to nine.
Now, this is the most important thing you must do in setting the supper. Every thing must be done backward. Now, it can be done, for Rosie and me did everything backward. You can prepare the food in the regular way, of course. Lord, honey, a body would get burned or put too much salt in the dish if she did that part backwards! But when it comes time to set the table, you have to walk to the cabinet backward. With your hands behind your back, you have to open the door and get out the dishes. Then you have to walk back backwards to the table and set the dishes where they go. That’s a good deal harder than it sounds. Rosie about backed into me carrying her hanovers and like to have spilled them all over me. But, we still didn’t say a word or crack a smile. We were serious with the business that we were at.
Now this is a funny thing about a backward supper. When you get all the food fixed and your table set, backward of course, you then must sit down at your place at the table and wait. You can’t eat all that good food you spent hours in that hot kitchen making until your “man” comes calling. So, you wait for him. I set at the end of the table and Rosie sat at the corner next to me. We still couldn’t speak a word. Mommy and Daddy had already eaten before we set the backward table, so they were in the front room waiting too. We waited there, oh, I guess about fifteen minutes. When I thought I couldn’t sit there any longer, there was a knock at our front door.
Why I didn’t get up and answer the door before Rosie, I’ll never know. I wish to my God that I had of. I have thought about it over the years since and I suppose that I didn’t get up and get the door because I was sitting at the far end of the table, away from the door. Rosie set down on the right hand corner next to me. She was closer. If I had it to do over, Betty, I sure would have been quicker in getting’ up. But, she beat me to it and got the answer she wanted from the backward supper.
The man at the door that evening was Jim. He had been to our neighbor, Grover Lewis’ place, to see him about breeding his cow to Grover’s bull. Jim was walking back to his home and as people back then always did, Jim figured he would stop in and see us and see how Daddy was. You see, Daddy was still feeling poorly with his ankle that he twisted earlier that week. Now Rosie and me had known Jim most all of our lives. We had been to preaching with him and he played the guitar with our brother, Fred, on Sundays. The best guitar player in the county, that Jim. Didn’t you know that about Jim? Well, it has been a while since he felt well enough to play. My goodness Betty, your grandpa Jim was a handsome boy back then. Lean and tall and the thickest, blackest hair! No, his head wasn’t always bald like it is now. I guess we all look different now than then. We were so young then, you know. That particular evening when Rosie opened the door, she saw Jim standing there in a whole different light. He was not just the boy who lived across the hill. Rosie saw the boy that was destined to be her “man”. The peculiar thing about it, Betty, was that Jim also saw Rosie different. It just seemed to happen as quickly as she opened the door. Jim looked at her in a way he never had before. It was almost like a love spell had fell upon him. Now you see why I wish I had been the one to open the door first that night. He might have fell for me that night and me for him. But, it wasn’t to never be. Things work out the way they are supposed to I guess.
Rosie asked Jim in, and after he spoke a few pleasant words to Mommy and Daddy, Rosie asked him to have some of the good supper that we had just set. Jim said he’d be glad to and Rosie sat him down at the place that she had set for her own true love. Now I don’t know if Rosie had told him they we were going to do the Backwards supper or not, I never did know. She could have seen him out earlier that day and told him, I ‘m not sure.
Jim talked a little to me, but of course, I couldn’t answer him, only nod or smile. Rosie answered mostly for me, since she knew I couldn’t yet talk. I didn’t want to break the supper, you know. Dusk was turning into dark and Jim and Rosie had finished eating. They got up to go into the front room to sit a spell. I remember sweet Rosie looking back at me with the saddest smile on her face. In her eyes was a look that I saw was pity, although I can’t say for sure. As quick as she looked back from the doorway, she looked away again. I sat there, wringing my hands and almost wishing I had never set that backward supper. Sometimes not knowing how a thing is to work out is better than knowing. Knowing takes away all your hope. That’s why I said if you set a backward supper, Betty, be prepared for anything.
Okay, I’ll tell you what happened next. After staying over an hour talking in the front room, Jim left. Just after he was gone Mommy said, “Ida, get up from there and clear that table. You’ve been sitting there for over an hour. Nobody is gonna come this late.” Just as I was about to give up, I thought I heard something outside in the yard. It was a rustling noise, like someone or something walking through leaves, but it wasn’t fall of the year. It was early winter and in the month of November and all the leaves had dried up and blown away. Rosie had come in the kitchen to help me clear the table and heard the noise too. She had a puzzled look on her face. I got my hopes up to thinking that maybe it was someone out there coming for my supper. Strange as it sounds, I almost dreaded going to the door to see what was out there. Something in my soul didn’t feel right. Rosie asked, “Ida, what do you suppose that is out there?” My courage was almost gone, you see, because it was now dark outside and the sound was getting louder. She sensed my foreboding and offered to walk with me to the door. Taking her small hand into mine, we locked arms and slowly walked toward the front door. I took hold of the doorknob. The knob was made of glass and felt warm in my cold, clammy hand. I turned the knob and gently cracked open the door and stuck my head out. Now you see, Betty, Daddy and Mommy had no electricity and so there was no porch light to turn on. I pulled the door open a little wider so that I could see out better. Rosie was still at my side, but she was unable to see much through the small opening in the door. “Do you see anybody,” Daddy hollered from the front room. Rosie asked, “What’s out there?” At first I couldn’t see a thing. The only light shining was from the moon. My eyes adjusted to the night and not a soul did I see. No one anywhere. “I don’t see nothing,” I yelled back. Betty, just as I was about to shut the door, I heard the rustling sound again. It sounded like it came from the far corner of the house. I stepped out on the porch to see if I could see anything. Honey child, it was then that I saw that awful thing that told of my fate. In the distance I saw a image of a large white object. It was creamy white, like fog or smoke. Its edges weren’t defined, but wavy and movable. Its shape was like that of a box, a rectangular box. Then my heart almost stopped beating right then and there. I saw then that what I was seeing was a coffin. My coffin. Lord, yes, child, I was scared. Immediately, I jumped back into the house and slammed the door shut and bolted it. My countenance was pearly white; I know because Mommy commented on how white I was. “What did you see, Ida! Was it a ghost?” Rosie asked me. I told her that what I saw was worse than a ghost. Then I told them all how I saw what looked like a coffin, my coffin, in the distance. I told them that the coffin must be a sign that I would die an old maid and never marry. Daddy said I should have never done the supper, that it was only bad luck. But, it wasn’t bad luck for Rosie. Just for me.
So, now Helen, you see why I have never married. My fortune was foretold long, long ago. After that day, I accepted my fate and lived the best I could with it. Marrying just wasn’t for me. But, It sure was for Rosie. Jim and her got married only five months after that and they’ve been happy as far as I can tell. Rosie has always been good to me. After Mommy and Daddy died, I sold their place and Rosie let me move in with her and Jim. So, you see, I’ve been pretty content to be single. Lord, I might as well be since I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Plus, I have all of Lalie’s grandchildren such as you to spoil. My life has been pretty good, I guess. Are you sure you want to set a backwards supper? Well, alright, do it exactly like I told you and I hope you have good luck at it.”