And so with everything we owned on a hay rack and kids on top holding it down and the old milk cow tied behind, we embarked on a new life clear across town. Things would change here. I was probably in the second grade by this time. Josephine was 13, Jake 9, so I must have been 7 years old. Mother was now cleaning houses and dad was still farming. Josephine was in charge of us since she was the oldest. Her job was to keep us alive, not bleeding and to clean the house. I am here to tell you, that girl took this seriously all except the part about keeping us uninjured. She damn near beat us to death! And who do you think did all that house work? Not miss "just figured out there were boys and she was a girl"! We were banished from the house as soon as our work was done and not allowed back in to "dirty the place up" and besides one of her boyfriends was usually there and they were "baking cookies". Eating the cookies too as near as I could tell, because we never got any.
The floors of the house were wood planks about 5-6 inches wide. Not like the wood floors in the rich peoples houses that mother cleaned. These had to be swept every day and everything in the house had to be wiped down with an oiled rag since the dust blew in every day as a matter of course. Dishes were washed by heating water in a pan and rinsed in cold water. The pump house was out the back door and Jake and I were in charge of keeping the stock tank full of water.
But we had better things to do than hang out at home. Mr. and Mrs. Rumble lived up the road a ways and they sat on thier porch most days in the summer. Mr. Rumble told me he would give me a whole dime if I would learn the words to "Buttons and Bows" and sing it to them. I worked very hard, but never quite got it done. They were wonderful people.
Across the road from us lived the Barthold sisters. They were spinsters and school teachers. I never actually spoke with them. I did like to hide in thier forest and spy on them when they were out in the yard. Once I even seen them setting in the chairs drinking tea. And strain my ears as I might I could not hear a word they said. So I made up lots of conversations. I do not remember what they were, but I am sure they were wild!
Sometimes Josephine left us unattended and that is when we got our chance at the telephone. Ah, it was beautiful! It hung on the wall and had a speaker that you spoke into and an earpiece on the side that was held to your ear so you could hear the other person. We were on party lines back then. This meant several families were all on one circuit. Say you called Joe Blow. It would ring his signal which was maybe 2 shorts and a long. Ours might have been 2 longs and a short. The point was, you did not pick up someone else's call. And if you wanted to place a call and picked up the phone and heard a conversation you said "Excuse me, please." and quietly replaced the receiver. That is unless you were 9 and 7 years old and bored out of your mind. Then you could do a couple things. One was to cover the mouth piece and listen in n the conversation. Or you could act like you did not know they were talking and crank the handle that called the operator. This would cause a very loud ring in thier ears. And you could titter and then act like you weren't there. Ah, but technology caught these damn Bartholomew kids every time. Then there was trouble. First Josphine whipped us with a strap for "making it look like" she was not doing her job of keeping us in line. Then Mother would follow up with a licking for not listening to Josephine and upsetting the neighbors and now maybe they were going to take our phone out and what would we do when no one could call her to come to work? Not to worry about dad giving us the punishment because I am not sure he ever knew we were there.
I do not know when dad worked, but a pile of hay appeared in the corner of the yard. Not the back yard where the cows and horses were, but in the front yard so anyone driving past would know we had hay. Go figure. But this gave us a hiding place when we hid and threw rocks at cars going past and "kicking up dust" which in turn made our work harder. Damn people from town anyway! By the way, back then, cars were either black or a dung looking green. That is how I recall it anyway. Not sure what color came next. Think it was white.
After the Rumble house and on the way to town was Bull Creek. Most of the time it was just a creek bed, but in the Spring, Nickerson and that whole area was prone to flooding and that little creek could do some damage. See, the Arkansas is on one side of town and Cow Creek cuts through and intesects with Bull Creek. When Spring rains come they all get out of thier banks and Nickerson is surrounded by water and travel is not happening. Or at least that is how it was back then. But when the water subsided and there was just a small bit of water running through Jake and I could go seine and catch crawdads. We would get a few inches in the bottom of the wash boiler and then we cleaned them. This was accomplished by ripping the tail off, pulling the shell off and then dropping them in hot grease and frying them. A feast for a king. Or it was back then Do you know what a crawdad is? It is like a lobster, but about 4 inches long and it lives in the mud. I bought some at Walmarts several years back and they were horrible!
Bull frogs also lived in Bull Creek. Not for long though because Jake and I got the idea that we would catch them and we would take them home and grow them until they were big and then we could have frog legs. Josephine did not appreciate our vision at all. Especially when I showed up with one in my dress tail and opened it to show her. Damn frog made a leap right at her and then proceeded to try to hide from her. She stood over me with a broom and every time I missed the frog she smacked me. The frog was fast, but with a lot of prodding from Josephine, I was faster and our dream crumbled there in that little unpainted house there by Bull creek when she beat it to death in the dust by the door with a shovel.
When I come back next time I will tell you about the cyclone that finished our stay at the Ailmore place.
The floors of the house were wood planks about 5-6 inches wide. Not like the wood floors in the rich peoples houses that mother cleaned. These had to be swept every day and everything in the house had to be wiped down with an oiled rag since the dust blew in every day as a matter of course. Dishes were washed by heating water in a pan and rinsed in cold water. The pump house was out the back door and Jake and I were in charge of keeping the stock tank full of water.
But we had better things to do than hang out at home. Mr. and Mrs. Rumble lived up the road a ways and they sat on thier porch most days in the summer. Mr. Rumble told me he would give me a whole dime if I would learn the words to "Buttons and Bows" and sing it to them. I worked very hard, but never quite got it done. They were wonderful people.
Across the road from us lived the Barthold sisters. They were spinsters and school teachers. I never actually spoke with them. I did like to hide in thier forest and spy on them when they were out in the yard. Once I even seen them setting in the chairs drinking tea. And strain my ears as I might I could not hear a word they said. So I made up lots of conversations. I do not remember what they were, but I am sure they were wild!
Sometimes Josephine left us unattended and that is when we got our chance at the telephone. Ah, it was beautiful! It hung on the wall and had a speaker that you spoke into and an earpiece on the side that was held to your ear so you could hear the other person. We were on party lines back then. This meant several families were all on one circuit. Say you called Joe Blow. It would ring his signal which was maybe 2 shorts and a long. Ours might have been 2 longs and a short. The point was, you did not pick up someone else's call. And if you wanted to place a call and picked up the phone and heard a conversation you said "Excuse me, please." and quietly replaced the receiver. That is unless you were 9 and 7 years old and bored out of your mind. Then you could do a couple things. One was to cover the mouth piece and listen in n the conversation. Or you could act like you did not know they were talking and crank the handle that called the operator. This would cause a very loud ring in thier ears. And you could titter and then act like you weren't there. Ah, but technology caught these damn Bartholomew kids every time. Then there was trouble. First Josphine whipped us with a strap for "making it look like" she was not doing her job of keeping us in line. Then Mother would follow up with a licking for not listening to Josephine and upsetting the neighbors and now maybe they were going to take our phone out and what would we do when no one could call her to come to work? Not to worry about dad giving us the punishment because I am not sure he ever knew we were there.
I do not know when dad worked, but a pile of hay appeared in the corner of the yard. Not the back yard where the cows and horses were, but in the front yard so anyone driving past would know we had hay. Go figure. But this gave us a hiding place when we hid and threw rocks at cars going past and "kicking up dust" which in turn made our work harder. Damn people from town anyway! By the way, back then, cars were either black or a dung looking green. That is how I recall it anyway. Not sure what color came next. Think it was white.
After the Rumble house and on the way to town was Bull Creek. Most of the time it was just a creek bed, but in the Spring, Nickerson and that whole area was prone to flooding and that little creek could do some damage. See, the Arkansas is on one side of town and Cow Creek cuts through and intesects with Bull Creek. When Spring rains come they all get out of thier banks and Nickerson is surrounded by water and travel is not happening. Or at least that is how it was back then. But when the water subsided and there was just a small bit of water running through Jake and I could go seine and catch crawdads. We would get a few inches in the bottom of the wash boiler and then we cleaned them. This was accomplished by ripping the tail off, pulling the shell off and then dropping them in hot grease and frying them. A feast for a king. Or it was back then Do you know what a crawdad is? It is like a lobster, but about 4 inches long and it lives in the mud. I bought some at Walmarts several years back and they were horrible!
Bull frogs also lived in Bull Creek. Not for long though because Jake and I got the idea that we would catch them and we would take them home and grow them until they were big and then we could have frog legs. Josephine did not appreciate our vision at all. Especially when I showed up with one in my dress tail and opened it to show her. Damn frog made a leap right at her and then proceeded to try to hide from her. She stood over me with a broom and every time I missed the frog she smacked me. The frog was fast, but with a lot of prodding from Josephine, I was faster and our dream crumbled there in that little unpainted house there by Bull creek when she beat it to death in the dust by the door with a shovel.
When I come back next time I will tell you about the cyclone that finished our stay at the Ailmore place.
