guitar

guitar
Cappy, 1939, 22 yrs. old.

Four


            Things went along kind of quiet for a while, mostly helping to plant the corn we had to put four kernels in each hill by hand and over it with a hoe (a big field of cow corn).  Then I helped to plant the potatoes.  We always planted more than we need and Father sold some.  Then I helped Mother in the garden.  We had a big garden as Mother done a lot of canning.  I went along in the wagon to the store once or twice a month.  There never was much to buy to eat as we grew everything on the farm.  The trip was mostly to the feed store for grain for the horses and cows.  I went along mostly so I could drive the horses.
            I used to help make the bread and the butter.  We put the cream in a glass jug sometimes and I just kept shacking it sometimes.  I worked the butter churn.  It was a round wooden like pail with a cover and a long handle that stuck up thru the center of the cover.  I had to keep going up and down with it.  It had paddles on the bottom end.
            I used to like milking time.  The cat we had always came to me when I was milking.  I used to keep squirting milk at him.  He’d get up on his back feet and keep drinking it.  I liked it myself and took my turn at drinking the warm milk. 
            I lost my friend, the old cat, as Father got some rabbits later on and raised them so sell.  He had a five foot chicken wire fence around the yard to keep the foxes and skunks from getting at the rabbits but the old cat used to jump up and sit on a post and wait till the small rabbits came out of there then jump down and kill them.  I chased him away quite a few times but in a couple of weeks he must have killed ten or fifteen so one day my Father seen him on a post so he went into the house and got his shot gun.  When it hit him the old cat flew five feet in the air and my old cat was gone.  I missed him for quite a while at milking time but I was plenty busy and slowly got over it.
            I got my first pair of skies at Christmas.  There was no Christmas Tree, I just received the skis from Mother and Father.  None of us knowed how to ski.  It was something different and all I knew was I was supposed to strap them on and slide down the hill.  It took me seven or eight tries but soon I was able to stay up but as always I thought I was a big shot and one day I spent about three hours piling snow up and made a jump.  I got way up in the field and got a good run at it.  Boy I was happy that I was going to make my first jump then show Mother and Father how I could do it, but when I stared up that jump I really got scared because I just seen the fence at the bottom of the hill that I had forgotten all about.  I didn’t know how to stop.  I couldn’t turn.  All I knew was to slide down the hill. 
            B the time I thought of sitting down to stop I had hit the barbwire fence and a post.  I thought my leg was broke.  Father had to help me to the house.  One ski was broke.  I had a real bad bruise just above the knee and the other leg as all skinned up.  It was a couple of days till I could walk good again.  So, that was the end of my skies and I watched my ski jump melt in the spring but I still slide down the same hill on the shovel a lot of times.
            I used to help put the pickles in brine in a big crock when they were the right size from the garden.  We had two five-gallon crocks.  We put a board on the pickles and a stone to hold them down.  I sued to like to get one out now and then during the winter.  They tasted good.  They were always crisp and cool in the cellar.  We had the apples in the cellar too. They kept about half the winter if they didn’t have any bumps or bruises on the.  In the Fall the ones that were bumped or marked and couldn’t keep we took some to a cider mill and had some cider made.  Then I used to peel a lot of apples and slice them, put them on a board that fit in the oven.  Mother would dry them and keep them in a pillowslip.  She’d cook them during the winter.  They kept like that the whole year.  She put up two or three pillowslips every year.  

Three



            I had the chickens to feed and two pigs.  Father took care of the horses as one was kind of high spirited and done a lot of jumping around and sometimes kicked.  Mother helped to milk the cows then she’d go back to the house and get breakfast.  We had to put the milk in the milk house in cold water.  The milkman would come with his team and take it to the creamery.
            I sure would eat a good breakfast after doing that much work first every morning.  We ate breakfast around 6:30 am then I’d get ready for school.  I was in the second grade and had almost two miles to walk but I didn’t seem to mind it.  I just kept walking and running and looking at things along the road.  School was from nine to four, all eight grades in a one-room school.  One teacher had so much time for each grade.  The seats up front were empty and the teacher would call the grade she wanted and we would go up front.
            Father showed me how to set traps that was strong enough for ground hogs and I had four or five set at different places on the way to and from school.  One morning there was something in one trap and pulled down into the hole.  I thought I had a groundhog and pulled it right out.  It was a skunk in the trap and he sprayed me all over.  He got my eyes full too, boy my eyes burnt.  I had to go back home. Mother could smell me coming before she could see me. She wouldn’t let me come in the house.  She brought the washtub out.  There was no water heated so she scrubbed me up in cold water and left my clothes hang on the clothesline for about a week.  I could smell skunk on myself for a couple of weeks and nobody liked me in school for a while.
            Later on that summer I found a fence post along the road, the top was hollow and there was a little humming noise in it and dark.  I thought it was a bird nest so I climbed up on the fence, reached down in and felt some grass. I grabbed a handful and pulled it out and a bumble-bee nest.  What a big surprise I got!  My hand was stung all over.  I jumped down and ran but some followed me and I was stung some more.  Father and Mother asked me all summer if I found any more fence posts to reach in.  I sure learned something new that day.
            I used to set groundhog and rabbit traps on the farm.  Father showed me how to make a slingshot.  So one Sunday I guess I must of sat and waited for a couple of hours for a groundhog to stick his head out but he never did.  I learned that somehow they knew I was there so they just slept while I waited but I got pretty good with my slingshot on squirrels, birds, and rats in the barn.  Sometimes I’d hit the cat’s dish while he was eating.  Boy he used to jump and take off.
            I had already learned to ride the horse.  Father used to let me ride while he was cultivating the garden or corn in the field.  I used to like to see the horse shake his head when I’d reach up and tickle his ears.  Guess he thought it was a fly.  But, as always, one time I got the bright idea of going further. I leaned and stretched way forward and gave a big blow right into his ear.  Boy, he shook his head so hard and jumped and I found myself on the ground.  Father wanted to know what I did to the horse but I didn’t tell him till a long time afterwards.
            Father let me take care of a bull calf one summer so we could butcher it in the fall when it got strong enough.  I used to ride it out in the open field.  I got pretty good after a while.  Then I’d hang on to its tail. He sure took me for a run.  I couldn’t catch him but if I had a pail with a little grain in it he would always come to me.
            One day I decided to ride the big bull.  He was in a pen in the barn.  After a lot of trying I got him cornered and jumped on.  I know more than touched his back and I went flying. I found out I didn’t know anything about riding bulls.  So I went back to watching and riding the baby bull and left the Father bull alone.  My Father always told me never go in the pen with the pull and I guess that made me want to do it.  Anyways, I found out why.  I didn’t tell him or Mother that I did.  I could have been killed but didn’t think so at that time.

Two



            One time Mother and I got caught in a bad thunderstorm.  We sure got soaked.  Mother kept me out in the field.  She said it was bad to get under trees or in the woods because of the lightening.
            Father made me whistles from Maple branches.  One for me and one for Mother so if we got separated we could use them to find each other.  Mother canned ten quarts of blueberries one year.  I used to help Father bury beets and carrots in the cellar with sand for the winter.  Father said they kept better and fresher.  He used to dump potatoes on a shoot through the cellar window.  I’d jump on and slide with the potatoes down into the bin in the cellar and land on the pile of potatoes.  I helped to put the cabbage on the shelves.  I could hardly lift some of the heads.  We sold some of our potatoes too.
            It was a dirt cellar and nice and cool all the time and real dark.  We had two oil lanterns as we had no electricity.  We had to carry the lanterns from building to building.  I used to lay down under the seat when we went somewhere in the sleigh.  Father would set a lantern under the seat to help keep me warm and close off the sides with a blanket.
            We had a few Maple trees and in the early spring I used to carry the spouts from tree to tree and drive them in the holes after Father drilled them with a hand brace and bit. Sometimes I got tired and would give up.  The snow was almost to my hips.  Sometimes I’d chase squirrels up trees and climb after them but they’d just jump to the next tree.  I soon gave up trying to get them.
            I used to ride on the horse when we gathered the sap.  I fell off a couple of times at first.  Then Father taught me to drive the team while he gathered the sap.  I liked that because I rode on the sled and held the reins.
            Guess I felt pretty big.  The only thing was the team would take me where they wanted to go.  Father would have to do the talking with them.
            One day Father sold the farm and we moved to Pennsylvania onto another real small farm, a bare farm, no cows, no horses, no chickens.  I didn’t have much to do.  It was close to where my Uncle Melvin lived and I spent a lot of time at his place with Grandmother Lizzie.
Once I took my Father’s shotgun out.  It was a bout a ten gauge and stood as tall as me.  My brother helped me tie it to a fence post, standing up.  We were afraid of it so I tied a string to the trigger and got way back and pulled.  Boy that thing made an awful noise and jumped six inches off the ground!  It’s good I didn’t try to hold it because it would have knocked me for a roll.  Anyway, I found out what it was like.
            We didn’t live there very long.  I heard Father say it would cost too much to buy cows, horses and the machinery so he sold the farm and we went to New York State.  Boy, I used to get tired of them long rides in the Model T Ford.  We would only go about twenty-five or thirty miles per hour and it took so long to get anywhere.
            Father left me to help pack the car. He had a long box on each running board and a big rack on the rear end and some stuff packed so at night we could stop along the road and set up a tent with a gas lantern to sleep in.  We used the woods for a bathroom.  I didn’t go too far into the woods.  I was afraid I’d get lost.  At that time I used to think there was all kinds of animals out there.
            By now I was about seven years old and my Brother Frank stayed in Pennsylvania with our Uncle so I was alone.  I kind of missed him but got over it when Father bought another farm, this time it had all the cows, horses, chickens and everything!  It sure seemed like home again.  It was only a few days until I caught the big old long hair cat that came with the farm.  He was mane and one day I think I sat on him until I got three tin cans tied to his tail and got him startled with a stick.  Boy he sure did take off!  I bet he wished he didn’t come with the farm. 
            Anyways, I didn’t see him for a couple of days and the cans were missing when he did come back.
            I sure was glad to be back on a real farm again because I always had thing to do or see.  I was beginning to see and realize what a great place the farm and country was.  We had forty-one cows, twenty-seven was giving milk.  I found a cow dried up, no milk, for a couple of months or when she was going to have her calf.  Father told me some of the dry ones would be giving milk when the milking ones went dry.
            I had four cows to milk and clean morning and night.  I had to feed all of them.  I most always went up in the haymow and threw hay down through trap door in the ceiling.  Sometimes, after I had a pile of hay down in front of the cows I’d jump from the haymow, down thru the trap door and land in front of the cows.  I liked to see them all jump when I came flying through the ceiling above their heads.  Father made me stop that.  He said if I ever misjudged my jump and hit the edge of that hole in the floor I’d kill myself.  I was scaring the cows too much anyways.