Thirty-Seven

            Uncle Melvin's steady job was working in the coal mines, the same place my Uncle Paul worked. I remember when they came home from work they sure was dirty and black. My Grandmother heated water on the kitchen stove in a wash boiler. Uncle Paul would set the washtub on two chairs right in the middle of the kitchen in front of the stove. He liked the tub because it was big enough so he wouldn't be slopping water all over the floor. They burnt coal in the stoves and had oil lamps and lanterns for lights. They always had one along when they were gone to be out at night with the horse and buggy or sleigh at night in the wintertime.

            I used to watch my Grandmother, Mom is what we all called her so I will now, put up my Uncle's lunch pail. She put eight sandwiches in the bottom. It had a tray in the top. She put in half of a pie and some cake in that part then he had a gallon jug he carried his drink in. I don't remember what he took. It was either water, milk or coffee. I know he never touched hard drink of any kind. None of them in the family did. Even Melvin didn't even though he was hauling it for the ones that made it. It was for the good pay he got.

            While I was there I shared his bedroom. We used to lay wake till after midnight lots of times while he told me of his experiences. I had my own bed in Uncle Paul's room but lots of times when we went upstairs to bed it wasn't too long till I heard "Hey Nate, you want to hear what happened to me today?" That's when I was out of bed, went to his room and jumped into bed with him and it was a couple of hours just listening to him. Sometimes we played cards till late. He liked cards a lot but never gambled. We played 500 Rummy most of the time, sitting on the bed. He and I would begin to see it get daylight some mornings sometimes before we'd get to sleep.

            I used to like to look at his guns he had. He had three in his bedroom and the one in the car. He cleaned them a lot and he'd let me help take them apart to oil and clean them. A lot of the time he'd take me down back of the house in the woods and show and teach me how to shoot targets. I got so I could do pretty good for me back then. He let me take the shotgun on Sundays and we'd go rabbit hunting.

            The rabbits were really thick out around the stone piles in the field. Sometimes they would get almost a washtub full. They would give a lot away to different people as everyone around there ate a lot of rabbit. I used to take some to the place I used to go to play cards and ride the horse. The man was a brother to my Grandmother so I guess his children would of been about third cousins to me. Anyways, they liked to roast rabbit over an open fire in the backyard and they sure were good.

            I was thinking a little every day about going back home so one day Melvin took me to Somerset, a town about seven miles away, where I could get a train going north and I was on my way. I had a small bundle with a change of cloths and some sandwiches Mom made up for me. I had a little of my own money from working but Melvin gave me five dollars more so I thought I was pretty well off.

            On my way up across PA I went through Altoona, PA. There was some mountain the train had to cross and there was a horseshoe curve the train went around. I could look right across the valley and see the last half of the train going up the mountain and the half I was on was going the other way. It was quite a sight. I kept wondering why the engine didn't pull the train right off the track in the middle going' around such a turn.