OCR Text |
Show When Geo was three and Clara was six and one half,.Pans was hnilding a large barn for hay on the side of the horsebarn-- Which had a mow for hay above and a place for cows in the cellar.(there was a trap door to put hay down to the cows; and once Fairy,one of the horses,got loose in the night and stepped her hind feet thru the trap;and hung there till Papa went out to feed, in the morning).We had a team of mules thenjand one was named Jenny. The menhad them hitched to the scrapff^,to dig dirt out of the new barn cellar. She didn't mind very quickly,so he was going to spank her with the spadebut it slinped sideways and made a long cut down the back of her hip. It healed up alright but she had & M g scar. One of our unpleasant Jobs was to pickpotato bugs. The Colorado Potato beetle had just reached us and how they did thrive! Each child had a pan and a paddle,and knocked the bugs,mostly larvae,into the pan,tapping the edge to discourage those trying to climb out: but when we got a quantity we empted them into a pail at the end of the row. The pail was about half full of water with Kerosene on top. We were on this wofrk whe n Jenny was cut with the spade and I remember I tagged along to the center of interest until noticed and sent back. Geo. and I used to wander over thr farm together for hours; But Mama did not worry if Jack was with us. Grandpa Carhart sent Jack to us in a crate from Davenport. He was a big yellow bulldog,with a bobbed tail. He loved to hunt snakes. He would grab one in the middle and shake and shake it until it broke to pieces.Probably most of those he killed were garters. We enjoyed in the Spring hunting frogs and toads. I don't know we found it so fascinating. One day twhile we were down by the creek,we heard the supnerjff b^ll ring,7/e couldn't bear to turn our trophies fhoose,so when we reached the barnyard looked for a safe place to keep them^Tfae most promising plan seemed to be to.use Papa's half bushel grain measures in the barn,so all were dumped into one and another used for the cover. The rest of the family were at table and we were sent to wash before we could start eating and napa soon left to do the evening chores. It was pretty dark in the barn by this timeand the grain measures not in their usual places. As he stooped to r>ick up the top one the prisoners all made a rush for liberty. They were about his ears and under his feet-- and he made known in no uncertian terras that the ^rain measures were for his own use entirely, I rrmember a prairie fire when I was too little to leave the house. Even Mama was down by the gate by our front fence,fighting the fire.It was srettinc- dark and I waited on the norch watching the black forms of people against* the leaning flames. They succeeded in stopping it and next day I saw how few places it crossed the line. Vihen Lucy was just able to walk:, she one day got the shears and started across the room with the points resting over her shoulder. Some one tri.- ed to take them away and she started to run,tripped and fell,the shears pentratinp- her eye just above the ripht eyeball.lt puffed up so fast it was days before we could be sure that the eyeball was not injured. When she was abo it 8 or 9 mos. old Llama end I took her to the berrg oaten and set her on a shawl while we picked blackberries. Such berries! So larere and sweet. I have never seen their equal. The bushes were too tender for our climate and were mostly killed that winter. I had been creeping heck under some long canes to reach big berries,en) came back with a hand full. Glancing at Lucy! saw with horrfer ,that she held one half a hairy catoillerl Before Mama could reach her I had removed the other half from her mouth. |