Ed's Day Wednesday
Dear FOLKS,
Each Wednesday I continue to share family information that was provided by my late cousin Edwin J. Ostrom. We now focus on stories and anecdotes regarding Ed's maternal grandparents, Reinert Immanuel Emerson and his wife Dora Elisa Nilson. We have learned of the records found for Reinert that I wrote earlier as a report. You can see this report by clicking here.
In recent weeks I shared the memories of their two oldest daughters, Ruby and Geneva. You can see Ruby's story by clicking here and Geneva's story by clicking here.
The next of Reinert and Dora's children from whom I find written memories is their fourth child, daughter Lola Loella Emerson (1905-1995). It is not known when Lola wrote her story, but some suggest it was about 1970.
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IMAGE: A Richarson's Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus richardsonii),
in Fish Creek Park, Calgary, Alberta. Photo by Chuck Szmurlo
taken July 9 2005 with a Nikon D70 and a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 lens.
Better known as a FLICKERTAIL. Courtesy of Wikipedia.com. [1]
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"A FLICKERTAIL, Part One" by Lola Loella Emerson (Mrs. Stuart Ditch)
I am the fourth of a family of thirteen -- eight girls and five boys. I was born in Minnesota, leaving there when I was one-year old. I was brought up in the dried-out hills of North Dakota, 25 miles SW of Minot. We lived in a three-room house, two down and one up, perched on a hill where, the wind batted at it almost constantly. The cold blizzard winds of winter whistled through in places, and dust storms in the spring and fall left a coating of dust everywhere. But we were a happy lot. We made games out of work, and where there is a large family there is always a vast amount of work. We were fast workers, and when our jobs were done, we played. We could think of so many things to play, not like today, where play and recreation is provided for the young. In our spare time we created our own fun.
We girls could turn our hands to men’s work anytime; we stacked hay, stooked (stocked or stacked hay) and shoveled grain, cleaned barns, milked cows, fed pigs, hauled rocks and often drove horses doing field work.
Our nearest town was 14 miles away. Dad hauled coal from there. He always left early in the morning with a load of wheat and returned with a load of coal. When we thought it was time for him to be coming home, we went outside to listen for the sound of the wagon or the tinkling of the tug chains. We faintly hear him coming in the far distance, then we’d gallop in shouting, ‘Papa is coming!’ The boys would light the lantern in readiness to take the team to the barn, and Papa would come in all shivery and cold and oh, so hungry! We would stand around while he ate, scarcely able to contain ourselves for wanting to ask what goodies he had brought us. Excitement would make us hop when he’d finally rise from the table and produce from a box or package a couple of coconuts. We’d dash for the saw to cut them in two. We drank the milk inside and cut up the white meat. We thought this a wonderful treat. We very seldom got candy, it’s ‘bad for our teeth,’ Papa would say. Sometimes he brought peanuts.
We had close neighbors, the Albert Petersons, a very dear old couple. On an occasional evening Mama walked over for a chat with Mrs. Peterson, I suspect to have a bit of peace and quiet away from her noisy brood. We played around till it began to grow dark and I would begin to worry about Mama having to come home in the dark. The family would go to bed, and I would sit at the west window watching for Mama hoping and praying the wolves wouldn’t get her. We had no wolves in North Dakota, but the country was infested with coyotes and they were the one and same ferocious animal (so far as I was concerned). Finally, at long last I’d hear her at the door, and I’d quietly and swiftly steal up the stairs and into bed. I couldn’t have her know that I had sat up for her. Perhaps she had been gone only a couple of hours, but that seemed half the night to me.
We had an old pole-roofed barn with straw on top. We spent hours playing in this barn. The twine Papa bought for harvesting came in bags tied with rope, which made excellent swings. We made swings in every available place in that old barn. As the years passed the roof poles rotted more and more. One fall day Mama and Papa hitched up the team and wagon to drive 25 miles to Minot to bring home fruit for canning, which took two days. Papa warned us not to hang too many swings in the old barn, because of the precarious shape it was in. I’m sure they weren’t very far from home when we started hanging swings.
At first my brother was going to hang just one swing, but the idea grew till we hung four swings. I, being the littlest at the time was left with a short rope, but if the rest was going to swing, then so was I! I climbed up on a stall and fastened my short little rope on a roof pole, and eased myself into it. I had to pull in my neck so my head wouldn’t bump against the roof. There I sat and swung in little short jerks, like a canary in its cage, with not a care in the world. I sort of envied the rest with their nice long swings though.
We swung in great style and sang with gusto. We were always singing it seems, and here was I trying to outshine the rest with my singing, when CRASH! Down comes the roof, poles, straw, and arms and legs all mixed together. One by one we crept out of the mess unhurt, but plenty worried about not heeding Papa’s warning, and the punishment awaiting us, all but me, being the smallest. I knew the older ones would get the punishment. Then I secretly thought it served them right, because they had given me such a short rope for my swing. When Papa and Mama returned, Papa didn’t give out with a very tough punishment. He really was very lenient with us, but he reasoned “you could have all been killed” which made us sit up and take notice.
So now we needed a new barn which was erected in due time and what an edifice it turned out to be! The biggest and most beautiful barn in the neighborhood. It had a hayloft and hay slings, so now we had something else to play in. We rode those hay slings from one end of that hayloft to the other, shouting till the horses and cattle trembled in their stalls. We climbed all over that new barn till it began to look like a battle-scarred veteran.
The most time playing in the barn was in the winter when not in school. Suppertime would find us dashing for the house, hungry as wolves. The table was invariably piled high with potato cakes, a huge platter of fried pork or perhaps a large pan of Mom’s delicious baked brown beans. Many a summer’s supper consisted of thick sour milk with bread and butter. We ate gallons of sour milk and loved it.
Mother was a staunch Christian who was determined not to work any more than necessary on Sunday. On Saturday she would cook up a huge kettle of chicken soup and Sunday mornings she would gather us all around the kitchen table for our Sunday school lessons. She slid the soup kettle onto the back of the kitchen range to heat. That was our usual Sunday noon meal. I got so hungry that I could scarcely wait till our lessons were done (I can smell that delicious soup yet). I guess we should never outgrow Sunday school, but so it seems to be. When James decided he was too big for Sunday school, he announced that he had many chores to do around the barn. From then on he was very busy with his chores at Sunday school time. Finally he was away from home entirely working away and we were so proud of him. Our big brother had outgrown the home nest and was away making his own way. We flocked around him on his trips home plying him with questions about his experiences. Often he had gum. My, he must be rich as already he can afford to buy gum! He gave us all a stick and we’d chew that gum for days, sticking it to the bedpost at night, so we could pop it into our mouth come morning.
Peddlers and travelers often stayed the night at our house. I marvel now how we managed that. Our house was small and also the barn didn’t have room in it for extra horses. My parents would never turn anyone away from our door. We squeezed the horses and humans in somehow. Consequently we got bed bugs, which we fought continuously. Our little house was so full of cracks with so many places to hide. We would have made short work of the bedbugs if we had DDT, but since it was unheard of in those days the bugs just laughed at our feeble attempts to exterminate them. Today DDT is forbidden but it seems that bed bugs have long since disappeared so no more worry over that.
The first of May the young folks in the entire community went out hanging May baskets. What fun we had dashing miles over the hills always on foot to hang a basket on a neighbors doorknob. What an amazing amount of energy we had!
In the fall we were out in full force doing Halloween tricks. We’d run or walk miles to play a trick on a neighbor. Some of us would get hurt running into things in the dark. Once James got cut quite badly running into a wire fence. The week between Christmas and New Year was spent ‘Christmas Fooling’ or ‘Ulle Booking’ as the Norwegians called this Norwegian custom. What fun we had again disguising ourselves going with team and sleigh to the neighbors who tried to identify us. We gathered the young people there and went to the next place. We were extra pleased when our Dad went with us as he was so much fun.
Our schoolhouse stood on a hill with a slough below which we named ‘The Kettle.’ We skated on it in the winter and swam in it in the summer. It was infested with lizards, water snakes, frogs and beetles, but what cared we for that. No one had bathing suits. We couldn’t afford such a luxury, so everyone went in quite naked. Girls on one side, boys on the other and woe to the boy or girl who dared to venture to the other side!
At school we played ball ‘pom-pom-pull away,’ ‘O'dare base,’ ‘prisoner’s base’ and ‘still water.’
At the end of the school year we’d have a picnic at Rice Lake. Some kind neighbor would take all of us in his hayrack. What hilarious times we had. Rice Lake was nestled in among the hills three miles from home. It was a place of enchantment. It was also one of the few places in the country where trees grew. How we loved those trees. Every Sunday hundreds of people congregated there for swimming and picnicking. For a time there was a dance hall, but it burned down and was never rebuilt. There was a booth on the grounds selling all sorts of goodies. We would coax a nickel out of Mama or Papa and off we’d go on a Sunday to the lake. I would hang onto my nickel very tightly arriving at the booth. I’d be so thirsty and had quite decided to buy a pop, but here was a little girl with an ice cream cone, “Oh my, that looks good!” Perhaps I should buy a cone instead and on the other side someone would be drinking pop, “Gee, I’d like that too!” I only had one nickel so I can’t have both pop and ice cream. I’d walk away trying to decide what I wanted most. I would repeat this performance till they’d either be sold out or closing up. Home I’d go with my nickel and then be so angry with myself.
We spent the noon hours and recesses at school in winter, skiing and coasting. Our school was surrounded by hills just made for sledding and skiing. Girls didn’t wear ski pants in those days, but wore those heavy fleece-lined bloomers, which the snow stuck to in gobs. The bell would ring and we hadn’t time to pick off the gobs of snow, so they would thaw as we sat at our desks. In no time we’d be as wet as fishes. However, no one seemed to suffer any ill effects.
We often experienced raging blizzards. When we were quite small we thought of them as ‘fun.’ But as we grew older and heard of or read in the papers of people getting lost and freezing to death, we didn’t think blizzards were so much fun anymore.
One March morning it was sleeting as we started off to school. We hopped, skipped and jumped along as we usually did, with never a thought in our young heads that perhaps we wouldn’t be sleeping in our warm beds that night. By mid-morning the sleet turned to snow coming down thick and furry. Almost immediately one of those prairie winds came up and in minutes we could see nothing but swirling snow through the school windows. How it howled around the corners. The bigger boys kept busy shoveling coal into the heater and filling the coal buckets from the coal shed a few feet from the schoolhouse. They had to form a bucket brigade, holding onto each other and passing the coal bucket from one to the other, for if one stepped out of line or lost contact the swirling snow would engulf him getting him hopelessly lost. His yelling possibly would not be heard above the din of the wind.
At 4 p.m. the storm was still raging and no one dared to venture out. It began to grow dark; the little ones were getting hungry. The teacher emptied all the lunch boxes feeding the children. We made beds out of the desks, using coats for covers putting them to bed. We older ones played games and really had a lot of fun. The only light we had was the glow from the heater. About 9 or 10 o’clock in comes a neighbor all covered with snow. He was worried for fear his children had started home and couldn’t rest till he was sure they were safe. After first fastening it to the doorknob of his house, he tied a ball of twine to a fence post near his home and as he progressed he looped the twine around each post. This fence went all the way to the school. He stayed the remainder of the night, keeping the heater going and reading books from our library. Shortly after this man arrived, the door opened again and in walks my big brother laden with loaves of bread, butter and a lantern, what bravery, our Hero. He accomplished a greater feat as he had no fence line to follow but reasoned that if he kept walking so the wind would strike him from the same direction he would eventually come to the fence that led to the school. Our parents and the wife of the neighbor must have worried and prayed constantly that night, for they had no way of knowing if they arrived at the school safely. No one around those parts had telephones in those days. The storm raged on through the night and the next day till about 3 pm when it finally wore itself out. The sun came out and we all went home. What rejoicing and thanks to God as each child returned safely home, but several schools had not been so lucky. We read in the papers of so many children and teachers who lost their lives in that storm. Our teacher had been wise to not let us venture out.
One other blizzardy morning Dad tied a ball of twine to the doorknob and unrolled it as he went to the barn to do the chores, so if perchance he should miss the barn he could follow the twine back again. He found the barn and did up the chores. I could sense the tenseness in Mama as she sat silently and no doubt praying waiting for Dad’s return and her joy at his appearance. Following these blizzards, we kids had such glorious fun, digging out rooms, breezeways and more rooms in the huge drifts, pretending we were Eskimos.
We made snow skates out of pieces of 2 x 4’s, fastened them onto our overshoes with straps and twine and away we’d sail down the slopes of the hard packed drifts. We’d practically strip the harness off its straps, and Papa would storm at us when he had to clean out the barn as he had only pieces of harness hanging on the pegs. He would get furious and scold and threaten us, and we’d scamper around hunting up the straps and returning them to the barn till the next time we’d get the urge to go snow skating. What a happy, carefree lot we were!
My cousin, Joe, from Berthold, came to visit us for a few days one winter. He and my brother James made a toboggan. “Weren’t we the smart ones though?” No one else in the neighborhood owned a toboggan and what a fascinating thing it turned out to be. We took it out to the ‘Big Hill’ for its maiden run. Of course, Joe and Jim had to have the first crack at it, because, “they built it, didn’t they?” It was long enough for four persons, but they were being very selfish and pompous and wouldn’t let anyone on but just the two of them for its initiation. Excitement ran high as we stood in the deep snow at the top of the hill and watched. They slid away just beautifully for about 50 feet when the toboggan begun to spin. As it went down it gathered momentum and was spinning gaily around at great speed till it struck a bump of hard snow and upset, sending the boys rolling like snowballs down the remainder of the hill. We at the top of the hill laughed and squealed with glee. Finally we all got turns at it and it performed the same way with us all spilling us out and sending us tumbling. We decided that was more fun than if it had behaved sensibly.
Every New Year’s Eve, two of us would go to the school house and two to the church in the opposite direction and at precisely twelve midnight we ring the bells and in that treeless country they could be heard for miles. The entire community would know, “that’s the Emerson kids at it again.”
I started school at the Hillside School, which was rightly named, as it actually stood on a hillside, and what a divine spot. The hills were made for sliding in the winter. While playing in the summer we pretended huge rock piles were hospitals. One particular boy was chosen as the doctor. He brought shoeboxes full of bottles pretending they were filled with medicine. The rest of us acted as the patients lying stretched out all around the rock pile moaning and groaning. The bell would ring and we’d scramble up and dash for the schoolhouse, the Dr. hiding his bottles in the rock pile. I believe one could still find remnants of those bottles in those rock piles.
I had a very poor head of hair. My scalp was plainly visible in several places, so Mama decided to shave my head. “Your hair will come back much thicker,” she said. Of course I strongly protested and wailed, “I can’t go to school with a shaved head, the kids will torment me to death!” “Suit yourself,” Mama said, “but when you are a young lady, do you want to look like a plucked chicken?” I thought this over and tearfully submitted to the shearing. Going to school the next day was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. I wore a toque, and hurried to school early so I could get permission from the teacher to wear that toque in school till my hair grew out. On looking at such a tragic, woebegone face, she couldn’t find it in her heart to say no. That toque stayed on my head for quite some time. Oh Yes! I took plenty of ribbing about it, and I was constantly on guard lest someone should snatch my toque and reveal my baldhead. After a few days they wearied of teasing me. Wearing a toque in school began to be just one of those things. Wonder of wonders my hair did return much thicker.
Ah! School days! How we can scarcely wait till we grow up and out of school. But now I look back on my school days as being the most precious days of my life. First going to Hillside School, then to Torning, tripping along happily and carefree, barefoot in the summer and bundled to the eyebrows in the winter, wading through deep snow, enjoying every moment.
I shared a desk my first year in school with another beginner, Bertha Johnson. We learned our letters and words that were on a big chart. Poor Bertha, she could not sound hard C. When she said “hat for cat” the teacher would fly into a temper, sometimes slapping poor Bertha. I felt so sorry for her, tempting to say “hat” too!
I learned reading and spelling quite rapidly, but ah me, “arithmetic!” It and I didn’t get along at all. Figures just weren’t meant for me. But I was a wizard at learning poetry. I learned long recitations for our school concerts. At one of our school concerts I recited, ‘The Chatterbox!’ I proudly recited it aloud and eloquent and afterwards I was teased about how the recitation just suited me, as I was truly a ‘chatterbox.’ Then I saw red. I was furious with my teacher for having me recite it, “so she was poking fun at me, was she?” I tried not to chatter so much after that, “I’d clam up, and I’d show them!”
I had a school days sweetheart ‘Joseph Jacobson,’ who was quite an artist. I kept a collection of his drawings for years.
The boys at school had a silly game they played till they got caught. They pretended they were foxes. They completely undressed themselves, held tumbling weeds at their backsides for tails and away they’d dash all over the hills during the noon hour. The teacher saw them and when we were all seated at our desks again, she quietly told the boys she had seen them running around in the nude and asked them the reason for it. They explained that they were pretending to be foxes and took off their clothes so they could run faster. “I see,” she said, “but supposing someone passing by had seen you, they would think you had gone quite mad and report you to the proper authorities.” The boys admitted that it must have looked pretty silly and never played that game again.
Before we got our well and windmill we had to water the cattle about a mile away at Lundberg’s slough. Lundberg was a bachelor; he papered his walls with funny papers as they were called in those days, which was fascinating to us kids. These ‘funny-papers’ came in large sheets like newspapers. We didn’t have them at our house. In the first place they cost money and secondly we could do without that foolishness. Of course we were intrigued with Lundberg’s funny-papered walls. We were all eager to take the cattle to water and while they were drinking we’d knock on Lundberg’s door. He was always happy to see us. I suspect he was lonely. We couldn’t have been much company for we’d be too busy reading his walls. We started at the door and worked our way around. We couldn’t read it all in one watering trip so it took many trips to make it all around.
Sometimes we got scolded for being so long at watering the cattle. We discussed at long length the delightful entertainment and enjoyment those funny papered walls afforded us hoping Mama was listening, if she was, she gave no sign of it. She was adamant so far as funny papers were concerned, however, our kitchen ceiling was papered with newspapers and we would lie on the floor for hours playing the game, ‘What do I see?’ The rest of us tried to find a certain work or picture. That doesn’t sound very exciting for the kids of today, but we thought it great fun, and I’m sure Mama was pleased with the quietness for the game. For we were usually a very noisy bunch.
During one of our cattle watering trips our four-year-old brother, Ray, got lost. Mama thought he was too small to go trudging over the hills and wouldn’t be able to keep up. But this day he sneaked away, staying far enough behind so the boys wouldn’t notice him. When he got over one hill the boys and the cattle had disappeared over the next. He became confused and took the wrong path. The boys and cattle returned and then we missed Ray. Mama felt that he must have tried to follow the boys. We all set out over the hills in search, finally we found him at a neighbor's. He had wandered over there. They took him in and there he sat as happy as could be eating bread and sugar. I was so glad that we found him; I went out behind the house and cried.
When there were communicable diseases around Mama would toss a handful of sulfur on the stove, “to kill the germs,” she said. And what a pretty flame that would make, but the smell was horrible. So consequently, we didn’t catch everything that went around but we did get the whooping cough. Four of us came down with it at the same time and we made a game out of that too. We had coughing contests. The one who coughed the hardest was the winner, and we had many an argument as to who was the winner.
We cleaned the barns. Girls as well as boys pitched hay, milked cows, fed calves and pigs, fed chickens and gathered their eggs, and in haying time we all helped. Also during harvest I topped many a haystack and walked miles tramping hay. I also drove a team on the hay rake for days at a time.
Papa and most of us kids would take off in the morning with our sandwiches and milk. We sat in the shade of the haystack at noon to eat our lunch. One day we seemed to be hungrier than usual, eating our food like hungry wolves and wanting more. So Dad sent two of us to a nearby neighbor to buy a loaf of bread. As we neared the house we smelled bread baking, actually making us drool. The lady of the house sold us two loaves of fresh bread. I can yet taste the deliciousness of it.
Brother James was always on the mower. One day he was driving a team, a mare and a gelding. The mare had a colt about four months old and of course it was cavorting around and got right in front of the sickle. James couldn’t stop the team quickly enough as the sickle cut the colts two hind legs almost off. What a tragedy that was! Having no gun, again, one of us was dispatched to this neighbor to borrow a gun so Dad could kill the colt. We kids all ran behind the haystack threw ourselves on the ground and covered our ears while Dad did away with the colt. We didn’t appear again till he had dragged the colt over the hill. We were a very sad and solemn group for the rest of that day.
We girls often operated the bull-rake or hay bucker. Once when it was Geneva’s turn on the bull-rake, she was swinging her right foot over the edge of the seat, and the crazy wheel under the seat caught her leg in its spokes. She yelled and screamed for the horses to stop, but she only made them excited with all her yelling and they wouldn’t stop. I happened to be quite near so I ran over and yanked her leg out. This as a risky thing to do as it could have so easily broken it. However, nothing serious happened. She had a very sore leg for quite a while.
We also took turns herding cattle, a job we dreaded out in the hot sun with no shade in that treeless country. Geneva though liked to herd cattle because it gave her hours to spend at reading, her favorite hobby.
Brother Ole and I were herding cattle one day near the road. No one in the community had cars at the time so we were surprised and excited to see a car drive up and stop. A Ford touring car, “what elegance” we thought, and one of the men said, “We’re looking for the Emerson place.” We told him we were Emerson children and he said, “Hop in and show us where to go.” Ole and I looked at each other with the unvoiced question, “Do we dare ride in that thing?” But the men seemed to be in a hurry so we climbed into the back seat. I was hanging on tight to my side and Ole was hanging on tight to his and away we went. The speed of it nearly took our breath away. The prairie roads in those days were rutted and very rough so one couldn’t travel over 15 miles an hour, but after having ridden only in buggies or wagons this was great speed indeed. We did plenty of boasting in school the next day about our car ride.
We trapped, snared, and drowned our gophers to no end. Dad gave us a penny for each gopher tail. We girls as well as the boys also trapped muskrats. We rose early and went on foot to all the sloughs to check our traps before going to school. We also had chores to do but it was very rare for any of us to be late to school. Mama couldn’t abide tardiness. After supper each night we’d skin our muskrats and mount the pelts on stretchers. We didn’t have too many idle moments.
Trains and train whistles fascinated us. We would sit on top of the old barn on a still, moonlit night and strain our ears to catch the train whistle in the far, far distance. Perhaps it was several evenings of this before one of us, or all, would hear it ever so faintly. Then we’d talk for days about how we’d heard the train whistle.
Our mother cat was expecting a family. We expected every day to find a litter of kittens in one of the mangers. One evening Oliver and Ivene came into the barn when I was doing the milking. They looked in all the mangers and finally found the sleeping mother cat all rolled into a ball. Ivene said to Oliver, “Hush Oliver, she’s laying little kittens.’ I shot a noisy stream of milk in the pail so they wouldn’t hear me laugh.
Like twins, William and Ole were always together. William was neat and trim about his person and everything he did, whereas Ole was just the opposite, he was easy going and sloppy. Mama bought them identical clothes, but in no time at all Ole’s would be rags and William’s stayed like new. Mama would get so exasperated with Ole. I recall one morning Ole and William in their new pants, starting off to school Mama cautioned Ole to be careful. But poor Ole, he was just naturally clumsy. Our school path led through our pasture, which necessitated crawling through the fence. William went first without a hitch. Ole hesitated a moment no doubt worrying about getting through safely. He started through and sure enough his pant leg ripped as it caught on a barb. He just sat down on the ground and cried. I felt so sorry for him that I cried too.
Our family was increasing and there were endless dishes to do. Geneva especially hated washing dishes, but was so fond of reading. She had a favorite trick she played on me and gullible me, a bit of praise from her and I’d break my neck. We were taught to get at the dishes as soon as a meal was finished. Geneva got the urge to go to the out-house, snatch up her book and disappear. I hurried to get as much done as possible. Of course her strategy was to stay long enough for me to get most of the dishes done. Each event got longer and longer with the compliment for being such a fast worker. I’d beam all over and be so pleased. Mama put a stop to this when she found out all this was going on.
We made endless mud pies, played in the cornfields and made roads and rooms in the tall pigweeds pretending we were in the forest. How the word ‘forest’ intrigued me since one tree was a thing to be revered. Smoke from forest fires in Canada floated over us in the spring and fall. I stood and looked to the north, wondering what our bald prairie would be like as a forest. What limitless, profound mystery a whole forest would be. We crept around in the tall pig weeds, pretending each stalk was a magnificent tree and imagining we were in the deep forest turning each bug and beetle into a ferocious wild beast: a mouse would be a caribou, moose, elk or reindeer, whatever our fancy desired. We pulled out weeds to make paths and widened out places to make rooms and farm-steads in the mighty forest. We crept along these paths to visit our neighbors. Not very exciting to the kids of today.
We played a game called ‘Honest Fact.’ If one of us told something and the listener doubted the truth of it, he or she asked, “honest or honest fact?” If the answer was “honest” it didn’t necessarily have to be the truth but ‘honest fact’ was something else again, that better be the truth or else! If anyone dared say “honest fact” and we found out it wasn’t the truth, woe unto that person. For punishment we refused to play with that person, and that was a dire thing indeed. Sometimes Papa would join in the game by telling the biggest yarns followed by, “honest fact.” Of course we let him get by with it, because he was our Papa and we loved to have him play with us.
On cold winter evenings Papa often said, “If you girls will go and help with the milking I’ll wash the supper dishes!” You can bet we were more than pleased to get out of the dishes. We said, “O.K. Papa, but you have to put the dishes away and not leave them all over the table like you did last time.”
“Why girls!” he said, “You know I’ll put them away!” We came in from the barn with foaming pails of milk and sure enough, dishes were piled on the table, Papa sitting in his favorite chair with the most impish smirk on his face calmly reading his paper. We just couldn’t get mad at him.
We thought of so many fun things to do. We spent every Sunday after our Sunday school lessons playing horse. We held sticks in our hands for front legs and galloped all over the hills kicking up our hind legs. We even hitched ourselves to the old buggy and dragged it all over the country. Horses and all would climb into the buggy and by means of ropes we steered that buggy down the hills at a merry clip. At the bottom the horses, not forgetting their front legs, climbed out and pulled the buggy back up the hill for a delightful sail down again. We became quite expert at steering this shaft-less buggy down the hills.
Mama had a time with us in the spring. We couldn’t wait to go barefoot and begged for that privilege before all the snow was gone. Mama reasoned she didn’t want any sick kids around. She told us to have patience, as there would be time enough to go barefoot.
One spring when all the snow had disappeared and the slough behind the barn was full of water we begged to go wading, Mama told us to wait a few days as ice is under that water. We didn’t think she knew what she was talking about, so we disobeyed her. That slough drew us like a magnet. William, Ole and I stood on the shore looking at it for a while. We had to find out for ourselves if there was any ice. So off came our shoes and socks as we stepped in gingerly. ‘Ah ha,’ Mama didn’t know what she was talking about. We ventured out farther and behold! There was ice, and it was slippery. I was hanging on William and Ole was hanging on me. Ole slipped and fell. I could feel the drag on my skirt, eek! It was cold and here was Ole soaked from head to toe. Now, what were we to do, we had disobeyed Mama. Woe unto us! With a bit of drying to do. William’s pant leg and the bottom of my skirt were wet. Ole sat quite naked beside me while his clothes were crying. Mama didn’t know for years about this episode.
We played cards many evenings in the winter: Pit, Bunco, Flinch, Pig, Old Maid and Somerset. What fun we had when Papa played with us even when he cheated something awful. We were so pleased to have him play with us. We let him cheat, but woe unto the rest of us if we were caught cheating. Papa said it wasn’t any fun following the rules and broke them whenever he fancied. Then he pretended he didn’t know any better. We explained the rules to him. He said, ‘Well, it’s no fun playing that way.” Sometimes, we told him he couldn’t play with us because he cheated. With a surprised look on his face, he said, “you know I don’t cheat, I just follow my own rules.” While playing Pig, instead of putting his finger to his nose when he had a set of four he’d shout “Pig” so loud, that we leaped from our chairs upsetting them with a clatter and a bang.
Eventually, Ruby and Geneva had boy friends come a-calling. One summer evening they were preparing to go dancing. It rained the greater part of the day. The boy friends arrived quite late after having to fight the mud all the way. We didn’t have paved roads; those days, not even graveled ones. They decided not to go to the dance after all, reasoning no one else would be there either. So the girls and boy friends stayed in the kitchen while the rest of the family went to bed. My cousin Esther was visiting our house at the time. We were sleeping in a lean-to on the north side of the house. We hopped out of bed every few minutes peeking through the window hoping to see some smooching. Each time we were disappointed, and two small girls couldn’t stay awake all night. In the morning we wondered if we had missed anything.
---- This concludes part one of "A Flickertail" by Lola Emerson Ditch ----
I thought it humorous that Lola internalized herself as a flickertail. "Flickertail State" is one of North Dakota's nicknames; along with "Peace Garden State" and "Roughrider State".[2] Flickertail is one of the generally used names for the Richardson's Ground Squirrel; they are also referred to as gophers. As you read this story you may recall the paragraph where Lola wrote, "We trapped, snared, and drowned our gophers to no end." Her Papa paid them a penny for every tail they brought to him, his form of pest control. These small rodents continue to be agricultural pests today and some have adapted to urban environment as well.[1]
Lola's story will conclude next Wednesday as another Ed's Day Wednesday article. I am thankful that cousin Ed had a copy of his Aunt Lola's story. To those that also helped bring this story to us, I thank you too. We are gaining such wonderful insight into homesteading life on the North Dakota prairie during the 1910s, 1920's and 1930s through her telling. Her parents homesteaded in Torning Township, Ward County.
Source:
1.) Wikipedia contributors, "Richardson's ground squirrel," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richardson%27s_ground_squirrel&oldid=719783083 : accessed June 7, 2016).
I want to thank all of you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed today's post.
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