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.