Driving to School

One of LV's memories.

  The year I was in seventh grade, my sister Lydia, was the teacher at our school. Most mornings she would walk to school early in order to have the schoolhouse nice and warm before the students arrived and work on checking books and making lesson plans.

   I would walk to school later and get there just as it was time for school to begin.

   On the days it rained we used to drive to school together.

   The first day it rained that school year Dad told my oldest brother to go hitch up the horse and then I could drive to school.

    Mervin brought the horse out to the buggy shed and opened the big sliding door. He hitched the horse to the buggy and then stood aside as I hopped into the driver's side and Lydia climbed in beside me.

   I lifted the reins and clucked "giddy-up" to the horse. He started out, but unfortunately Mervin hadn't opened the sliding door quite wide enough and the buggy wheel caught as we drove out. It lifted the door up and out before it crashed back down against the shed, making a terrific banging noise which scared the horse. He started running at top speed and we went flying down the long bumpy driveway.

    I tried pulling back on the reins to slow him down, but it made no difference. Lydia grabbed the one rein from me while I clung to the other and we both pulled on them as hard as we could, bracing our feet against the dashboard and yelling "Whoa, whoa!" on top of our lungs.

   It was then that we discovered that Mervin had forgotten to fasten the reins and we were sitting helpless in this runaway buggy. We were swaying side to side crazily and I knew it was only a little while before the buggy would dump over as we hurtled around another corner on two wheels.

    Somehow our horse must have decided that he was far enough away from that dreadful noise, and he slowed down. We managed to get him to stop.

     After collecting our thoughts we got the reins fastened properly and continued on our way to school. After a scare like that I'm still surprised Lydia was able to be ready to calmly start her day of teaching when it was time for school to start.

Sheer Terror

 Some of the shenanigans that LV and his brothers pulled off while they were growing up is almost enough to curl my hair. I'm amazed they managed to survive to become adults and that there were no broken bones or other injuries in the process.

Imagine for a moment if you will that you are lying on your back on top of a stack of hay. You are being pushed head first towards the edge and there is a sheer drop of twelve or more feet to the next stack of hay bales. No amount of trying will keep your brothers from pushing you over the edge. There is a moment of sheer terror as you fall but then you manage to turn in order to land on your feet.

Your brothers cheer as you climb back up the stack and now help push one of them over the edge.

This is only one example that has me wondering why no one got hurt and why their parents never found out what they were up to.

Summer Freedom

LV's Memories Continued

Eleven year old LV shouldered his ax and went out to the woods behind the barn. His brothers had other work to do around the farm but he had the day off to do what ever he wanted to. This whole being the youngest in the family thing was starting to be great.

He had already decided what he was going to do. There were a lot of branches laying on the ground and smaller trees that had their bark rubbed off and would never be able to grow into healthy mature trees. He chopped them down and cut them into carefully measured lengths. He trimmed the fallen branches as well and dragged them all to a pre-selected spot in the middle of the woods.

He carefully notched all those little logs and started building a log cabin. By the end of the day he was pleased with his progress and made his way back to the house in time to join the rest of the family for supper.

Day after day he went to the woods right after breakfast. His cabin was complete by now and he had also built a nice fire pit where he roasted acorns and other bits of food he found in the woods. He would have loved to be able to sleep in the woods but his parents wanted him to come to the house for supper and overnight. But aside from that he spent an entire summer living a happy carefree life wandering about the woods and enjoying fending for himself.



Troubles with the New Girl

LV's memories continued.

LV hurried with his school work, he was working on making a little cardboard buggy in his spare time which was much more fun than the rest of his school work. Once the wheels were attached he spun them around and then had an idea. If he cut strips of paper and glued them together and then wrap them tightly around the axle the wheels would spin by themselves if he wound them up.

After spending a lot of time he finally completed it and carefully wound the wheels until the paper strip was wrapped tightly around the axle. He let it go and watched as the wheels spun in the air. He was happy that his experiment worked. Now if only he could test it out on the floor and see if it had enough power to roll across the floor.

He checked to see what Teacher Hannah was doing. She was busy with another class at the front of the room. He carefully set the buggy on the floor and let go. It went rolling across the aisle and crashed into the wall next to the desk where the new girl, Mary Ann was sitting.

Happy that the buggy worked he motioned to her to pick it up and give it back to him. She sat there and stubbornly shook her head no. What a stuck up little girl. All she would have to do was take a single step out of her desk and get his buggy. There was hardly any chance that Teacher Hannah would see her do that. He asked again but she still refused so there was nothing left to do but retrieve it himself.

Slipping out of his desk he crawled over and got it. He almost made it safely back to his desk when Teacher Hannah turned around and saw him. She asked him to give her the buggy and then stay after school. LV scooted down in his seat and scowled at Mary Ann. What an awful little girl. It was all her fault that he got caught and now had to stay after school

Helping the Helpless

LV's memories continued.

It was time to do the evening chores and as LV's parents and his older brothers got everything ready to do the milking LV ran to get his wagon to play until chores were done. Being the youngest was starting to have it's advantages after all.

Making a circle around the barn he happened to round the corner in time to see one of the big barn cats tormenting a little chipmunk. He jumped off the wagon and stood watching in dismay. The poor chipmunk was terrified and LV knew that as soon as the cat was done playing and tormenting it the chipmunk would die. It was too horrible to think about. He dashed in, not caring that the cat was losing it's meal and rescued the little chipmunk who was trembling all over, bruised and battered from it's ordeal with the cat but thankfully still alive.

He went to show it to the others sure that they would help him doctor the poor little thing back to health. They looked at it but didn't seem to think that it would survive but agreed it wouldn't hurt to try since it was sure to die if they didn't help it.

LV found an old bird cage and made a comfortable nest in it and placed the chipmunk inside. He shelled some corn and put it inside and filled a little container with water. Day after day he spent hours talking to it and making sure it was being well taken care of. The chipmunk learned to know him really well and allowed LV to pet him and happily ate corn from his hand.

When the chipmunk was totally healed and healthy LV left the door of the cage open so it could go back to it's home in the woods. He was sad to see his little friend go but knew that a wild animal could never be truly happy anywhere except in the wild.

The New Table

After LV's Grandpa retired from farming he started a little woodworking shop. You could tell that his farming hands weren't experienced in making fine furniture but that didn't keep him from trying and with twelve children and many grandchildren he had grand ideas of making a lot of things for his descendants. Each family was to receive a table and a stand. Each grandson would get a roll top desk for his 16th birthday and each grand daughter a china cupboard, and if family had any special requests he would try to fulfill those as well. This goal would keep him busy for as long as his health allowed.

LV was only ten when his family got their table from Grandpa. They set it up and admired the nice glossy varnish and were pleased at how far it extended. With a dozen extra boards to add when visitors came it would make that everyone would get to sit around the table instead of having to wait or find some other place to eat.

For some reason having a new table made that setting it and clearing it off after meals was a little more fun as well.

Not long after the new table arrived LV's parents went on their monthly shopping trip and left their children at home. The teens had things they wanted to do outside but LV had his own ideas on how to spend the day. He loved drawing and had plans to draw a big semi just like one that he had seen in a magazine.

He spread all his supplies out in front of him on the new table, carefully studied the picture of the semi and sketched it. After it was done he decided to color it as well. Crayons seemed dull compared to how vivid he wanted the colors so after rummaging around he found his mother's supply of different colored permanent markers. Setting to work he carefully finished his picture and then held it up to admire it. But instead of feeling thrilled at how great his picture turned out he was dismayed to see that the marker had bled through the paper and now the new table had big ugly spots of red and black.

He quickly got soap and a wet dish cloth and tried to wash it off but when that didn't work he looked around for something else. A stainless steel scouring pad was sure to work. Rubbing it vigorously back and forth across the offending spots he was pleased to see them disappear. But now he was faced with an even greater dilemma. Not only had the spots come off, so had the layers of glossy varnish. The new table was ruined!

When his parents came home they weren't very happy to see what had happened when they had been gone. The table had to be used in it's ugly condition until his mother had time to refinish it.

Grafting

In front of the big dairy barn there were two lonely rose bushes. One of them produced huge yellow roses and the other one a delicate pink. LV had a tender place in his heart for all living things and everyday he passed those bushes on the way to the barn he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for them. They were so far away from the the dozen red rose bushes that marched in a neat line behind the house.

He wished there was something he could do for them so that they wouldn't be as lonely. Consulting an encyclopedia he read everything he could find about roses and when he discovered there was something called grafting he became excited. After doing all the limited research available he felt quite capable of giving it a try. He wasn't sure though what his Mom would think about the idea since he was only nine so he waited until one afternoon when his parents went to town.

Armed with a pruning shear and his head filled with grafting information he set to work. He carefully removed several branches from the red roses and grafted them to the yellow and pink bushes. He taped them carefully and now all that was left to do was keep an eye on them and hope that they would grow.

He wasn't disappointed. Those bushes readily accepted the grafts and the next year they produced a mixture of roses, beautiful big yellow ones, red ones, and best of all yellow roses that had red stripes running through them. His Mom realized something was going on and was quite pleased to learn that he had a successful grafting experience.

Today those two rose bushes are big and still each produce three different colors of roses all because a little boy didn't want them to be lonely.

New Schoolmates ~ Part Two

LV arrived at school well ahead of his brothers who were still patiently walking with the new children. He joined his friends out on the playground and was surprised how every one was looking forward to meeting these new children. That didn't really make sense. He had met them already and had not been impressed.

Teacher Hannah stepped outside to ring the bell and everyone hurried inside. LV looked up the road to see if he could see the others coming. There they were appearing over the last hill. They would never make it to school on time and his brothers would be tardy all because of those slow children. He went inside and sat at his desk. Teacher Hannah stood at the window at the back of the school house and watched as they drew nearer. The clock ticked loudly on the wall as every one was quiet and waiting. More than the usual two minutes had passed between first and second bell and still Teacher Hannah waited patiently. That wasn't really fair. She never waited on anyone else before she rang the bell. LV could see it already Mary Ann and John were going to be teacher's pets.

The school door opened and they stepped inside. Teacher Hannah went to welcome them and while Melvin and Vernon hurried to their desks LV watched as Hannah had to help Mary Ann out of her shawl. What a little sissy, she couldn't even dress herself. He turned away with disgust.

A moment later he was dismayed to find Hannah telling Mary Ann to sit in the desk directly across the aisle from him. How awful! He decided to ignore her and opened his desk and started working on one of his cardboard creations that he enjoyed so much during his spare time. As he worked he could almost feel her eyes on him. He glanced over and saw that she was indeed watching him with brown eyes that seemed to be much too big for her face. He stuck his tongue out at her. That would make her mind her own business instead of staring at him. It worked, she quickly looked away and got her reading book out of her desk and began reading it.

New Schoolmates

LV's memories continued

Everyone seemed to be talking about the new families that were moving into the community. Four of them in only several weeks time. LV didn't pay too much attention to all the talk. It was boring and he had so much more interesting things to think and do and besides he wasn't very fond of strangers. He never knew what to say or how to act around them. Avoiding them was much more comfortable.

The first two families moved in. They were old, and didn't have any children unless you counted their Downs Syndrome girl. LV was relieved that he wouldn't be required to make any new friends. The other family was older too but they didn't have any children. This was starting to not be so bad after all. There were only two more families coming and he was hoping that they would all be old too.

The next family came. They were much younger and had two little children. They were still almost babies and wouldn't be going to school for a few more years. The last family arrived on a Monday morning and when LV's parents came home from helping unload their belongings and getting settled into their house his Mom approached them. "I need you boys to stop into the Swarey's home tomorrow morning and walk to school with their children so they know the way."

LV looked at his brothers this was terrible news. The last family had to come and mess everything up by having school age children. Melvin didn't seem to troubled at the news. Vernon didn't say much either but there was no way that LV wanted to have to stop in at those strangers house. He thought it wasn't necessary that all three of them had to do that when it only took one to show the new children the way to school. Melvin could do it very well on his own. Besides, he was the oldest.

His Mom wouldn't hear any of that idea and the next morning found all three of them on the front porch while Melvin knocked on the door. The woman that answered invited them inside to warm up while she helped her children get ready. She introduced them saying, "This is Mary Ann and John. What are your names?" Melvin and Vernon introduced themselves but LV's tongue seemed dry and he didn't say anything until Melvin gave him a nudge. "I'm LV," he said quickly.

After the children had been helped into their thick winter clothes it was time to go to walk to school. LV had never seen anyone walk as slowly as these children did. Melvin and Vernon didn't seem to mind as they walked along and talked to them. By the time they should have been arriving at school they had only walked about half of way. LV decided this was ridiculous. There was no way he wanted to be tardy and mar his perfect record for the year just because of these slow children. He started walking faster in hopes that he would get to school on time.

To be continued.



The Ride

   LV's Memories

    Carl was an older man that lived in the neighborhood. LV and his brothers didn't know him personally but since he lived next door to some of their best friends they heard about him often. Many times when the weather was bad Carl used to give their friends a ride to school with his pick up truck.
  
One cold windy winter morning as LV and his older brothers were walking to school they could hear a vehicle approaching from behind them. It stopped next to them and Carl rolled his window down and asked them if they wanted a ride.

   They hopped on the back of his truck and sat with their backs against his cab and were on their way to school. LV was thinking that this was working out nicely. It was cold that morning and he would be getting to school so much faster this way.

      His brothers started talking. "We don't really know Carl," said Melvin. "
    "And Dad and Mom have always told us to never accept rides from strangers." added Vernon.
     "How do we know he isn't kidnapping us?" asked Melvin.

     LV was suddenly not feeling as happy about this ride. How awful that they had accepted a ride from a man that they didn't know very well at all especially after Dad and Mom had warned them never to accept rides from strangers.

     "If he doesn't stop at the school house we will simply have to jump off the back," said Melvin wisely.

      That was all LV needed to hear. It was time to jump. Clutching his lunchbox firmly he got up and jumped off the side of the truck. He stumbled and almost fell and got up feeling triumphant that they had outwitted the bad man. It was then that he noticed his brothers were still sitting on the back of the truck and just disappearing from sight over the hill.

    He started running after them as fast as he could calling. "Wait for me! Wait for me!"

    Carl had seen LV make that flying leap off the side of the truck. He backed up to make sure that he was okay and then told them that they had better walk the rest of the way to school.

    Melvin and Vernon got off the truck and scolded LV for jumping. They hadn't wanted to have their ride cut short. LV didn't think that was very nice for after all they were the ones who had suggested that they might be getting kidnapped and he had done the only logical thing in such a circumstance.

    Carl still gave their friends rides to school often but he never offered them a ride again.

Picking Rocks

A continuation of LV's memories

LV had turned four which was ever so much older than three and he was sure that he would now be able to keep up with his older siblings so much better.

There was a new church district starting 12 miles away and his parents decided to help it get started. They found a piece of bare land and made plans to build a large farmhouse and dairy barn as well as all the other buildings that they needed on a nice farm.

LV couldn't help but wonder why they called it bare land since it didn't look bare to him. There were fields covered in tall grass and several different patches containing several acres of woods.

It was fun watching the buildings grow but there wasn't much for a little boy to do except watch and play with the scraps of wood.

Between working on the buildings his Dad plowed some of the fields to plant corn. Since they were new there were lots of rocks and he decided to take several days to pick up rocks. He said LV could help them if he wanted to and he jumped at the chance. He was finally old enough to be able to help work in the fields.

While his brothers were lifting large rocks and tossing them on the box wagon LV was running around picking up stones that were more his size. He spied another stone and ran around the corner of the wagon just as his brother Mervin tossed another rock. It hit the side of LV's head knocking him down.

Sitting up he could feel and see blood gushing down his face. His Dad quickly picked him up and ran to find Mom. Together they cleaned him up and decided the gash didn't require stitches. After getting bandaged he once again had to stay with Mom while the rest went back to picking rocks.

The scar remains as a reminder of that day

Did You Say Fence?

LV's memories continued.

Dad and Mom had to go somewhere and couldn't take my brother Vernon and me along. They made arrangements for us to stay with their friends Perry and Alma.

Perry and Alma loved children but didn't have any of their own and were always happy to babysit. It wasn't quite as fun for us though since they didn't have much for us to do or play with.

On this particular day we were following Alma and helping her the best we could with her work. After lunch she decided it was time to go gather eggs. Vernon and I both enjoyed gathering eggs and happily tagged along after her. It didn't take long for the basket to get filled with eggs as we checked all the nesting boxes. I was always sorry when the last egg had been found and we had to wait for a whole day before it was time to gather more. I looked around the chicken house and happened to see several eggs in the corner. It looked as if they had been there for quite a while already but I got them to add to the basket any way.

Alma looked at the eggs and decided they weren't fresh enough to take to the house. She gave them to Vernon and me and said, "Go throw them over the fence."

(I have to stop here and insert that in Pennsylvania Dutch fence is pronounced fence, and a window is pronounced fence-tah.)

Vernon and I looked at each other not sure that we had heard right. Why would Alma want us to throw eggs at a window?  Vernon asked her which one and when she said it doesn't matter we headed outside with our eggs. This was going to be fun.

We walked all around the house trying to decide which window we wanted to throw the eggs at. After we settled on one we both threw our eggs and watched as they broke and slithered a slimy trail of yolk down over the glass. Alma had come around the corner of the house just in time to see the eggs hit the window and let out a gasp and immediately went to fix water to wash it off.

She explained then that she had said fence, not fence-tah. We felt sorry for what we had done but at the same time there had been a delicious thrill of watching those eggs smash against the window that it had been worth it.

A Preacher's Son

Having a good dog is a big part of any little boy's life especially if he is living on a farm. The first dog I had was a big English Shepherd named Queen.

She liked children and I liked when she followed me around where ever I went. There was one place though that she couldn't follow me and that was to church.

When ever we got to church I had to get off the buggy with Mom and my sister Lydia and go inside with them instead of going out to the barn with Dad and my brothers like all the other little boys did with their Dads. Having to stand with all the women and listen to their chatter before church would have been so much better if I could have been petting my dog.

When it was time to go find a seat I had to sit with Mom. Sitting next to her on the bench I would watch as all the men and boys would file into the church house and find their seats. I thought it must be really nice to be able to sit with my Dad like the other boys did but I couldn't because he was one of the ministers. He had been ordained a few months before I was born so that was all I had ever known.

Some Sundays when he preached the first sermon Mom would let me go sit next to him once he was done and one of the other ministers was preaching the main sermon. But even that wasn't like everyone else since I had to sit on the front bench facing the rest of the church. That was still better than sitting with the women and I was always glad to be able to sit next to my Dad.

Too Little

Starting LV's memories today.

The old farmhouse was nestled among some trees on the side of a steep hill. Just beyond it was an old dairy barn and if you looked around some more you could see a low ugly building with billows of smoke and steam escaping from it. In it Dad, cousin Wilmer, and my oldest brother Mervin were cooking another batch of maple syrup.

I wanted to go out to join them but Mom thought it was too cold and I was too little. "Too little," was a phrase I heard often and really disliked. I couldn't help that I was the baby of the family and as much as I tried to keep up with every one else there were always things they didn't want me to do. And today that happened to be going out to the sugar camp with Dad.

The other children were in school. I looked out the window. It didn't look really cold. There was still some snow on the ground except for the places that had a lot of traffic. The path from the house to the barn was muddy and slippery and all around the sugar camp there was even more mud.

Mom was busy at the sewing machine so I quietly went to get my coat and hat. After pulling on my boots and mittens I headed out the door. I walked right beside the path in the snow and admired the nice tracks my boots were making. When I got to the sugar camp I waded through the mud. It was even deeper than I thought it would be. It made funny slurping noises with every step I took. This was fun! I waded through the mud some more until I got stuck. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't pull my foot out of the mud. I tried kicking and jumping but nothing worked and after a particularly hard attempt I fell face down into the mud.

Somehow Wilmer heard me and came to my rescue. He held me at arms length in front of him and carried me to the house. After setting me inside the door he went back outside and Mom came to clean me up.

Once again I had been too little.