Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS

I started elementary school late because, as a child, I had frequent illnesses. One of my problems was earache, with infection in the right middle ear. I sometimes had pus draining from the right ear. I also had frequent bouts of rheumatic fever, which kept me in bed with a physician in attendance and supplying medicines. As a result of these frequent absences, I did not finish elementary school by passing my high school entrance examination until I was past my 14th birthday.

Montie slept in the hallway at the top of the back stairway. This room was largely over the kitchen stove in the room below. There was an eight-inch opening in the floor which had no stove pipe in it. This allowed heat to move up from the room below. One night Montie dreamed that he fell through this hole. Of course he didn't, because he was too big to get through, but he continued to believe that he had fallen through in the night.

There was a large two-seater swing on the corner of our lot where it was in the shade of a large maple tree. I believe my father built the swing and painted it red, however I don't remember when it was built. It had four sturdy legs spread well apart at the ground level. At the top they formed the four corners of a rectangular wooden frame, which was very strongly built. Going through the four posts near the top, on opposite sides, were strong iron rods. From these iron rods, near their outside ends, hung four vertical wooden pieces, which at the bottom, well off the ground, had other similar iron rods passing across between them, in the same way as at the top. At the bottom, these iron rods also passed through the ends of a strong piece of wood on each side which supported a platform with strong slats across it. Above this foot platform, and facing each other were comfortable bench-like seats, fastened to the upright stringers on each side. When people sitting in the seats pushed alternately with their feet, they kept the swing going forwards and backwards at whatever speed they wished. Of course the seats were really steady, but the movement of the floor below gave the feeling that the seats tipped alternately, which they did, and changed again when the extreme of each swing was reached. This swing was much used and enjoyed by all of the family. It was large enough to hold two adults and a child on each seat at once, or as many as four children on each side at once.

Sometime after the mill burned, and closed up, father bought the company's dry kiln. It was a large heavily insulated building covered by an external surface of sheet metal so it did not catch afire. The building was about 18 ft. wide and 70 or 80 ft. long. It was about 9 ft. high on the high side and about 7 ft. high on the low side with a flat sloping roof. The ends of the building had large heavy slide doors, each hung on a track. Father turned one end of this building into a chicken house, with a roost and boxes built along one side for nests. The rest of the building he turned into several pig pens with openings on the low side into a large pig yard. Here he went into raising hogs in a big way. He kept a walk way on the inside of the higher wall where he kept feed for the chickens and pigs. I didn't see the building being moved but it must have been quite a project.

I remember one spring we went picking flowers in the woods just west of the Township Fairgrounds. Among them, we found hepatica which we called May flowers, yellow cowslips, red and white trilliums and even some lady's slippers. Another time we found lots of wild strawberries which we ate heartily.

One time I recall mama made two glasses of lemon-ade which was a special treat for us. Clifford got to it first and I arrived just after he was finishing my glass too. He did it to tease me and I was nearly heart-broken. Of course I cried and Clifford assured me that mama would make more for me. But mama couldn't because she had no more lemons. To quiet me she made me a glass of water with vinegar and sugar in it. It was not equal to lemon-ade but it had to do. This drink my grandpa Park called 'bull's milk'.

Of course we were not always as well behaved as we should be. We readily found cigar stubs lying around, so one time, we boys went behind the store, lit them and tried them out. It didn't take long for us to find out that we didn't like them, and decided not to smoke.

One day Clifford played a dirty trick on Grandpa Park, when he was getting quite old and couldn't see very well. Grandpa was still living in his own house on the farm, south of the village. He came in through the gate from his wood pile, on his way to dinner. Clifford saw him place his cud of tobacco on the top of the gate post, with the intention of chewing it some more after eating. Clifford threw the cud of tobacco away and in its place put a piece of something of the same size. After the meal we watched grandpa pick it up and start chewing again, on what he thought was his cud of tobacco. After a while Clifford asked him how he liked it. Grandpa said it wasn't much good. It was some of that cheap American tobacco and wouldn't 'gether.' By which he meant it wouldn't hold together. After a while he spit it out and took a fresh bite out of his plug of tobacco. Of course we never told him what had happened.

We had an organ in our house which mother played from time to time. It had to be pumped by foot pedals. Mother could play quite well but she didn't have much time for it. However, when she found I liked music, she taught me how to play on the organ, and how to read music. Of course I wasn't very good, but I spent many hours at the organ playing hymns from the hymn book, mostly the soprano notes only, but sometimes both soprano and alto with my right hand only.

About this time we discovered that Clifford couldn't carry a tune. However later, when he became a preacher, I believe his wife, Aleta, coached him so that he was able to go through the motions along with the congregation.

Sometimes a neighbor girl, Lottie Baron, would play for us and our family would gather around the organ and sing hymns.

Father had a small violin which he made himself, with nothing but the wood and a jackknife to work with. It was quite a good instrument and he played on it frequently evenings. He played everything by ear and most of his music was dance music because he used to play his violin at dances. After my father died, his violin went to my son Robert because his second name was Watson after his grandfather.

Our father taught us how to make water-pistols, darts and bows and arrows, so we made our own and played with them when we had time. The water-pistols we made out of sections of bamboo. We got as long a section as we could and cut it across just below one joint to get a long open cavity at one end. Then we cut again just below the next joint thereby getting a closed end. Then we bored a small hole through the center of the closed end for the stream of water to come through. We made a plunger to push up and down, inside of the bamboo. We wound cloth tightly around the insert end of the plunger and secured it well with a cord. With a tight plunger we could draw water up into the water-gun and push it out in a small strong stream, at the other end. We had lots of fun with these in mock battles, and to surprise cats and chickens.

We made darts out of narrow pieces of new shingles with a point at the thick end and a flat wing at the thin end of the shingle. Near the center of the narrow shaft of the dart, we cut a notch in which we hooked a cord, with a knot in its end. The other end of the cord was attached to the end of a flexible piece of straight limb. By holding the stick in the right hand and the flat end of the dart between the finger and thumb of the left hand with the string taut, we could achieve a swing ing whip-like movement which would propel the dart high into the air.

To make a bow, we preferred strong straight pieces of red willow. We notched the ends and strung strong bowstrings on the bows with the bows suitably bent. The arrows we made of straight pieces of wood, usually pine. Usually we put a small nail in the forward end of the arrow to give it better stability. We notched the other end of the arrow to take the bowstring. We had much fun with these in target practice.

In our community we had a few handicapped people. One of them was George Howser who lived with Sol and Mrs. Smith. He was quite deaf but a nice young fellow. Another was Webber Lucas. He had no use of his legs to walk on and got around only on crutches. Another young fellow was Lawrence Crawford who was paralyzed in both arms and had no use of his hands. He managed to get along using his head with the help of friends. However, he turned his talents to some shady deals, which he put over largely in Pt. Burwell.

Living so close to country, water and swamps, naturally we encountered many insects, snakes and interesting birds and animals. The dragon flies were plentiful. They were interesting to watch. They could maneuver so beautifully. They could hover in mid-air and look at you with their big eyes. Then in a flash they would dash off and be looking at something else or alight on a water plant. Sometimes we would see a water snake swimming in the ditch or creek. One time we found hair snakes swimming in shallow water. These were tiny things not much thicker than the hair of a horse's tail, but about six inches long. They were crawling on the surface of the water, with all the movements of snakes to move around. One time we encountered a black snake about six feet long. It was anxious to get away and we didn't stop it.

There were lots of grey squirrels and black squirrels. One time we caught a flying squirrel in the woods. It was a small animal about half the size of a small red squirrel. It was reddish on top but light colored on its under-body. It would move from tree to tree by climbing like an ordinary squirrel but when it wanted to 'fly' it spread out its four legs as widely as they would go and jumped down from a tree

to the ground, or to a lower limb on an adjoining tree. It could not fly like a bird, but it could soar and land lightly at considerable distances away. When we had it in our hands and examined it, we found that its skin-coat had great folds of skin and fur attached to the inside of its legs close to the little feet. In reality it could flatten itself out and become a little parachute, which it could maneuver to rise a little with its momentum, or change direction in downward flight. ft seemed a harmless animal and did not try to bite us.

There were lots of blackbirds and black crows. Sometimes we would see two small birds attacking one crow in flight. They would actually pounce on it in flight and the crow would falter in its course. They would keep this up until the crow was driven well away from their nesting place.

One time father took Clifford and me with him to hunt partridges. We saw some but we didn't kill any. We had our dog Carlo along and he probably scared them away too soon. When we were coming back we saw a large raccoon up in a tree. We couldn't get up to shake it off but father shot at it with his rifle. He may have nicked it because it dropped to the ground. As soon as it hit the ground Carlo was upon it trying to kill it. But the raccoon was still full of fight. They struggled together until both were nearly exhausted with neither the winner. Then father finished off the raccoon with a club. We took it home and father skinned it for its pelt.

Sometime during these years the Gates family sold the town store to a man by the name of Scidmore. The Gates family moved to Hamilton where the children Grant and Jean continued their education and entered their life work. Soon afterward my Uncle John and his family sold his farm and moved to Brantford. There, their children completed their education and went to work. Stanley became an expert auto- mobile mechanic and Vera became a school teacher. After a number of years working in Brantford with his team of horses, doing dangerous work, Uncle John received an injury. Not long afterward a malignant sarcoma started in the site of the injury and he died of it.

About this time my mother's sister, my aunt Edith, got married to Stephen S. McDonald, a prosperous farmer who lived several miles north of Fair Ground. My Aunt Edith was several years older than my mother. The two of them were the only children of my grandfather Cutler. It was quite an elegant wedding for those days.

Grandpa Cutler was left alone since my grandma Cutler had died. He needed someone to keep house for him, so he hired a big unattractive woman named Maggie. She apparently got the work done, but no one ever saw a woman who moved more slowly. She did not seem to be ill, but she was called 'slow Maggie' because the name described her perfectly.

Mr. Scidmore, who operated the general store and post office, was the first one in the village to have a radio. It wasn't much good, because most of the sounds were distorted and unrecognizable, but the reception of sounds from space without connecting wires was in itself a novelty.

There was a sandy hill on the Fulton farm to the south of us, which was largely blow-sand, but on it we found Indian artifacts such as pieces of pottery, and large and small flint arrowheads, which indicated that the hill had been used by Indians.

One time, when I was exploring this hill, I found a nest of round soft-shelled turtle eggs. The hill was not far from the creek so apparently the turtles found the warm sand a suitable place to lay their eggs. Here they would hatch by themselves, and the little turtles could find their own way to the water. One time when I was on this sand hill again, I found an adult turtle, which I assumed to be a female, with her tail pointing down into the sand, where she was moving round and round in a circle, apparently boring a hole with her tail. I assumed she was preparing a place in the sand to lay her eggs, but I wondered why she didn't dig with her front feet.

My father and mother saw to it that we children attended Sunday School and church regularly. One of the joys of the Sunday School was the annual picnic which was usually held at the Sand Hills about 3 miles away on the shore of Lake Erie. Sometimes we used the Big Sand Hills and sometimes the little Sand Hills. They were about I mile apart. Both were great piles of sand blown up by the wind from the lake shore below. One time I must have sat in some poison ivy which was plentiful, particularly at the little sand hills. A few days later my whole bottom was one mass of swollen skin with water blisters that were oozing copiously. I was disabled for several days but recovered completely eventually.

One time at school, when I was batter-up in a baseball game, I was struck on the head by the hard baseball and found myself crawling around on my hands and knees. I recovered without any complications.

On another occasion, when I was attending a baseball game being played by adults in the evening on the fairground, instead of watching the game I climbed up on the railing around the race-track for horses. I was proudly walking along on the narrow rails about four feet off the ground, when I fell off and struck the ground in such a way that it knocked the wind out of me, and I could not breathe for a minute or two. It was both distressing and frightening because I didn't know, at that time, that this is the result of a blow to the solar plexus in the stomach region.

I didn't do well at elementary school for some reason. I particularly found it difficult to spell, so I have always been a poor speller, and I still am. Even at this writing, I have before me a small spelling book which I have to refer to frequently, and if the word I want isn't there, I have to refer to my big dictionary for the correct spelling.

One good thing I did learn at school was the little ditty - "Whatever you do, do with your might. Things done by halves are never done right." A simple little thing, but one which I am sure has guided me through much of my adult life.

Always a momentous occasion, at school, was when the school inspector Frank Cook walked in. He simply opened the door and walked in unannounced. It was probably a strain on the teacher, but she went on with her teaching. He was a big bald- headed man, but kindly and mild-mannered. Sometimes when he wanted to show the teacher how it should be done, he took over the class and taught it himself.

Mr. Cook rode a motorcycle and stayed overnight at our small hotel. I remember one time he was telling my father about the discovery of some wonderful things called vitamins. He pronounced it with a short i as in it, but he was enthusiastic about the discovery because of the potential the future held for the health of man kind.

One time I was with some other boys at Mr. Fulton's place south of Fair Ground. When in the barnyard with Mr. Fulton, who was an old bearded man, he noticed that I had a big wart on one of my fingers. He said he would charm it off for me. So he spit on his fingers and rubbed it into my wart. I was not much im pressed and forgot all about it. A few weeks later I was surprised to find that my wart was gone.

One of the chores we boys enjoyed doing in the fall was gathering chestnuts. They were only available after a frosty night or two which caused the green chestnut burrs, with their long sharp spines, to open up. Then when the sun came out, the brown chestnuts would rain down onto the ground. The insides of the burrs were lined with white soft tissue which felt much like soft velvet. We picked up many quarts of chestnuts from under our own trees on the back of father's farm, and often also from under the trees of neighboring farmers who didn't want to bother with them. We sold them to the owner of the general store, who in turn sold them to the public. One morning I was barefooted picking up chestnuts near the road, on Sol Smith's property just south of our corner. Before I was finished there came a great flurry of snow and I had to walk in bare feet, about 500 yards, through 1/2 inch of snow to get home.

We children liked to celebrate Halloween in the fall. One time Mama fixed us up with dough-faces. She made these much like the way she rolled out pastry for pie crusts. She made them large enough to cover our faces. She cut slits in the dough for our eyes, nose and mouth and stuck them on our faces. The outside of the dough-faces were covered with white flour. So we were a ghastly sight. Then she put hats on our heads and short clay pipes in our mouths. Looking like this we paraded on the - porch in front of the general store. One of the young fellows there was Webber Piet. He was several years older than I. I don't know whatever possessed him, but he pushed me right in the face with the palm of his hand so hard, that he broke the stem of my clay pipe and drove it back so that it tore a gash in the back of my throat, which bled copiously and ended our night of fun.

One time, on the morning after Halloween, we looked across the road and there on the nearly flat roof of one of the fair buildings was a buggy. We don't know how it got there, but it wasn't ours and it wasn't taken away for a few days.

At school, we liked the coming of winter because it caused the water in the pond on the school grounds and in ditches beside the road outside the school ground to freeze over. Often the ice on the small school pond was quite thin and not strong enough to support a child. At these times by running and sliding quickly across we could reach the other side safely. At these times the ice was flexible, what we called rubbery ice. We had great fun with it until it eventually gave way and someone got his feet wet.

It was on the ice in the ditches, outside of the school grounds, that I learned to skate. We were supplied by our parents with skates, which by proper fitting could be clamped onto the heavy soles of our shoes. They could be easily taken off by reversing the clamping lever, and carried without the shoes. It was a long time before we had any other type of skates.

In these early years at school the room was heated by a sizable woodstove near the back door. The wood was stored in the entry and in a large wood-box inside of the school.

In the winter, at home in the evenings, we often sat around the warm stove and shared fresh-made popcorn. All of us became efficient at popping corn. We even strung popcorn on a string or thread to decorate our fresh-cut green Christmas tree. But for us children, the Christmas surprises were found in our stockings the morning of Christmas. What we got was simple and inexpensive, but we enjoyed and appreciated everything. To us an orange and some imported nuts were a great treat.

Mother was an excellent cook and we always had plenty to eat of simple foods. She especially liked to make lemon pies. She first of all baked the crust which was always rich and flakey. Then she poured in the lemon filling which she made from corn starch and real lemon juice. On the top she spread well-whipped white of egg. Then she put it in the oven to lightly brown the top frosting. She also liked to make rich lemon biscuits which were flat and cut into oblong shapes. I don't remember having any made like it since.

Mother and father had good relationships with each other. I don't mean that they always agreed on everything. Sometimes Mother wanted something different and father listened to her but didn't always agree with her. If she persisted, and he wouldn't go for it, he would tell her off quite brusquely. Then they would both laugh and drop the subject, and there would be no hard feelings.

One of my early experiences was watching father kill a fat hog and dress it. He started off by hitting it on the head in front hard enough to stun it. Then he rolled it over on its back and with a swift slit in the neck he pushed in a long butch er knife. When he withdrew it blood was gushing out. By this time the pig was generally sufficiently recovered to get up on its feet and stand more or less still while the blood flowed out freely. When the pig toppled over dead, father hauled it up on the cleaning board, at one end of which was a barrel of scalding hot water. With a strong rope attached to its hind legs, the hog was then dunked in the hot water several times, until the hairs were loosened. Then with the carcass on the cleaning board the scraping of the skin began. In the scraping a thin surface of the skin was removed, and with it all of the hair. When this was finished the hog looked white and clean. Then a strong piece of wood was used to suspend the carcass by its hind legs by thrusting the ends through between the strong heel tendon and the bones near the feet. In this way the carcass was hanging down with its head near the floor and the hind legs spread apart. Then father proceeded to slit open the belly of the carcass and remove the entrails and all of the internal organs.

Another thing I remember is watching father help a cow to deliver her calf. She was straining hard and suffering much, without much progress. The forelegs how ever were visible and sticking out. Father tied a rope around the forelegs and pulled on the rope in coordination with the strainings of the cow. After some time the nose of the calf appeared and a little later the whole head was delivered. After that, delivery of the rest of the body was comparatively easy. It wasn't long before both the mother and the calf were on their feet.

One of the common diversions on Sundays was the arrival of Uncle Ezra and his family from Brantford, Ontario. Uncle Ezra was my father's eldest brother. His wife was Aunt Lottie. He had only one child, a daughter Maud, who always came with them with her husband Jimmy Baker. The Bakers had no children so Uncle Ezra had no grandchildren. Sometimes they took us for a ride in their touring car which we children liked.

When I was about eleven years old, father took over the janitor work at the school house and at the church. Of course, we boys were quickly pushed into this work. At the school I recall that I always wanted to get the sweeping done as soon as possible after school. This was annoying to the teacher, because she often wanted to do some work at her desk after school. I always started at the front of the school and swept all of the dirt toward the back. This immediately raised a cloud of dust, because we had no absorbing compound to use on the floor. The dust of course settled on the desks and seats during the night. I was supposed to do the dusting in the morning before school. But I was usually so late that only a very cursory job was done.

The janitor work at the church was only done once a week but we were taught to do a pretty good job. It also involved filling the kerosene lamps and cleaning the lamp chimneys.

In the early days the church was heated by a wood stove. We had to start the fire there early on winter mornings. We did so by arranging the wood carefully, with some quick burning pine kindling under the main wooden chunks. Then we threw in a small amount of kerosene. When a match was thrown in, the kerosene ignited first and thereafter the pine kindling got going well.

We had a telephone which was on the wall in our parents' bedroom. It of course was a party-line, which meant that anyone who wished could take down her telephone receiver and listen to any conversation going on. It also meant that every ring on the phone registered in every house where there was a phone. So every phone had to have an identifying ring. Ours was two longs followed by two short rings. Every phone customer had a directory giving the ring identification of each telephone customer. So any listener, before she picked up the telephone receiver, knew by the ring who was being called. If there was an emergency, and a person had to call someone, such as a doctor or other help immediately, she had to ask the people gossiping on the line to please get off so that the emergency call could be made. Usually people were cooperative but sometimes they refused to get off the line right away.

Our telephone was of the old wall-type. That is, it was quite a large box longer up and down than from side to side. The speaker talked into a mouthpiece which stuck out in front about 9 or 10 inches. There was a black funnel-shaped mouth-piece which directed the voice into the end. The mouth-piece metal projection could be moved up and down to allow for accommodation to users of different heights. The receiver was at the end of a covered wire-cord which was held in the left hand to the left ear, during a conversation. When not in use it hung on a receiving hook on the left side of the instrument. When the receiver was placed on the hook its weight caused the hook to move downward which disconnected the current. There was a small crank on the right side of the phone-box which when turned rapidly caused the twin bells on the upper front of the phone box to ring merrily. The ringing of the bells was duplicated on every phone on the party-line. After ringing, the caller took down the receiver and listened for the one being called to come on the line. After an appropriate wait, if there was no answer, the process was repeated a few times. Then if there was no response the caller gave up.

Above the telephone-box, where the wires came into the phone, there was a switch which was supposed to be opened to cut off the electric power during a thunderstorm. One time while mother and I were in her bedroom, during a severe thunder storm and before the cut-off switch was activated, there was a tremendous lightning

flash. A flash of fire came out of the telephone mouth-piece about six inches long. Fortunately neither of us was standing close to the phone and no one was hurt. The telephone was not damaged by the flash either.

When I was big enough, I also had to help Mama around the house. One frequent assignment was, of course, washing dishes. There was no dishwasher and all dishes had to be washed and dried by hand. It was a job I never learned to like.

Another job I was called upon to do was churn the cream to make butter. This was interesting because of the satisfying results. Much of the time however we bought butter from neighbors who churned instead of making our own.

One feat I was able to do which so far as I remember no one else could, was to climb up an open door-way simply by pressure of my bare hands and feet sideways onto the door-frame.

One of my chores was to go and get the cows from the pasture field nearly 1/2 mile away on my mother's 25 acre farm. Sometimes I was able to get out of it because of a headache. I don't remember whether they were all real or not, but because of their recurrence at that time, father called them cow-headaches.

In getting the cows I always took our dog Carlo with me. He was a mixture of dog breeds but a nice-mannered dog, with short hair and a sturdy body. When I got to the pasture field the herd of cows was usually far back in the field, possibly over 1/4 mile away. Instead of going for them, I got up on a fence post with Carlo in my arms, pointed them out to Carlo, and told him to go and get them. Carlo would look where I was pointing and then he would whimper anxiously, which meant "I see them". Then, when I put him down, he took off immediately and rounded them up and brought them to the gate, usually on the run.

One of Carlo's favorite pastimes was stalking woodchucks which were rather plentiful. Without anyone teaching him he learned to run to the hole where a wood chuck had just scrambled in. Then instead of waiting where the pile of sand was, where he could look directly into the hole, he placed himself close to the hole on the side opposite to the pile of sand, and waited for the woodchuck to come out to reconnoiter. The woodchuck, in doing so, came out cautiously and looked in all directions except toward the place where Carlo was positioned, or perhaps he couldn't see in that direction without turning around. At any rate Carlo waited until he was far enough out so that he could pounce on him. By then it was too late, and Carlo soon killed the woodchuck by crushing his head in his jaws. Then Carlo proceeded immediately to tear open the animal's abdomen and begin his eating with the liver.

One time during the summer, when we had our meals in the wood-shed building, my sister Leta forgot to feed Carlo for perhaps a couple of days. He was so hungry that when no one was around he helped himself to a good-sized part of a ham which was on the table. He had never done such a thing before, and of course he was punished for it. But what hurt me most was that Carlo had been so hungry that he was driven to it.

One time when father had a good wood fire going in our living room, which was formerly the dining room when we had mill-boarders, the soot which had accumulated in the chimney caught fire and flames were shooting out of the brick chimney on top of the house. In the bedroom upstairs the stove pipe came up through the

floor and after rising about five and a half feet, went horizontally into the chimney. The fire in the chimney extended also to involve the soot in the stovepipe. The stove pipe, where it came through the bedroom floor, was so hot that it started a fire in the floor around the pipe. The fire burning fiercely inside the brick chimney was not the primary problem, because the bricks could contain the fire until it burned out. So father attacked the fire starting in the bedroom floor. As I watched, he chopped out the floor around the hot chimney exposing the laths in the ceiling of the room below. When the burning wood was exposed and accessible, father soon had the fire out. He continued to watch it until the fire in the chimney had burned itself out, and all danger was past.

Father had a hired man who worked for 75 cents a day. He ordinarily slept in the rooming house a few feet to the west of our woodshed building and went home for the weekends. His home was about 3 1/2 miles away. Father with Bill Taylor's help had made an excavation in the ground just to the south of the southern door of our woodshed. Here they had built a cellar with a fresh concrete floor and walls. They had also built a roof over it. There was a drop of 4 feet or more from the ground level to the floor of the cellar. At the time of this incident, they did not yet have a door on the entrance to the cellar nor did they have any steps built down into the cellar. Since father wanted to hasten the drying of the concrete in the cellar, he had put a temporary small stove in the empty cellar with a stovepipe coming out through the doorway. He had Bill Taylor sleeping on an improvised cot in the cellar, with wood beside him, to keep the fire going during the night.

Another feature of this picture was that just to the west of the joint entrance way to the cellar and the woodshed was the well-established position of a large swillbarrel, into which left-over food and slops from the kitchen and cooking utensils were thrown to supplement the pig feed. Also sitting around this barrel were pails which were coated inside with food particles which were attractive to pigs.

One night, Bill Taylor was awakened from his sleep in the cellar by a terrible banging around outside, followed by a heavy object landing on the cellar floor. Bill Taylor could think of nothing else but that the Devil was after him. So he lost no time in scrambling out of there, and running to his usual lodging in the building where he spent the rest of the night. The next morning when my father and Bill Taylor explored the situation, they found the sow in the cellar with a swill pail over her head, with the bail of the pail behind her ears so that she couldn't get it off. The sow had somehow got out of her pen, and was exploring the tasty offerings of the swill pail, when she found she couldn't get if off. In her blind efforts to free herself from the pail, she thrashed around and fell through the doorway into the empty cellar, which probably knocked the wind out of her at the same time, so that she was not only scared but totally unable to make a sound for a while.

After the cellar was finished the excess dirt had to be disposed of. So father built a concrete retaining wall on his property, inside of the sidewalk, running from our corner south to the front of the general store. Then he leveled up the ground behind the wall and cut down a small hill on our property to make a level lawn which soon was well established. At the same time he retained a small apple tree, just to the south of the new cellar, which was already well started. This retaining wall made it possible to keep the sidewalk clean which formerly was often half covered by drifting mud.

About this time an exploratory drilling on a farm about a mile to the east of Fair Ground struck some good quality natural gas. The gas pocket was not great enough, nor with high enough pressure, to justify piping it far away. But it was enough to warrant piping to the people in the small hamlet itself and to the farm houses along the road. This was a great help to us. We had it piped into our house for cooking and lighting and heating. It also was piped into the school house for heating and into the church for heating and lighting.

To get a satisfactory light with natural gas required a special shaped mantle which was made of some white loosely woven material which had been saturated with some chemical or salt which gave it some firmness and produced a white ash when the original fabric was burned by lighting it with a match. The gas became ignited when turned on with properly controlled size of flame and pressure which kept the gas flame inside the mantle. This produced a brilliant sustained white light which was ever so much better than kerosene lamps.

For heating, proper gas burners were required. To work properly they had to have the proper mixture of gas and air. When correctly installed it was easy to light them and turn them off and regulate them for heating and cooking.

One time I found an iron wheel, which at one time must have been on a wheel barrow. We had no wheelbarrow so, starting with the wheel, I made a very satisfactory wheelbarrow.

Another time I constructed something of a hammock by fastening together barrel staves. I used wire to secure them and connect them at their ends. It worked fairly satisfactorily but was tricky to use because it tipped over very readily.

Sometimes mother used Bill Taylor's wife to help her in the house. After several of those occasions mother could not find several things which seemed to be gone. She suspected that they had been stolen by Mrs. Taylor. To look for them my father obtained a search warrant and with the sheriff, they searched Bill Taylor's house. They found the missing items hidden under a kitchen floor board which could be pried up.

Another person who gave my father trouble from time to time was mother's Uncle Ben Purdy. Father made a deal with him to get a heifer in exchange for a sow. Ben Purdy took the sow home but never came through with the heifer. So one night, father, with the help of Bill Taylor, went over and got the sow and brought her home.

Sometime before World War I started it was reported that there was a machine in Pt. Burwell that could fly. They called it an airplane but no one had any idea of how it worked. Some wondered if it flapped its wings like a bird. Many people went the twelve miles to Pt. Burwell to see it, but no one from our family went. We heard later how it worked. It was one of the wonders of the age at that time.

Mother and father had given us children a beautiful wagon with wooden spoked wheels which had iron tires on it, like a large wagon. It would hold two of us at once and it had a handle which turned back so that the rider could steer it while sitting in the wagon. With this arrangement, and the down grade of the sidewalk from our corner past the general store, we could send each other flying down the

sidewalk. The only drawback was that, with the regular cracks in the sidewalk and the iron tires, each trip made a terrible noise. After putting up with this for a year or more, Mr. Scidmore finally saw his opportunity to terminate this nuisance. So after a traction engine hauling a threshing machine had gone through, our wagon was found crushed on the road.

One time mother had a cat she wanted disposed of, so I undertook to kill it. To do so I loaded our 1825 vintage musket with powder, packing and a ball bearing for a bullet. It was a muzzle-loader, and a firing cap had to be used. I didn't want to hold the heavy gun, so I placed it on the ground with the unsuspecting cat's head in front of the gun and pulled the trigger. The cat was of course killed instantly.

My father's brother Michael was a dentist who lived and practiced in Toledo, Ohio. One summer he and Aunt Ella were visiting us. They had come in their open- topped automobile and had parked it on the road between our barn and our house. Clifford and I were curious about the car and were sitting in it enjoying the experience. Then Clifford noticed that the ignition key was in the car. So he turned the key and stepped on the starter. The motor sprang to life, but he turned it off right away and did not engage any gears.

On this occasion Uncle Michael brought along some dental equipment so he could fill the cavities in our teeth. To do the drilling he had a drill which was driven by a foot pedal, which he operated himself while manipulating the drill with his hand.

Uncle Michael's wife Ella was a sister of Uncle John's wife Effie. They were both Gale girls. So Uncle John's children Stanley and Vera Park were double cousins of Uncle Michael's children, Ila, Harley and Aline Park.

The Methodist Church was west of our corner but on our side of the road. There was need to have a sidewalk built from the church to the corner to make walking easier to Sunday services instead of walking on the loose sand. So the church people promoted an entertainment to raise money to build it. The money obtained was not in itself sufficient, so the farmers each hauled a load of gravel for the project. Our family, and many others, wanted the sidewalk built on the south side of the road from the corner to the church. But a few others, led by Frank Williams and his wife, wanted it built on the north side of the road. Our faction won, and it was built on the south side of the road. But the Williams family, ever afterward, refused to walk on it until they were past our livery barn. They even went so far as to build another sidewalk, part way to the church, on the north side of the road. This they always walked on.

Many years later Ben Purdy thought the concrete blocks in the sidewalk on the North side would be more useful to him at his home than on the road where they were. So one night he took them up and hauled them home. Afterwards, I under stand that the Williams family made him pay for them.

My father, besides being a farmer, served as the local barber, often cutting hair in the evenings, at 25 cents each. He eventually taught me to cut hair too. He was also clerk of the Circuit Civil Court. The judge lived in the County seat which was Simcoe, but he held court in the Fair Ground Town Hall at regular intervals. Between court sessions father handled the paper work, such as issuing summons and suing people for unpaid debts, etc. He had these legal papers served by a part-time Sheriff.

Houghton Fair, in the fall, was always a busy time for all of us. Mother, with hired help, usually fed about 400 people at dinner that day at 25 cents each. Father provided stalls and feed for horses all around our barnyard fences. And we boys operated a safety place, in the two-story building, where we tied up people's robes and whips, and placed them on the floor for safe keeping. Each tied-up bundle had a number on it and the owner carried a duplicate number. All of this was done at a small price, but it tied us up all day, and we couldn't go to the fair across the road until it was practically over. The income from all of these projects was consider able, but practically all of it went, the next day, to pay off the grocery bill at the general store which had accumulated during the previous year. Early in the morn ing after the fair, we children combed the fairground over carefully looking for lost coins. Often we found as much as $2.00 worth of silver coins.

There are some features about people outside of our family which may be worthy of note because of the smallness of our community. There was a middle-aged bachelor who still lived with his parents a little over 1/2 mile south of our corner. He was a rather ornery fellow who kept two large dogs tied up in his barn. One was a vicious brute. We nicknamed this man "Rarin' Brindle." Sometimes we called him that when we were far enough away that we knew he couldn't catch us. When he heard it he always burst forth in a string of curses and vile words.

Farther south on the same road on the former Fulton place, at this time, lived our hired man and his family by the name of Underhill. His oldest son, Don, was definitely not very bright. One time when we had been sharpening knives on a grind stone, we would cautiously feel of the sharp edge with a thumb to see if it was sharp enough. Don wanted to test it too, which we allowed him to do, and he promptly cut a gash in his thumb. His brother Percy, who was younger and seemed under nourished, was playing around the corncrib with us boys. We were hanging onto the slats of this structure a little way off the ground. Percy joined us in the fun, but couldn't hang on very long and there was no way to get a foothold. Percy was obliged to let go and fall about two feet from the bottom of his feet to the ground. When he did so he let out a loud yell, and it was found that he had broken his leg. Ordinarily a fall of that distance would not even hurt an ordinary child, but Percy must have had very fragile bones.

Jack Lucas was a farmer who lived on the next road about 1 1/2 miles to the south-west of our place. Jack had a voice timbre which made it carry long distances. Often, soon after 5 P.M., we could hear him yell, "Bring out the milk pails."

One time Clifford and I were firing a 22 caliber rifle at a target set up on the sand mound over our root cellar. We were firing in the direction of Finch's barn which was 300 or 400 yards away. One time, after this, a friend of ours, by the name of Earle Finch, said he heard a bullet whistle by his ear while walking in his barnyard.

One time the preacher at the Methodist Church wanted to pep up the music at the church by having several people play musical instruments together in the choir area at the front of the church. It so happened that the only one in the community who could play the violin was a business man who was known to be having an affair with his female assistant, who was not his wife. When the preacher told my father that this character was going to play the violin in the church next Sunday, father advised him not to have this man in the group. Well, the next Sunday when the orchestra assembled on the platform just prior to opening of the church service, the

above mentioned gentleman was among them with his violin. So, at father's signal, the whole family of us rose from the seat, which we filled, and walked out as a public protest. Since there were two adults and four children it was quite a procession.

We lived in southern Ontario which is farther south than most parts of Canada. Besides having all of the usual Canadian trees there were a few species which were uncommon that far north. On the Isaac Piett farm, in the orchard, there was a mulberry tree where we often enjoyed eating the purple berries. About 2 miles east of Fair Ground, on the roadside, was a large tulip tree which had large white flowers on it in the spring. About 4 miles away to the south there was a farm which had a lane lined with a lot of catalpa trees with their long bean-shaped seed pods.

In our part of the country there were lots of birds. To mention a few, there were many meadowlarks, American goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds, bluejays, bobolinks, cow birds, red-headed woodpeckers, and Baltimore orioles with their beautiful hanging nests. We even saw a screech-owl and a whip-poor-will. It was always interesting to watch the V-shaped flight of high flying geese at the change of seasons.

I remember a couple of incidents of communications between animals which were of interest to me, as a boy. One day I happened to be looking at a herd of cattle in a field nearby. One of the cows walked up to another one and stopped and maneuvered her head in a certain way. The second animal responded by licking the shoulder of the first cow at a point which was too close to the first cow's neck for her to be able to turn and lick it herself. The first cow stood quietly in obvious enjoyment. After awhile the second animal got tired of licking and turned away. Immediately the first cow turned on her benefactor and bunted her, as much as to say, that isn't enough. So the second animal turned again and continued licking awhile longer in the same place.

At our house, in those days, all toilet facilities were in an outhouse. There of course was no such thing as toilet paper either. So a tidy box of folded newspapers was maintained at one end of the seat. One of our hens had chosen this spot as the ideal place to lay her eggs. Every day we found a fresh egg there. One day, when I was working at something in full view of the area, the hen entered the small building and settled in the box to lay her egg. A little later someone went in the outhouse and immediately the hen scrambled out. When the person came out and left the door open the hen crept back in and again settled in the box. Before she had time to lay her egg, again somebody else went into the building, and again the hen was scared off. This even happened a third time in the next few minutes. The hen was obviously so mad she started stalking around and making a great fuss. She seemed to be saying "I'm not going back," "I'm not going back," and on and on. Then our white rooster took over. He herded the hen round and round and forced her to go back into the nesting box. Then he perched on the seat beside the box, and stood there steadily. He seemed to be telling the hen, "I'll keep everybody away." After a little while the hen and rooster came out, and the hen went around boasting about laying an egg, as hens usually do. And sure enough, when I went in to see, there was a fresh warm egg.

By 1914 or 1915 father had extended his farming operations extensively from the original 25 acres he owned and the 25 acres which my mother owned. He rented the Fulton farm of 100 acres, of which about 70 acres were under cultivation. He also rented about 75 acres of land which he worked, or used for pasture, on other people's property. This meant that we boys had lots to do in chores and other farm

work. And with the first World War already underway, there was much demand for farm products. At the same time strong and healthy young men who could be hired were becoming more and more scarce.

Often Clifford and I were working together and sometimes, to amuse ourselves, we carried on some kind of physical contest between us. Sometimes this took the form of pinching fights. That is we pinched each other until one of us gave up. Of course it left black and blue marks afterwards. Sometimes we attacked each other with cornstalks or small switches. Often in this type of contest I was the winner, not because I hit him harder and hurt him, but because I could put on a more convincing demonstration of fierceness.

One time Clifford and I and our father had finished loading a load of grain which was in sheaves, and we were riding home on it with father driving. Suddenly Clifford said, "There's a snake on the load." It was a harmless garter snake and was crawling back under the sheaves. While I bent over to look for it, Clifford grabbed a pitchfork, jabbed it into a sheaf and pulled upward on it. The fork caught in the binder twine which was around the sheaf. Suddenly the fork slipped past the twine and one of the tines came up into my face and pierced the left side of my nose all the way to the septum. Fortunately there was no other injury. If it had struck my eye, about 1 1/2 inches away, I would have been blinded in my left eye.

One year many of the farms to the south of us were devastated by army worms. I remember when we went to the lake for our annual Sunday School picnic that year, we passed by whole fields where everything had been eaten right down to the ground, including small green-leaved trees. In one field I saw where a furrow had been plowed all around the field in hope of containing the worms. But it didn't do any good. The furrow was filled with army worms crawling up the sides and well on their way. They seemed bent on all going in the same direction like an invading army.

In the summers, when the evenings were long, we sometimes had time to play a game of croquet on our home lawn. Many Saturday evenings in the hot summers, we made a freezer full of ice cream. To do this we had to get a chunk of ice of sufficient size from our ice shed, where it was hidden under sawdust. Then it had to be cleaned up and broken up into small pieces. Mother always prepared the creamy mixture which when frozen became the ice cream. This was put into the metal container, which had a stirring mechanism in it, operated mechanically through its lid. Then we packed the chipped ice into the wooden tub around the metal container and added salt to the ice. Then we attached the cranking mechanism onto the tub and its central container. From there on it was necessary to turn the crank and add more ice as necessary. As the ice melted, the water ran out a hole through one side of the wooden tub, leaving room for more salted ice. We knew the ice cream was ready when turning of the crank became very difficult. During the turning the metal container rotated inside of the ice blanket about it. When the ice cream was ready the loungers at the general store were told about it, and they came and bought dishes full to eat for 5 cents each. If all of the ice cream was not sold, we members of the family had a chance to finish it up. It was delicious and we always hoped it would not be sold out.

In looking back on those days perhaps I should mention the existence of two touted health gadgets. One was a boxed instrument called a violet-ray machine. It was owned by our minister's family. It probably was powered by a battery. It had wires leading into a closed glass tube with a bulb at the end. When the juice was

turned on a violet glow appeared in the tube. It was impressive but I never heard of anyone being benefitted by its treatment. The other was an instrument called an oxypathor, owned by my Aunt Edith. It consisted of a heavy solid cylinder with wires attached at each end. The covered wires led to metal plates to be attached to each wrist or ankle. Then when the cylinder was immersed in the ice or cold water some thing beneficial was supposed to flow through the person's system. It was tried on me once, when I was ill. I felt nothing and received no benefit. Undoubtedly it was purely a quack gadget.

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