Games
I mentioned above a note on the sand dunes that covered
about 40 to 60 acres north of the school. These dunes moved around. One day
they would be ten to twelve feet high and the next day they would be down to
three to six feet high. These dunes were a favorite place for us guys to play
and dig. It’s a wonder that someone didn’t get buried. Fox and Hound was one of
the usual games played in the dunes.
The teachers supplied us with a volley ball, which they must
have paid for out of their own pocket, and sent my friend Giles Bacon and me
down to the river to get a couple of poles to hang the net on. The river is
about 1-1/2 miles due south of the school and about one mile south of the Bacon
farm. We asked Giles’ dad for a couple of horses and so outfitted we proceeded
to the river and cut a couple of poles about six to eight inches diameter and
about ten to twelve feet long I don’t know who dug the holes, but I know we
didn’t. The following spring, the poles started to sprout and eventually grew
into sizable trees.
When we had only one school building, we played Anti over.
In winter, it was Fox and Hen and/or Turkey. Turkey was played by having one
guy stoop over with his back toward the group. When someone hit him in the
backside, he was supposed to guess who threw the snowball.
Giles and the
horse
During this period, the teacher was in need of a shovel, so
she asked Giles and me to go to the Bacon place and get one. We borrowed a
horse from one of the students that regularly rode to school for the trip. One the
way down, it was agreed that Giles would ride in the saddle and coming back, I
would get the saddle and Giles would ride behind carrying the shovel. About
half way to the school, we crossed an irrigation ditch which was about four
feet across and running full of water. About the time we got onto the small
bridge, Giles wondered what the horse would do if he nudged him in the flank
with the top of the shovel. Well, the results were immediate. The first jump
caused Giles to land in the ditch with the shovel. I grabbed for the saddle
horn and hung on for dear life. I thought that horse would never stop bucking
all over the place. Giles go himself out of the ditch and stood there laughing.
I finally got the horse quieted down and we proceeded the rest of the way to
school without incident. How Giles got dried out I can’t remember. It was
springtime, so I assumed nature took a hand and dried him out automatically.
Maybe more on Giles and horses later.
There were so many things happening during this period, three
to four years. It was a growing up period as well as a learning period. As
stated above, we were still partly living in the 19th century. I
just doubt that things had changed much in the past 50 years. We got a
newspaper once a week, but we did have some books and these were read and
reread, and book reviews was probably one of the best things that happened. We
were still using text books that my mother had used in her schooling. There was
a small book case in the corner of the schoolroom containing six to ten volumes
and a few geographic magazines. I think most of the material was there during
the entire eight years.
Superstitions
Maybe superstitions is not the word, but at this point I’m
thinking of “Asafetida.” My World Book Encyclopedia describes asafetida
as follows:
“A gum-like drug with a strong disagreeable odor, was
used in medicine as a sedative, also worn as an amulet about the neck to
prevent contagious diseases, this proven to be superstition. Drugs made
from it had an odor stronger than garlic.”
In view of the fact that our toilet facilities were the most
primitive kind, with no washing possible or required, since we didn’t have
anything to wash in or soap or towels, and everybody drank out of the same
bucket with the same dipper (I mentioned this somewhere above), we were
expected to wear the stinking stuff around our necks to prevent contagion.
Those seated close to the pot-bellied stove in the center of the room were the
biggest offenders, but they couldn’t help the situation since they were doomed
to be martyrs for the sake of science and future generations. How we all
managed to get by the age of 12 years is hard to understand; many didn’t.
[I’ve written quite a bit about school and our activities.
There is more to come later, but for now, I must get back to the farm.]
Work – a dirty word
As we grew older, we were allowed to handle the horses, i.e.
– harness and care for them, hitch them to mowers, rakes or wagons and buggies.
Dad did most of the mowing, but Colonel and I both used the rake to place the
hay in windrows so it could be dried before shocking. Only one team was used for
this purpose. One day, I was raking hay on the north 40, as usual I was
barefoot. The rake had a tripping mechanism that was tripped with the right
foot, allowing the rake to dump the load when the devise returned to its
working position. It smashed my right big toe. Boy, that hurt!
After the hay was dry, we went into the fields and shocked
the windrows in to cone-shaped piles that could be handled by the wagon loaders
later in the operation.
We didn’t do much in the irrigation department. Dad did
that, but where possible or necessary, we did a lot of the cultivating and
hoeing. Our cultivating was always done with a single horse and Dad would
handle the cultivator. Later on, Colonel would ride and I would handle the
machine. We also earned a little money by helping Mack Stocker doing the same
type of work.
I nearly had a severe accident one time. I had finished the
job and was riding the horse back to the place when she shied at a piece of hay
alongside the road. The horse, Nell, weighed about 1800 pounds. She was as
round as a barrel and sitting on her was like sitting on brother Gene’s oil
tank. In any event, as she jumped to the left, I rolled to the right and my
right leg hung up in the tug, and then she started to run. As I went over, I
failed to grasp the hame. {hame
(h m) n. One of the two curved wooden or metal pieces of a harness that fits
around the neck of a draft animal and to which the traces are attached.} As
a result, my head was inches from the ground and less than that from flying
hooves. I did have a good hold on the right line so I could pull her head to
the right, so she only ran about 100 feet and I was able to pull her into the
fence. No damage done, but a scared kid.
The sheep and me
This is kind of a “funny.” As I told you earlier, we had to
go about three to four miles to pick up our mail, at the point I told you about
when we first entered the valley on the curve {One Man's Journey - Part VI, paragraph 4}. Whenever anyone living in the area happened to be near the mail
boxes, he would bring all of the mail to his home. The rest of us would then
pick it up there. On this day, Mr. Meyer had picked up the mail and I was
chosen to get ours from the Meyer residence which was about a mile from our
house. A corner of their field was just about across the road from our house. I
went around the road going, but coming back I took a shortcut through the Meyer’s
pasture, no knowing that Mr. Meyer had pastured a couple of rams in the field. It
probably wouldn’t have made any difference if I had known, since being raised
around animals, I didn’t have any particular fear of them.
About halfway across the field, I heard the freight train
coming, and I’m telling [you], that sheep meant business. Of course, I took off
at a dead gallop with the sheep gaining every second. Of course, I was hollering
my head off. Dad heard. Mr. Meyer heard me and both armed with pitchforks,
started in opposite directions. I really don’t know what stopped the ram.
Whether it was the racket I was making or if it was the noise that Dad and Mr.
Meyer were making. Anyway, he stopped a very short time before I met Dad. That
sheep was a lot bigger than I was. There was one other time that I ran faster
and longer and was more frightened. That experience will be told in due course.
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