Thirty-Four

            I done all kinds of jobs around the farm. I didn't work Saturday and Sunday as he was home. I only got $1.00 a day and my dinner. I spent a lot of my time weekends at one of the family's homes about half a way to where I had to go to work. I had to cross their land on the way to work. They had two girls. One was my age, the other about a year and a half older and, as always, I started to look as I come and went. I didn't bother with them. They started standing outdoors when I went by, a little nearer to where I had to pass each day.

            Soon they started to wave and soon said hi. That was it. Soon I was invited down to their place to ride the horse. Then I was playing cards with their Father and Mother and a beautiful friendship was underway. Soon it was like my second home and I was in on picnics with them. Sometimes I slept over on weekends and help them on little jobs or in the garden. Both the girls was pretty good at riding horses and they showed me quite a lot about it. I liked horses anyway and learnt everything quite fast and easy.

            We used to walk to a small town three miles away to get a gallon of ice cream. If we come straight home it wouldn't be too bad but one time we fooled around on the way back and the ice cream all melted. We all had to drink it from glasses. It was still good anyways. Her Father told us to do our fooling around on the way to the store and not coming home. It did work out a lot better too.

            There used to be a lot of chestnut trees down around my Uncle's place and we used to go gather a lot of them Her folks used to put them up in the attic and have them evenings during the winter months.

            I was glad I had them people to be with because at my Uncle's place there was no one to be with very much of the time. They were all working and gone in the evenings, just my Grandmother at home. I sat around playing cards myself. Sometimes I'd walk the seven miles to Somerset and go to the movies or get a haircut. I used to run most of the way coming back at night. Back then it was only a dirt road and a lot of woods.

            Some nights when it was cloudy it was really dark and spooky. My Uncle was always talking stories about people seeing ghosts and things around the old places and graveyards and I was always wondering if I'd ever met up with any of them. I think that's the reason I always ran coming back home late at night. The people around there really believed in those things. They used to tell some hair-raising stories and made it sound interesting.

            Uncle Paul used to tell how things would come out of the graveyard when he was driving home at night in the horse and buggy and would spook the horse so he could hardly keep it from running away. I think some of it he had me believing.

            Then on day my brother Frank showed up but he didn't stay around much. We went around together part of the time. I remember once he left a farmer's pigs out one night then sold them back to him the next morning before he realized his was gone. He had the police chasing him around the country most of the time but always managed somehow to keep from getting caught.

Thirty-Three

            I got to my Uncle Paul's place around noon and they were sure surprises to see me in the shape I was in. They had no bathroom at that time, had an outdoor toilet. They were called the backhouse in those days. My Grandmother got the washtub out, heated some water on the kitchen stove and I got cleaned up. Uncle Paul gave me some of his clothes to wear till Grandmother got mine washed and dried.

            I slept late for a couple of days to get rested up again then my other Uncle, Melvin, started to give me rides in his car just to show it off. He had a 37 Buick but he had a bigger and more powerful motor in it and it sure could travel.

            The Blue Ridge Mountains came up to Maryland and the southern line of PA also the Appalachian Mountains came right up through central PA. Uncle Melvin used to deliver booze for the people that had stills down in the Mts in Maryland. He was called a rum runner. The Police used to hide and wait till he came by with a load and they would try to catch him. That's why he had a more powerful motor in the car and would always outrun them. Sometimes they had road blocks set up.

            When he'd see one he'd spin around in the road and go back with them after him. There was all kinds of old roads through them Mts and woods and he knew them all. He'd just turn off on one of them and he was soon lost to them in the woods. Sometimes after he got out of sight he'd pull off into some parking place they had cut out in the brush and wait till they went past him. He'd go back and delivery his load of whiskey. The police very seldom went up into the Mts where the stills were as them people had killed quite a few officers over the years so they'd try to catch the cars when they came out with a load to delivery.

            Back in them days, once in a while, some officers would decide to go in and bust up a still but would never get it done. Them Mt people and the law would have a real shootout. When it was over it left a few dead on each side with the police on the run and that officer never did decide to try it again.            

            There used to be some real wild times down there. That was during the years of Prohibition. It was sure a lot of fun but it was a job where a fellow could get knocked off most anytime. It was sure fun riding with him.

            Uncle Melvin got me an outfit of clothes when I came there and got me a job on a farm close enough so I walked to work every morning. The farmer worked in the coal mines and came about 4 pm to help with the jobs I couldn't do. There's where I tried to plow the first time with the team and a walking plow. At the end of the first day my hands were all blistered from trying to hold on to the handles. I held tight. The farmer told me to hold loose and let it go a little to one side or the other till I learnt and got used to it After that it didn't take me long to catch on.

           He had a few sheep and one day he showed me how to shear a sheep then I had the job to do the rest myself. One day, I had big old clippers I had to work by hand and try to hold the sheep down at the same time. It was an awful job for me to do till I done about twenty or thirty. That took me all but when he got home he showed me a lot more to make it easier and showed me how to flip a sheep over and the way to hold. Then the sheep just lay there and didn't even struggle. He laughed when I told him how I was fighting all day long just to keep a sheep down and keep it from getting away from me. 

Thirty-Two

            It took me about a week to get back home as I had stopped two times on a couple of days work for different people that gave me food. One place let me sleep in the barn and let me have breakfast. I helped them with milking and chores that morning.

            I went into Kentucky and Tennessee near Nashville. I stayed at the HoBo Jungle for one and a half days. There was a lot of fellows with music and banjos and they were having quite a time right on through the night and slept most of the day. About half of them stayed right there. I liked that kind of music and hated to leave but I had to get back to Ohio so I headed north.

            I didn't have so much fun since I was alone and kind of stayed to myself. I was starting to get lonesome and was kind of glad I was getting back. In a couple of days I was back in Canton, Ohio and had only fifteen more miles to go. I was feeling good now. The closer I got the better I felt. It's funny but as I was happy to get back as I was to leave. I had some time to wait for the train so I took up sometime getting a little food then caught the last train.

            When I did get back I went to the house I found my brother in bed sick with a cold so bad I thought he'd end up in the hospital. He didn't have any money and I didn't have much so I went to our old boss and he helped me get something from the drugstore and it took a couple more days but he started to get better. I went to work at the same job as it was another week before my brother Frank could do much. I worked a couple of weeks then I was back on the trains again headed for my my Uncle's place at Somerset, PA.

            It was still nice weather and warm so I didn't bother with any heavy clothes even though it was kind of late in the fall, but when I got down towards Johnstown, PA the weather turned cool and the nights got pretty cold.

            I had a two hour lay over at Johnstown and it was late evening when a coal train came by. It was made up of all coal cars loaded so the only place to ride was on top of the loaded coal car. I dug down in the coal with my hands to make a hole next to the front end of the car to lay in out of the wind. It got really cold later in the night and started to snow. I was really tired and somehow went to sleep. I had about seventy miles to go and I didn't know how long I slept but when I wok I was all covered with snow There must of been an inch.

            I didn't know how far I had traveled or just where I was. For all I knew I could of went past Somerset so I just had to keep riding till I went by the next town. I saw a few lights and signs and soon knew I had only about fifteen miles to go.

            It was beginning to get daylight when I got to Somerset. I was so cold and shaking so bad I could hardly move good enough to jump off without getting hurt as the train didn't stop, it went right on through Somerset. So I had to leave a train traveling around forty miles an hour.

            I almost made it. I was so I cold I couldn't quite make it and stumbled and fell. Had to finish it out rolling till I come to a stop. Most of the fellows learnt that if they fell.

           Anyways I didn't get hurt, only a few scratches. I now had seven miles to go out in the country and I walked and ran to get warmed up. All I had on was overalls and a light summer shirt and that was the coldest ride I ever took in my life. Dirty. I looked like a coal miner coming home from work after working all day. After all, I slept in a hole right in a pile of coal then all that dirty black smoke from the engine coming back over me all night, that was full of fine black cinders falling on one all night. I sure had it on that ride.

Thirty One

            I remember one time our boss came to our place on Saturday and we all had a little to drink. I know I was feeling pretty good and would of done about anything anyone would of dared me to do.

            Anyways, he asked my brother to give him a haircut. he had quite a bit to drink and when he sat down he went to sleep. My brother looked at me and said, "Here, you cut his hair. I can't do a very good job."

            It just seemed I was waiting for that chance. I said, "Sure, Ic an do it." I started to trim it. At the same time the idea came to me to put one over on my brother. I just started cutting and went all over his head. No hair left.

            When I was done (he never did wake up while I was doing it), my brother walked in and saw it. he was about ready to leave home as he knew he'd get blamed for it because he started to do it before the boss went to sleep and all I could say was, "Ya, I know, boy are you gonna get it!"

            I did think for a couple of days that my brother was gonna get fired but after a couple of days the boss started laughing about it too, but he always did think my brother done it, but he never did ask for another haircut after that experience.

            We were beginning to talk about doing something different for a change. We got word of a big Circus coming to Chicago in the near future and decided to go see it so the day came that we caught the train from Canton, Ohio and headed west.

            My brother wasn't too good at catching trains but I had plenty of experience at that so it wasn't too much of a problem, only he was awful slow at getting around and at certain things we had to be fast at. He acted like an old clumsy horse. A few times I thought he might get killed till he learnt a little about it and caught on.

            Anyways, the Circus was there when we got there. They beat us by two days but they were there for fifteen days so we didn't miss anything. We both liked it so we decided to take jobs with them. At least we would have a place to sleep and something to eat. We didn't work together so we didn't see each other much during the day. There was plenty to eat but sleeping was another thing. We had to sleep anywhere we found a place. Sometimes in the big top, sometimes outside on nice nights. The sometimes we found a place on the Circus train parked on a siding nearby. It was always on the ground or the floor in the train.

            We soon found out it was an awful life. I worked in the center ring (it was a three ring Circus). I helped to put whatever they used in to the ring for an act. When it was done, take it out and put what they needed for the next on. It was ok while everything was new to us but after we see the same things every day it soon got to be old stuff and wasn't much fun. Then when we were moving from one town to the next, sometimes we were traveling at night, the train was packed with all the help, there was no beds or any place to sleep. A few times I crawled under a seat on the floor.

            One night a bunch of fellows was sitting at a table playing cards. There was a spot under the middle of the table and that's where I lay all curled up with feet all around me. I sure didn't wake up feeling like I had a good night's rest. Then sometimes while they were setting up it would be raining or a real thunder shower would come up. We all had to keep working right on through it. Sometimes it would be in a big field and by the time the Big Top was up, certain spots would be in a regular mud hole. All the help, the horses and wagons, some of the wagons would get stuck and they would bring the elephants out to help push the wagons along.

            It was all a great experience and adventure for me but it didn't take long to get enough of that kind of living. Then there never was any place to wash up about half the time. It wasn't like the Circus is today with everything to do with and a lot of places to set up indoors and some machines to do a lot of the work that was all done by hand back in the 1930s.

           I think we was with them about three weeks when we started thinking of getting out but one day I didn't see my brother. Then the second day I began to wonder where he was at. No one knew. So on the third day I left and started back to Ohio.   

Thirty

            We went to Cranston, Ohio every Saturday and came back Sunday. It was about twenty miles and we rode the train so we had to go and come back when the train did. We had got to know some of the girls that lived there so the weekends were spent there.

            After a couple of months the boss told us about a place on an old farm we could live for nothing so we were making plans to move in about a week when one night we heard a girl screaming down the street. We looked out the window and saw a fellow hitting a girl. My brother said, "Come on, let's go get him." Me, I was all for that and I beat him down the stairs, out onto to the street and right up to the fellow and said, "Hey you, what you think you're doing? Cut it out!" That's all I got out when he turned around, took hold of the front of my shirt and said, "I'll show you what I'm doing," and drew back his other hand.

            He was big and that fist looked bigger. All I could say was, "No, no, no, I was just passing by, I don't want any trouble." I looked around for my brother Frank and he was no where in sight. He just took off.

            It happened the fellow told me to take off and I sure got gone but I looked for ab out half an hour before I found my brother out back of the store hiding in the outdoor toilet. He sure wasn't much help to me when it came time I needed him. I wasn't fully grown yet and that fellow sure looked big when I got right up to him. My brother always did have plenty of nerve to start with but between the start and whatever the trouble was he always lost it and took off in some other direction and I was the one left holding the bag, and when he took of he could of won the world's fastest race as he was always outrun any of us with him and he always seemed to disappear into some hiding place. It was weird sometimes. Sometimes I thought he must of had some hiding place picked out ahead of time.

            I remember one time me and the fellow that owned the farm where we stayed decided to scare my brother. We wanted to walk to town that night. It was five miles if we followed the road, three and a half if we cut across. It was dark and my brother said he wouldn't take that short cut for anything. He decided to take the road and meet us in town so we let him go. We took the short cut and decided to wait for him where we came out to the road.

            It happened where we was to come out there used to be an old house. It was gone, just the old open cellar hole left, but we didn't know it.

            We stopped just before we got to the road and waited for my brother. The cellar hole was between us and the road, unknown to us.

            We soon heard him coming. He had a pair of knee high rubber boots on and a heavy long overcoat. He had his carbide light that he used in the mine for light.

            When he was about right we jumped up and started running and yelling. All at once we had the ground drop out from under s and we went down into this cellar hole on a pile of old dead brush. It was about an eight foot drop. The brush was dry and brittle and made a noise. At the same time the fellow with me started laughing and he had a high pitched voice. He could be heard a half a mile away.

            I never seen anyone take off like my brother did. I bet he took about three steps before he started moving. The wind kept blowing his light out. Every time he rubbed his hand across the flint to light it, it would make a little bang. That's all we could hear was bang, bang, bang and them rubber boots hitting the ground. The old coat was sticking right out straight behind him. Anyone could of played a game of checkers on it. An old care came by just bout then. they slowed down and kept him in the lights. He never stopped till he got into town. Boy, he sure called us some nice names all the rest of the night and the next day too.