Stella C. Shetter

“ Truman and Joe had made it, and it was just like a little house, with tiny windows and doors and a wee bit of a porch where the birds would sit to sun themselves.
“Then there were the chickens to look after, often a hundred baby chicks to feed and put in their coops at night. And in the spring what fun we had hunting turkey hens’ nests! In February we tapped the sugar trees and boiled down the sap into maple sugar and sirup. We had Easter egg hunts and school Christmas treats, and in the fall we gathered in the nuts for winter—chestnuts, hickory nuts, walnuts.” ”

“ The ghosts turned out to be some of the big boys who had wrapped themselves in sheets to frighten the folks. The opening of the front door that Charlie and I had heard had been Truman bringing out the sheets, but my yells had scared them and they looked right sheepish and didn’t say anything when Isabel Strang asked them whether they thought Mother Girty was after them. ”

“ We had a nice lunch that the girls had packed—chicken and pickles and election cake, with apples and cookies to eat between times. Everything seemed wonderful! The fine red plush seats, the conductor in his blue uniform and brass buttons, the rushing at such a swift pace through the country—it was like fairyland to me.
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“But I got car-sick, and then pretty soon Charlie got a cinder in his eye. Poor Mother had her hands full. She made a pillow for me with the wraps and I lay down, but I didn’t get any better. ”

“ But one year we didn’t know whether to look for a treat or not. The teacher, a Mr. Hazen, was from Clayville, and he had been heard to say that he did not believe in ‘barring out’ or in being forced to treat his pupils. Nevertheless we all came early to school one morning and locked him out.
“While we all cried ‘Treat! Treat!’ at the tops of our voices, William Orbison opened the window a tiny bit and thrust out the paper they had prepared for the teacher to sign, but he refused to touch it. ”

“ THE LOCUSTS
“Grandma,” said Bobby one evening, “did you ever see a locust—a seventeen-year locust? And why are they called seventeen-year locusts?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen locusts and heard them, too,” answered Grandma, taking up her knitting. “They are called seventeen-year locusts because they come every seventeen years. They lay their eggs in a tree. These eggs hatch tiny worms, called larvae, which fall to the ground and stay there for seventeen years changing slowly until they have turned into locusts. They live only about thirty days, but they often do a great deal of damage in this time. ”

“ So all summer the bees worked away, and one day in the fall Mr. Brierly sent Father word that he would be over that week to take the honey. A few mornings later when I came in sight of the bee tree I stopped in amazement. The bee tree was gone! Instead of standing straight and tall like a soldier on guard, it lay flat on the ground. ”

“ Father had raised Prince, and we all loved him, especially Charlie and I. He was nine years old, but he still looked like a colt. His coat was brown and glossy, and he was as playful and active as he had ever been. When he had been a colt, the older children had petted him and fed him sugar. Charlie and I had taken it up when they left off, so that he had always been used to children and loved them.
“But Prince had a bad habit, and that was the reason he was to be sold. He balked whenever a grown person rode or drove him. ”

“ The girls would laugh about Stanley’s house and say they wouldn’t marry a man who wouldn’t let them furnish their own house. And often they would tease Polly Ann, but she would only toss her head and say nothing.
“And all the time Stanley worked away, singing and whistling as happy as could be. When any one questioned him, he would say he meant to keep bachelor’s hall, or that he hadn’t decided what he would do, or that he planned to marry the sweetest girl he knew. Belle and Aggie were wild to know what girl he meant. ”

“ Don’t you know, my dear, that it is sometimes braver to take a dare than not? There is a time to say ‘no,’ and the boy or girl who doesn’t know when to say ‘no’ is often foolhardy rather than brave. I didn’t always know that, though, and I’ll tell you [211] how I learned it. When I was little I played so much with brother Charlie that in many ways I was like a boy. One of Charlie’s codes was that he would never take a dare, and so of course it became my code, too.
“One Friday night Betty Bard came home from school with me to stay until Saturday afternoon. ”

“ Stanley wanted a new saddle for his courting colt. When the boys turned eighteen, Father gave each one of them a colt to tame and break and have for his own, and they were called the courting colts. I wanted the egg money for a lovely wax doll like one I had seen in a store in Clayville, and if Charlie got it he meant to spend it for a gun. Aggie wanted to buy a pair of long lace mitts to wear to Belle’s wedding. So we all hunted and hunted, each one thinking of what he would buy with the money. ”

“ Grandma had told Bobby and Alice and Pink of the first Easter, and had explained about the egg being the symbol of life because it contains everything necessary for the awakening of new life.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “we had lots of chickens and of course we had lots of eggs. We got so many eggs that we could not use them all—not even if Mother made custards and omelets and angel cake every day.
“Father or the boys would take the eggs we did not need to the store and trade them for sugar or coffee or pepper or rice. ”

“ Once as the fire grew warmer and the smoke got thicker and thicker the bear snorted and moved to a limb higher up.
“Charlie kept a roaring fire going, and it wasn’t long until Belle and the boys came rushing up all out of breath from running. They were nearly scared to death because they had seen the smoke and thought the cabin was on fire.
“At first they wouldn’t believe we had a bear treed. Truman said, ‘Whoever heard of a bear climbing a tree like that?’ But Stanley said nobody knew what a bear might do, and Charlie said that there was the bear all right, they could see for themselves. ”

“ Redding circuit was very hard to please, and though Father never found fault with any of our preachers and always paid his tithes, still I knew that Brother Bard was not popular. Betty said it was because he did good by stealth and no one ever found it out.
“‘If I move away,’ said Betty as we sat under the apple tree talking that afternoon, ‘you may have my playhouse rock at school, Sarah, and all my dahlia roots, and the black kitten. The kitten’s name is Bad Boy because he jumps on the table when no one is looking. ”

“ If you two girls and Charlie and I let her say more verses than we do, she would get it.’
“‘But if we knew more verses and just let her get the Testament on purpose,’ put in Annie, ‘it wouldn’t be right, would it?’
“‘But see how hard she’s trying,’ argued Betty. ‘The Carsons have nothing but the big family Bible, and Lissy has to stand by the table and learn her verses out of it. If she works so hard and doesn’t get anything, she might think there’s no use in trying.’
“Annie looked stubborn. ”

“ I was aroused by sister Belle’s voice. She was complaining to sister Aggie, who had stayed at home to get dinner.
“‘I don’t see why Charlie can’t behave himself once in a while. Now our whole day [20] is spoiled, and I had asked John and Isabel for dinner, too. You know how sad it always makes Father if he has to punish one of the boys, and the worst of it is that Charlie denies doing it. I could shake Charlie good myself. You can’t believe, Aggie, how everyone looked at us. ”

“ They handed out the boxes first to the people who had paid in their money, and sold the others. There weren’t enough boxes to go around, but each had plenty in it for three or four people. Every one divided, and there was not a person in the church who did not get something to eat. People who had been in favor of the organ ate out of the same boxes with those who had been against it and forgot that they had ever disagreed. And when the organ came and sister Aggie played it that first Sunday, why, it sounded sweeter to me than that beautiful big organ in your church did this morning. ”

“ Father said folks were likely to do that. We seldom had services at our church on Thanksgiving because the minister was usually off in another part of the circuit holding a meeting. But at the breakfast table, after Father had asked the blessing, to preserve and foster, as he said, the real spirit of the day, each one of us would tell something we had to be thankful for.
“And one Thanksgiving morning Charlie said he couldn’t think of anything to be thankful for except, of course, Father and Mother and good health and Sport, but nothing special, he said. I knew what was the matter with Charlie. ”

“ Grandma exclaimed in surprise when Bobby told her why he did not like to take violin lessons. “But you’ll have to practice, you know, or you will never learn to play. I knew a boy once, who dearly liked to practice. I think I’ll tell you about him. It was my brother Charlie. Charlie had wanted a violin ever since he was just a little bit of a fellow and had first heard old Mr. Potter play on his violin. ”

“ Polly Ann had so many beaux that when she was sixteen every one thought she would be married before the year was out, and her father—Polly Ann was his only child—said that he wouldn’t give Polly Ann to any man. He needn’t have worried, for Polly Ann was so hard to please that she was still unwed at twenty when Stanley came home from school. By that time her father was telling every one how much land he meant to give Polly Ann when she married. ”

“ But I was afraid she would say I was too young to have a party, and I had never been to a party in my life. Sister Aggie was visiting Aunt Louisa in Clayville, and Mother had no one to help her except for what I could do mornings and evenings. But I would be at home all day Saturday, and Annie and Callie had said that they would help.
“Thursday morning Annie told me that she had baked a cake and put my initials on top in little red candies, and Callie said her mother was going to bake an election cake with spices and raisins in it. All day Thursday I kept thinking about the party. ”

“ Grandma put on her spectacles, but, instead of her knitting, she took up her Bible. The children were very still while she read the story of the first [244] Christmas—how in a stable in Bethlehem the baby Christ was born, and how an angel appeared to the shepherds, who were watching their flocks, and told them about the Savior’s birth, and then a host of angels came and praised God, saying, “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will toward men,” just as we sing today on Christmas.
“I think,” said Grandma, “that I will tell you tonight about a Christmas treat at our school. ”

“ Big iron hooks called ‘dogs’ would be driven into the logs and fastened to a heavy chain which would be hitched to a single-tree, and the log would be dragged over the smooth road by one horse. It was an easy way to get logs to the mill, and every one was hurrying to haul as many as possible before the thaw came.
“I like a violin better than a fiddle,” said Charlie to Mr. Potter
“Father had cut one big walnut log when he had been called to serve on jury duty and had gone to Clayville to attend court. ”

“ When we had explained the matter to Charlie, he looked at us scornfully. ‘I never saw such sillies,’ he said. ‘If you girls pull out, though, it will make it that much easier for the rest of us. I’m for the Testament.’ Then he pretended he was reading from a book he held in his hand, ‘Presented to Charles Purviance by his pastor for excellence—.’ Betty started after him, and then Annie and I chased him, too, and we got to playing ‘tag’ and forgot all about Lissy and the Testament. ”

“ Before sugar time came we would blow the contents out of eggs by making little holes in each end. Then we would dry the shells and put them away. When they were taking off the maple sugar, Mother or Belle or Aggie would fill the egg shells and set them aside for the sugar to cool and harden. They would fill goose-egg shells with the maple sugar, too, and when the sugar hardened they would pick the shell off, and by and by the girls would paste pretty pictures of birds or flowers on them and tie them with gay-colored ribbons for Easter. ”

“ When they had gone into the dining room, where Annie Brierly and some other little girls were waving peach switches over the tables to keep the flies and bees away and Sally was saying who should sit at the bride’s table, Charlie told me what had kept him. He had found the Garvins’ house locked up and had had to climb in a window to get the telescope. The dog had seen him as he had gotten in and wouldn’t let him come out until Charlie had fed him and made friends with him. ”

“ Sometimes these parties would be broken up by a crowd of rough boys who had not been invited, for if there was a lot of fun on Hallowe’en there was also a lot of mischief done. Nothing that could be moved was safe if left outside. Gates were carried away, wheels removed from wagons, farm machinery hidden, well buckets stolen, and roads barricaded with great logs. Some people took this time to vent their spite on anyone they did not like. ”

“ Simon had gone. Then we hunted all over the house and the yard and the garden, and Charlie kept on hunting when everyone else had given up. He climbed the trees and looked in all the bird nests around, because he had heard that sometimes, when birds are building, they carry valuable things to their nests. And he searched in every other unlikely place you could think of, but he didn’t find the brooch.
“We were very busy that summer, for besides our regular work we had to earn enough money to pay for Mother’s shawl. ”