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each experience in a person's life plays a part
in determining their personality, way of life and
life's accomplishments. memories of the past
determine what they'll plan and which for the
future. i have grown up i a rural community,
attending school in a small town, knowing the ways
of both the small town and the farm.
the farm, with all its pleasures and drudgeries
holds me as it does few other farm girls. perhaps
this magnet is agriculture and farm life in general
, or perhaps it is just our farm. we have a large
beautiful farm, flat but with a small wooded cut
through by a very unromantic drainage ditch. this
ditch serves two purposes - usefulness in draining
the land and beauty it lends to the countryside
with its quiet, clear water overshadowed by tall
cottonwoods and entanglements of wild
grapevines.
the barnyard, planned efficiently for large
herds of feeder cattle and hogs, with two large
barns, a corncrib and a brick silo rising
majestically above it, is picturesquely settled
beneath giant maples and cottonwoods. the long
ramshackle machine shed along the west edge of the
yards, and the tool shed, small and dark with the
smell of grease throughout, houses the machinery,
old harnesses, outmoded binder equipment and modern
drills an saws. just east of this unpainted shed is
d double garage, in which is found the huge water
storage tank, and behind which is found a huge
apple tree, rich with blossoms but scant in fruit.
north of the house behind the honeysuckle hedge,
the orchard stretches away to the north, to the
ditch bank where wild grapevines and raspberries
thrive. circling the county tile in spring are
thousands of many-shaded violets blooming in the
tangles shade.
as children with the neighbor broods all
gathered together, playhouse were built in the
vines on the nearly perpendicular banks, and rafts
which actually did float. this was early in the
summer, for later most of the water dried up. then
we turned to the two-story tree hut built behind
the machine shed. with awninged windows, real
hinged doors and trap doors in the second floor and
roof, we set up headquarters for the rubber gun
fights, a colonial stockade of a refuge for
experimental smokers. the younger children under
the unobtrusive eye of my mother played across the
road from the house in the tank by the windmill.
shaded by the dense tangle of grapevines on the
delicate steel framework, we sailed our battleships
and ferries and drove our cars on the "highway"
edge of the tank. toy towns were built in selected
area - under the mulberry trees down by the ditch
or under the apple tree behind the garage. but all
our time wasn't play. there were chickens and ducks
to be cared for, gardens to tend and the crops to
cultivate and harvest. every morning meant getting
the lazy cows from the far end of the dewy pasture,
feeding the chickens and washing the separator.
family policy was to get up early and get things
done. when the boys were home, their chores would
be pitching hay and silage or milking the six cows.
when they were gone this lot fell to me. it's
pleasant work to fork the heavy, odorous silage
through the small square door and to hear it crash
down into the cart ready to be wheeled out along
the track and shoveled into the feed bunks.
pitching hay is a different matter, demanding a
technique for unpiling it easily without much
effort, carrying huge piles of it on your fork
through the air to the chute.
as spring drew near, we eagerly pitched hay away
from one end of the barn for here was our homemade
basketball court, on which we spent our leisure
after school hours until the new hay came to fill
the barns again.
our farm was a popular center to play in, for we
had the big barns, the wooded areas and the dredged
ditch, away from the watchful eyes of parents. they
must have worried, yet probably became immune to
the dangers threatening us. when we were children,
nearly every neighboring family had at least three
children whose parents were one of six or eight
themselves.
three sets of brothers lived less than a mile
apart, each set being related to the others. my
father, with six children and my childless uncle
and aunt across the section on a large farm were
one and ralph and willie carlon were another, being
opposites in farming ability, temperament an
personality. ralph has a neat farm, two hard
working boys and a pleasant dutiful wife. he is a
very righteous deacon in the church and typically
narrow-minded. willie isn't much of a farmer, but
he's friendly , broadminded and loves to talk. he
is generous and would do anything for you, but he's
getting old, and as many old people, he has become
difficult to live with or take care of. literally
driven away from his own farm by his nagging
daughter-in-law, he moved into this daughter's tiny
rented farm home. after a few years of ungrateful
treatment by his son and his wife, he boosted them
out of the home place and moved himself and his
daughter's family in. and as usual, the
neighborhood took it all in, highly approving of
the action.
the third set of brothers also built up
prosperous farms, one a cattle feeder and the other
a dairyman on the home place. being on the home
place meant the building were older, smaller and
inefficient, with an old house, desperately in need
of remodeling. ed works hard but is a man who never
gets quite finished with his work. a wonderful
neighbor, he is willing to help with anything
unless his wife influences him first. she is woman
to be both condemned and pitied, for she is a
homebody, with no outside interests. consequently,
her energy is directed at feeling sorry for herself
and gossiping about her neighbors. from my mother,
and from experience with many of my neighbors, i
have learned to which type of people one may talk
freely, and the ones with whom i must weigh every
word.
but in spite of their narrow-mindedness and
extreme interest in everybody else's activities,
they are good people to live among and it is a
neighborhood where i would be happy to raise my
children. there are so many advantages to a farming
community, i want my children to share these same
experiences-- haying and oats cutting with the
dripping cups of lemonade and coffee, crisp cookies
and tasty sandwiches eaten in the shade of a hay
load or by a stubby oats shock. i want them to
enjoy the ice skating on the dredged ditch and
playing basketball in the barn, and just as i want
them to enjoy the farm, i want them to realize its
relation to other ways of life into which they will
eventually enter.
so that they may have a richer life, i want them
to grow up on the family farm, to acquire the
heritage which can be theirs only by
experience--living working and playing on the farm
where family life is close and cooperative.
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