|
I was very brave (and stupid) to run underneath, from one
side to another, a very frisky colt we had, named Beauty. She was mostly brown with some white on her forehead.
Her mother was gray-white, and she was called Old Beaut.
Bud and Ethel
We had Saturday night baths in a big round metal tub in
the kitchen. Water was brought in from the pump outside. It had to be pumped into a pail and carried inside, heated
on the stove and poured into the tub. I think we all used the same bathwater--I don't remember how it was decided who
was first and got the clean water. We also had a large, oval, deep, copper tub on the top of the stove to boil clothes
to get them clean.
The telephone was on the wall, and you would crank it.
If the phone in your house rang once or twice, you would know whether the call was for you or some other family. It
rang in every home in the area. If you were making a call out, you would tell the operator who you wanted. She
would ring the party for you. It was a party line, and everyone listened in, so if you had any secrets, you didn't tell
them over the phone.
We lived way out in the country. There was no doctor, so Dad was our doctor.
One particular occasion when Dad doctored, was when Bud hit me on top of my head with a rusty shovel. He was trying
to pound a stake in the ground and build a fence around his garden, and he asked me to hold the stake. He missed the
stake and split my head. Dad had me lie on the dining room table, and he shaved my head all around the cut and cleaned
it well and bandaged it.
(Florence wrote that "Mama took Ethel on horseback to Papa, who was working in the
field. The sight of blood always made her feel like fainting.")
Everett Judson in his buggy with his dog
We didn't have a car. We had a buggy, so when we went into town, such as it was,
we went via horse and buggy. Quicksand was always a danger, and I think Mother got caught in it once on horseback.
I think I was on the horse with her, and she threw me off to safety and got to safety herself and the horse got out.
We survived a tornado. I saw it coming, and I told Grandma, "There's a train
coming. Look at the smoke." She knew it wasn't a train and had us all run for cover. When we were in the
house, the wind was so strong that you could hardly open or close the door and when you did, the carpet would billow up about
four feet off the floor. The wind blew over some outhouses and haystacks, took some roofs off and did other minor damage.
Bud, Ethel, Helen, Florence
Edith with her pet calves, Jimmy and Patty
Everett named his cows after three sisters-in-law,
possibly Ethel Lindsay, Lil Eiber, &
Marie Furman.
Bud, Helen, and Ethel
|
