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.