When I began teaching, almost anyone who could answer the questions asked by the Board of Examination could get to teach-in fact, if they could answer three out of four. Often there was much cheating so that many teachers could not work fairly simple problems in arithmetic and knew nothing about history. I remember well in my first exam that one question was, “How many teeth has an adult?” A young fellow asked the examiner, “What is an adult?” The reply was, “What do you think it is?” The boy replied, “I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe it was a sick person.” I am glad to say he did not get a grade.

At the time I began teaching, there were no teachers in Ritchie County with a degree except the principal of a large high school. I doubt if there were any, or very few, teaching in the rural schools who were high school graduates. The rural schools were all one-room schools. In fact, they didn’t begin to consolidate schools and haul the children in buses for 30 years. How many of the teachers now are not only high school and normal graduates, but have a degree!

The salary for a First Grade was seldom over $30 per month for a term of four months. When in 1903 they increased the school term to five months, they cut the salary to $23 per month. After paying your board, you had less than $100 for five months’ teaching. You ask why any one would teach for that? The answer is easy-there was no work you could get during the bad winter months, and it was an honor to be a teacher. When school was out, you could raise a crop or get a job on a farm (farming was about the only work to be had in the rural sections). Your school gave you a little cash, for money was scarce.

After World War I teachers’ wages were raised to $108 per month, which seemed like a princely wage. But this did not equal the wages paid in factories. Many teachers went to the cities, and there was trouble to get teachers in many sections. They had to take boys and girls without any preparation who did not intend to make it a life work but merely wanted to make some easy money, not caring whether the children learned anything or not.

I will tell a story one teacher told me. She passed a school house early in the fall, about 1:30 p.m. The teacher had on a man’s white shirt and a pair of slacks, with her feet on the desk, leaning back against the wall sound asleep. Probably she was happy!

The wages in Union District, Ritchie County, were always low until the county was made a school unit and a minimum wage was set in 1919. The towns had paid much higher wages, but this law did away with independent districts, which pleased me for I hated for them to feel that they could laud it over us rural teachers.

Stories Told by County Superintendents: I will tell a few stories told by county superintendents. There was a time when there was a blank space after each name on the register for the teacher to make remarks about the pupil. One teacher wrote, “Kissed the teacher three times.” After another name was written, “The prettiest girl in school.” The same superintendent read us a report from one teacher of an attendance of 200% (this was better than I ever could do). All of this shows that many teachers were lacking in education, judgment, and good common sense,

Another superintendent told me of visiting a school which showed lack of order and any sign of teaching ability. All at once a big boy in the back of the house yelled out, “Gobbler,” (the teacher’s name was Garber) “what time is it?” After school was out, the teacher said he was going into something that would pay him better than teaching. The superintendent told him that was the thing to do.

It was during the winter of 1936 that Bond [Ashby's oldest son] stayed with us for a month and went to school to me. This meant that three generations went to school to me [Jennie, Ashby, and Bond]. I had a number of cases where a father and child and in one case where both parents and children went to me, but this was the only case where the mother, son, and grandson went to me. I also taught Johnnie [Elmo's son] to read. Very few teachers can say that they have taught three generations, but fifty years is a long time to teach. I’ll bet I don’t teach another generation.

This was a successful school although they had had lots of trouble for two years. I had no trouble of any amount. It was a large school. I had a large class in the eighth grade, and they all got diplomas. They were Beulah Combs, Edgar Gillespie, Juanita Gillespie, Harry Dillon, and some others I have forgotten.

Edgar had been having a lot of trouble, but I found him all right except a little lazy. When he got his report card, he came to me and wanted to know why he didn’t get a better report. I tried to dodge for a little. Then I looked at him and said, “If you will go to work, study some, and try to learn, I’ll give you a better grade.” He looked at me rather sour for a minute and then smiled and said, “I’ll do it, Mr. Randolph. I’ll answer every question you ask me.” From that time he studied well. When I gave him his next report card, he looked at it and grinned. I asked him how he liked it, and he said, “That’s better.” I encouraged him all I could, and he did fine. I do like to help a pupil who tries.

1937-38-Substitute Teaching and Lower Stone Creek School: The board gave the Bug Ridge School to Zana Hartley and gave me no school. The superintendent, Virgil Harris, got mad at Brady and so had it in for me. He tried to keep me from getting a school ever after, but only kept me out of a school one whole year.

The last of November I got a call to teach for a week at Baker’s Run. The teacher, a young man, went to Chicago with the 4-H club. Before I left, several of the pupils told me they intended to have me teach their school next winter.

On Friday after I got back I got a letter from Harris saying I had been given the Lower Stony Creek School to teach half time. If I would teach it, I should to be at his office Thursday and get my papers. I went right down and told them I sure would teach it.

Monday morning I headed for school. The snow was about 6 inches deep and cold as blazes. As I did not have to teach but half a day, I aimed to get there by noon. When I got there, cold and tired, I found nobody there and no fire. There was a family moving into the house right by the school house. They built a fire, and one of the children went and got four more children. So I had 7 the first day; the next day I had 11. I had over 10 on an average the first month. The average attendance for the whole term was 99 percent. Harris (the superintendent) tried to keep me from teaching full time, but the board gave me full time after the first month.

I failed to find any place to board. One place I had the children ask their parents for board, and the woman sent back word that there were 11 of them and they had four beds. I told the children I might be back and I might not. When I got to the mouth of Wolf, which was three miles from school, I was tired and it was getting dark. So I headed for Brady’s. When I got there, he wanted to know what I was doing there. I told him I was looking for a place to get out of the weather. He told me to stay there that week, and they would try to find me a place to stay after that. Alma got a camp for me to bach in about two miles from school. This made it very nice. Brady would take me part way to school of a Monday morning and bring me part way home of a Friday evening. For this I paid the rest ($150) back on the farm.

I had a very nice time as there were only 11 scholars and five grades. We had a Parent Teachers Association meeting, which was attended by several out of the district and was very good. Before school was out, they got up a petition for me to teach the next year, which was signed by everyone in the district and two or three outside who said they would send if I got the school. This would make 27 scholars to attend.

No School, 1938-39-Ashby’s Illness: When the board met, Frank Hosey (the member from Holley) told the board that he had promised the Baker’s Run School that he would send me there. However, it was a long way and they all wanted me at Stony Creek; so he would favor my going there. This was agreed to; then when all teachers were placed, Harris said they would not have any school at Stony Creek. Hosey knew this was a plan to keep me from teaching, so he asked the other members if I should have the school if it was taught. They all agreed. Brady was nominated for the board by a good majority at the primary (I worked for him at Wolf and got all the Democratic votes but nine, about 95%). At the next meeting Harris proposed another man for the school. Three of the members backed down, and I got no school.

This did not prove to be quite as bad as it seemed, for Ash took sick the last of August and sent for Mamma. Three days later Brady called me at 11 at night and told me to be ready in half an hour to go to Ash’s. Brady, Mary, and I went. Brady drove like John! When we got there, I didn’t believe he would live 24 hours. The next morning we took him to the hospital. They found he had double pneumonia, blood poison in the blood tubes, and some other troubles. Mamma stayed with the children till March, and Ruth stayed at the hospital with Ash. So you see there would have been no one to have looked after things at home if I had taught that winter. After losing one leg, Ash has been able to teach for the last ten years.

I was sure glad to see Mamma when she got home in March. I didn’t have so much to do, but it was lonely to be by myself for seven months. It was fine to have her back.

Cleveland School, 1939-40: One of the board members told me in the spring of 1939 that he intended for me to have the Cleveland School. Ed Davis got up a petition for me (I knew nothing about it), and every one in the district signed it. When Ed took the petition, they asked him if the teacher they had wasn’t all right. He said he was not complaining about their teacher but that they wanted me. Harris replied, “You had just as well understand that you won’t get him. Ed looked at Harris and said, “We will too, and you can’t help it.” I got the school, and Harris couldn’t help it,though he tried.

Stories About Mountain People

I think it will be well to tell two or three stories so everyone will get a better idea of these mountain people. These stories I take from Stories of the Elk (a number of stories written by Bill Byrne, who once had been prosecuting attorney of Braxton).

Victim of a Scam: Bill Byrne and Jake Fisher and several others (among whom was Squirley Bill Carpenter, who was noted as a hunter and fisher and as a teller of tall tales) were going down to Clay Court House. As there was a circus in town, they had to visit it before they could go. There was a doctor there, a fine fellow who lived out in the country; a man came to him and told him they made the best gate in the world and they wanted someone to handle it in Braxton. He said he had been told that the doctor was just the man they wanted and that the doctor would not have to do any selling. They would ship the gates to him; people would come and get them and pay him; and he would keep half and send them the other half. But to show his good faith, he must make a deposit of $25, which he did.

A little later he got worried and tried to find the man, but he couldn’t. Then he yelled for Byrne and wanted him to arrest the man. Byrne wanted to know where the man was and who he was, but the doctor didn’t know. So Byrne told him he couldn’t do anything about it. The doctor just raved, things were in a fine shape when an honest man could be cheated and nothing be done about it. A crowd had gathered and a boy called out, “Doctor, it ain’t a lawyer you need; it’s a guardeen.” The doctor looked at the boy a moment and then said, “Bub, I expect you are right.” That settled the whole thing.

A Big Fish Tale: They went down the river in a boat, and on the way Byrne gigged a very large Jack Pike. It began to rain as they came to an old mill, so they ran under it to get out of the rain. They began to brag on the pike. Squirley said, “I saw a lot bigger one. One day I was coming down the river just as we did today, and a rain came up just as it did today. I ran under here as we did today, and I looked down and there was a pike in the spillway. It was so long it couldn’t turn around. I ran and got my gig and gigged it. It was six feet long; I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles this high,” and he raised up on his toes and lifted up his arms and tipped into the spillway. The men all jumped down to help him out, but his son Squack never made a move to help. When the men got him out, nearly drowned, Squack looked at him and said, “Dad, if that fish had been one inch longer, you would have drowned in spite of Hell.”

Monk Dillon: Monk Dillon owned 200 acres on Bug Ridge, of which our farm was a part. He had a brother about 70 years old who stayed in Sutton during the summer and tended gardens and worked in livery barns or anything an old man could do. Then he would go up on Bug Ridge to his brother Monk’s, who always had corn bread, hominy, and sow belly (his neighbors said the meat didn’t all come from his own hogs). It seemed Monk rode his brother pretty hard. One winter it seemed he rode him harder than usual, but he couldn’t drive him from his corn pone and sow belly.

The next spring the old man saw Monk on the street talking to two men, so he went over to see if he could get even for the way he had been treated. Just as he got there, he heard Monk say, “I’ll leave it to you men, if being an honorable man I could do that.” This was the brother’s chance, and he said, “Honorable man, hell! Didn’t you shoot Mint Squire’s big gat sow?” The answer was, “What if I did? Didn’t you hep cad her in?”

Now Squire had lost a big sow (all hogs ran out in the woods), and he was going to have Monk indicted for stealing his hog. Monk paid for it to save himself from the law.

Monk had 10 or 12 children. The girls would run and hide when anyone came, even when they were grown. Monk raised lots of wheat. At threshing time the workers had to go inside the house and up some steps to put the wheat in a box in the loft. As a neighbor went in with a load of wheat, one of the girls took up the stairs; of course, the man followed her. Now the upper floor was laid with loose boards. As she ran across the floor, she stepped on a board that didn’t reach the joist. It tipped up; she went down right into the flour barrel. The flour rose right up and settled all over her.

The man was not immoral, but unmoral. A preacher told me that Monk said, when he was 80 years old, that he had never heard a sermon preached. So the preacher held meeting where Monk was and preached so he could say he had heard one sermon. It hardly seems possible anyone could be so ignorant in the last forty years.

Elmo and Madeline Married in 1937

In 1937 Elmo and Madeline were married and spent their honeymoon in a 4-H camp in New York. Madeline came down and stayed a while with us that fall. One Sabbath we went up to see Ozenia Bee and her sister Maggie. This was a very nice trip. We also went to the Homecoming at Salem.

My Final Years of Teaching

Back at Poplar Ridge, 1939-41: The winter of 1939-40 I taught on Poplar Ridge. This was quite a different school from what it was when I taught there in the 1920s. Then I had 59; this time I had 26. When I first taught there, they knew nothing about real study, and most of them would not talk and had no interest in going to high school. Now they were nearly all planning to go to high school; in fact, nearly half of them did go to high school. I feel that I had much to do with this happy condition. But there are still too many who will pick up things which belong to someone else. Still, I think many have changed about that.

Teachers Get Tenure: This winter the legislature passed the Tenure of Office Bill. Teachers no longer had to be appointed every year. This meant I had a school for some years to come, but I could retire at 65 (I was 67 then) and receive a pension. Retirement was optional with us until 1945, when a new law passed that a teacher must retire at 65 unless the State Board of Education agreed to his continuing.

Second Year at Poplar Ridge: The second winter I had trouble to get a place to stay. I tried to get a house of Dave Hosey. But his boy (Skip) would not move out till the last of October. So I boarded at Dave’s till the first of December. The boy did not move out, and Dave charged too much. Ed Davis was fixing a small building for me to live in till Skip moved out (I had arranged with Ed to move over there when Skip moved out). Dave found out about it and told me Ed could keep me till he got the house fixed. This proved very satisfactory, for the house was large enough and very comfortable. Ed’s were all very nice to me. In fact, it was one of the best winters that I boarded away from home. Dave was mad at me for four or five years, but one day I met him in Sutton and he came reaching out his hand to shake hands and was as friendly as ever. I was glad of this; Dave and I had been close friends, and I just don’t like to have folks mad at me.

Brady told me in the early fall that one of the board members said he intended to see I got the Bug Ridge School. I told him I didn’t want it, for I was sure it would not be pleasant. In February Brady told me again that the same member said he intended to see I got the school. By this time I had got tired of getting up by 6 a.m. and walking six miles through a foot of snow of a Monday to school and having Mamma stay by herself and do all the feeding five days a week.

This was my last winter at Poplar Ridge. These last two years, there were six eighth grade diplomas; in the six years I was there, there were 14 diplomas received. When you consider that in the 60 years before I went to Poplar Ridge there had been no diplomas and then in 6 years there were 24, I feel pretty good. The fact is that the school had been doing so poorly and the house was such a disgrace that the parents and children (though they did not know it) were ready for someone to come and teach a real school; I arrived at the opportune time. When I went up there to get votes for Brady, some of them said to me, “Of course we will vote for Brady for the work you did for our children.” All things work together for good, etc.

Mamma went to Alfred and stayed at Elmo’s for two months when Dan was born in July, 1941. I did very little while she was gone, for my ankles were hurting me badly and she told me to do nothing but the chores. The rest seemed to help me lots.

Bug Ridge School, 1941-45: In 1941 I had a large school. I had a good-sized eighth grade class to graduate this year. Among these were Thelma Combs, Gay Ellison, and a Stewart girl. There may have been others, but I don’t remember them. The Stewart girl started to school her first year at Upper Wolf and years later got her diploma at Bug Ridge. We had a fine school this winter with very little trouble.

At Christmas time we had a program. It was not extra good as we could not get the children to learn their parts well. I have always thought a good program was very valuable. In some schools I think it is of untold value. I think our programs at Poplar Ridge were of more value than several months of school. This was because the children were so timid and not willing to talk. They sure got over it before I left.

It was this winter that we got into World War II. They asked the teachers to get help and do the rationing. I got three women (Mamma and two others) to help, and we put in two days. Later we had to do a second job. The second year they asked for milkweed balls and scrap iron. We did fairly well with the weed, but we got a very fine lot of iron. In the fall of 1942 the government asked all schools to collect as much scrap iron as possible. The superintendent told all teachers to spend three days with their scholars and get all the scrap they could find. We got several tons-in fact, we were among the best in the county. We took an interest in everything the government asked us to do.

Each of the four years I taught at Bug Ridge, I had a class to graduate. The first year there were three, all girls – a Combs girl, a Stewart girl, and an Ellison girl. The third year Zeno Watts graduated. The last year I had two – Iolene Combs and the Ellison boy. Bob Combs took Iolene and me down [to the graduation ceremony]. I had not intended to go, but he asked me to go as a favor; of course, I went.

Two or three of my “friends” got sore and tried to get up a petition to get me out. When they talked to some of the others, they said I could teach their children and they were satisfied. This put a stop to the racket.

I told the superintendent that I was willing to teach to the end of the war as teachers were so scarce; he said they would like for me to do that. I told the children in the fall of 1944 if the war closed that year that I would resign at the end of the term. I decided early in 1945 that the war would end that year. Then I told Olta I was resigning so she had best look after her interests, and I wrote a letter resigning and told the children I had resigned. Olta went right down and got the school for the next winter. I was very glad of that. Although there were two or three that got out with me, I think everyone was my friend when I left. At least they have all been very friendly when we went back.

Poplar Ridge School: The school was ten miles from Sutton on the road to Centralia. Before I went up there, Brady said to me, “Dad, it’s a little school. You be real good to them, and you will get to teach it for years.” I went up there Sunday afternoon and found a house 22 ft. by 13 ft., not fit to keep chickens in. The seats were dilapidated, some broken down, others loose so they reeled back and forth, while some were fairly good. There were not nearly enough chairs for the children. The children told me later that they had been in the habit of running back and forth over the tops of the seats at noon and recess.

When I rang the bell Monday at 9 a.m., the children came running in like rabbits from a broom sedge field. They filled up the seats, two and three to a seat, and I started to classify them. I found two girls in the seventh grade, which was the highest grade the first winter. One of the girls would talk, but the other one would merely grin. I asked them if they could add, subtract, multiply and divide. The one said, “Yes, we can.” I told them to go to the board and gave them a fair-sized problem in addition. I stopped them when they began to count. The third time I stopped them, they said that was all they could do. I stepped to the board and showed them how to add. They said they couldn’t do it that way. I asked if any of the sixth or fifth grade could, and they said, “No.” Then I asked if any of the others could, and a third grade girl held up her hand. I called her up, and she could add very well. I asked her where she learned, and she said her mother taught her. She was a bright girl, and I had hopes for her. But her mother died that winter and her father was no good, so she had no chance.

After finding the girls couldn’t add, I tried them in subtraction. They could not borrow; they did not know the multiplication table; they could not divide. So I took them back and taught them the fundamentals. We got to the sixth grade at the end of the term. After about two months of the second term I told the girls if they would finish the sixth grade and half the seventh grade by the end of the term I would promote them so they could get their diplomas next year. Ada spoke up (she was the one who would talk) and said, “We ought to, Mr. Randolph. We did the second, third, fourth, and fifth last year; so we ought to do the sixth and seventh this year,” and they did.

After I had finished giving the seventh grade their assignments, I called up the other grades to find the most of them wouldn’t talk and were way behind in their grades.

Among the first graders was a boy of 11 who sat with his sister of 13, a nice bright girl. He did not come up with the other children, so I went back and talked to him at his seat. The same thing happened each time I called the class that day. The next day after the class recited, I went back and told him he must come up and recite. When I took hold of him to lead him up to class, he grabbed his sister’s waist. If I had tried to pull him loose, I would have torn her waist off. I told him he must let loose, and his sister took his hands loose. I took him up and heard him recite. He never came up to recite with the class all winter. When I called the class he was in, he would sit still. After they recited, I would call him. He would look in every direction, taking long, high steps as if he expected something to get him.

This boy lived in a deep hollow away from any road and didn’t see anybody. In fact, most of the people lived off the road in the head of some hollow. When I told Brady that I had 59 pupils, he said it was impossible. He had been along all the roads up there, and there were no houses up there. Then he asked, “Where do they come from?” My answer was, “From the head of every hollow, from every red brush patch, and from every broom sedge patch.” I wondered for a while as to why they built in the heads of the hollows. Then I thought of the reason. It was to get water without digging wells. I think that living in the hollows and hardly ever seeing anyone had much to do with their being like scared rabbits.

There were several families who were so poor that the children seldom had any shoes to wear and never went to school in the winter-just a little while in the fall. Several of them gloried in saying, “I’m too poor to send my children to school.” Oh, how I would have liked to kick them soundly!

These are mountain people who are very loyal to their friends but are bitter enemies. They had but little education (some could neither read nor write) and had been having very poor schools. The patrons and children had no interest in school. No one had ever gotten an eighth grade diploma. No one had ever received a certificate for attendance nor a report card. So there was not much reason for them to be interested in school.

There had been some lively times up there. The county superintendent (Mr. Golden) told me he sent the nicest kind of a little girl up there, and they took her out and set her down in a mud hole. I asked him why they didn’t take me out and put me down in a mud hole. He said he didn’t know. I did; they got the idea that I would skin them alive. Then I got them interested in learning, and I treated them nice so they were my friends. In fact, only two families got mad at me. One of these men died the second winter I taught, and I had the friendship of the family the rest of the time. The other one said the third winter I taught that I was all right and he would carry a petition around for me to teach the next winter if someone would write it. So you see, I had the good will of everybody when I left.

As would be natural in a backwoods place like this, there were several who were dull and came to school but little, and I could not interest them in education. But there were many bright children there. I could never have made a success of this school if I had not gotten them interested not only in getting a diploma from the eighth grade but also in going ahead to high school. But more of this later,

One of the large girls had caused a lot of trouble in school in the past. In fact, one evening as soon as school was out, she jumped on another girl, broke her glasses and beat up on her. She made her say “Enough” twice so the teacher would be sure to hear her; the teacher was a young man and never did anything about it. This girl started to school the second month I taught. One day I saw her write a note and start to pass it. I went back where she sat and just held out my hand without saying a word. She looked at me, and I continued to hold out my hand. She put the note in it, and I went back to the desk. I never said a word about it, for it was just a joke; but she expected a whipping every day for weeks. She never gave a bit of trouble.

It was a cold winter with deep snows. The school is on a high hill, so there was no ice to skate on. The children would fix a slick place and slide on it. They would run into each other and fall in the snow and get wet and cold. I told them they must go one at a time and not pile up in the snow. They just wouldn’t pay attention, so I told them they must not slide any more.

When I went after coal in the evening, I found they had made a slide and had been sliding. I told them that the juvenile judge of Denver was telling about having a Snitching Bee (that is, they were to tell on themselves), and that I would give those who were sliding till school time next morning to come and tell me about it. One of the big boys said to his chum, “Shall we own up?” The other said, “We had just as well. He will find out any way.”

Another boy told me he didn’t skate but he helped some of the others. In a few minutes he came back and said, “I lied to you, teacher; I did skate.” I asked him why he lied, and he said he thought maybe he could get out of it but he had decided I would find out.

Some of them tried to get out by denying it, but there was too much evidence against them. So I told about six or eight of them that they could not play any for a given time. This made Burb Skidmore very angry, for he said they lied on his boys. He never forgave me, but after his death his wife and children were good friends of mine.

A couple of boys were out for four weeks with whooping cough. When they came back, they brought third readers instead of second readers. I told the boys that I could not promote them as I had not promoted those who had been there all the time. This made their father mad, and he kept the boys at home the rest of the school. Two years later he got in a good humor and was as good a friend as I had up there, for which I was very thankful.

After I had taught a few weeks, I saw that the children had no place to go. I proposed that we have a spelling race some night. Ada spoke up (she was the seventh grade girl who would talk) and said, “‘We can’t do it, Mr. Randolph. They would come here drunk and break it up.” “Oh, I reckon they wouldn’t,” I replied. “Yes, they would,” she said. Then I said very firmly, “No, they won’t, and we will have a spelling race,”-and we did. After that we could have a program, singing or anything without any interruption in the house.

The school house, as I have mentioned before, was no good. When the wind blew, it would heave the west wall in, and the wind would come howling in. There was a hole in the floor a 12-year-old girl could put her foot through. They promised to furnish flooring to put over the old one, but Sell Skidmore, secretary of the board, got them not to furnish it. I had a better plan, so I let it go and kept the children warm by staying by the fire a lot in cold weather. About the middle of the winter I proposed we get a new school house.

They said it was no use as they had tried several times. I told them we could not only get a house, but a two-room house. I drew up a petition with a space for them to give the number of children of school age and another one to put down the number under school age. There proved to be over 80 of school age and about 30 under age. So we got a new house with two rooms, but a very poor one.

They got up a petition for me to teach the next winter, and everyone signed it but the two I mentioned before. Several of the patrons went down and forced them to give it to me after part of the board tried to slip in another teacher.

My Last Summer in Salem: The spring of 1926 I went back to Salem and spent the summer there, which was the last time I spent any time to amount to anything in Salem. I can remember but little about that summer, what I did, who I worked for, or if I got much work. I only know that I spent the summer at Salem and went back to Poplar Ridge to teach that winter.

Back to Poplar Ridge School: We had two rooms, and Miss Edna Barker was my assistant. I met her first at the Teachers’ Institute, which I believe was our last institute. I found her a fine girl, a good teacher and nice to work with. We both boarded at Dave Hosey’s, where I boarded the first winter. Things went nicely this winter. We had a new family, the Halls, with two girls in the eighth grade. The girls both got diplomas, which were the first ever received there.

Debate over Supplementary Readers: This winter I had trouble with the board of education over supplementary readers. They claimed I was teaching them and neglecting the text books. My pupils signed a statement that I had not heard a single class in any books but the regular text books. They, the board, also claimed it cost the patrons too much to buy the extra books, so I told them I was paying for the books myself. When Brady handed in my reply, one of the board members said it was a lie, that he knew that I had been hearing classes in those wicked books. Brady told him he thought he should be careful about calling all the larger scholars liars. After thinking a minute he said, “Maybe it was the other teacher.” When Brady told them I was paying for the books, he said, “That’s a lie. He only paid the postage on them.” Brady replied, “Dad says he paid for them, and he did.” Then he said, “Maybe it was last year I was thinking about.’

Some of the children took the books home when school was out instead of giving them back to me. One of them offered to sell the one he kept to Miss Barker for 55 cents. She asked me if that was a fair price. I told her, “No.” When I found who had it, I told her it was my book and she could have it for 35 cents. (It cost 70 cents.) I told her to tell him I said it was my book, and I sold it to her. When I told the school I was going to buy the books and loan them to the third grade, Ada spoke right up and said, “Mr. Randolph, you are too smart for them after all.” Ada was a very fine girl and a great friend of mine.

We had a very fine program at Christmas time. I helped in several of them. Several of the parents and young folks out of school helped. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves very much.

They got up a petition, and everyone signed for me to teach again. This time there was no trouble about my getting the school.

Summer at Brady’s: This summer I spent at Brady’s. I took care of a 2400 egg incubator, raised 400 white leghorns, also a very fine pig and a half acre of potatoes. The potatoes were not a success. Although I sprayed them four times, they blighted before they matured. The pig was hard to beat. I also trap nested a flock of Rhode Island Reds. Ten of these laid over 200 eggs each, and one laid 242, which was very good at that time. One of the Red pullets laid her first egg at 4 months and 24 days. We had raised these Reds by the all-mash formula, which we found started them to laying before they were of proper size. So we never tried this play again.

The Next School Year at Poplar Ridge: Again Miss Barker and I boarded at Dave Hosey’s. I got along very well with them, but Miss Barker had a lot of trouble with them. I think they thought Charlie (their boy) was paying too much attention to her. She told me she thought of him as a kid brother. They went to a dance one night together, and Dave’s [family] never forgave her. They told the neighbor they would never board her again, but they would board me. Dave went to the board and got them not to hire her again.

We had two programs this year. The first was at Thanksgiving, and the second was at Christmas. The second was very good. Two of the patrons had growled about our having them, so we had the last one to show them we could. One of the growlers was an old man of about 72 who had 6 children in school. When I asked him how he liked it, he said, “It was fine, just fine.” He was just tickled skinny. So many people will rave about what they know nothing about and will make no effort to find out about.

This was my third winter on Poplar Ridge. This spring Ada and Gladys Hosey received eighth grade diplomas, but neither of these went to high school. Later I will give an account of several who not only went to high school but got their diplomas.

I will continue with my teaching work until I left Ritchie. The fall of 1910 there was an effort made, in an underhand way, to keep me from getting the school at Berea; but I got it and taught a fairly successful school in spite of all a few dirty meddlers could do. I decided when school was out that I would not try for it again, so I got the Sunny Point school on Turtle Run. Conza asked me before the Board met if I was asking for the Berea school, and I told her “No.” Then she said she would try for it. I told her to pitch in. Ell Douglas was on the Board, and he got them to delay hiring the Berea teachers until September in hopes the girls would get schools elsewhere or he could get someone else. Two of the Board members told Conza and Draxie, after the meeting was out, that they should have the school. The opposition made a great effort to get someone else to teach it, but failed.

One night John Meredith (one of my best friends) came up to see me. This was while Jennie was in Colorado, and I was alone. We talked for some time when all at once John said, “Pressie, can’t we get you to teach our school this winter?” My reply was, “No, John, you can’t.” We talked on a while, and again John spoke up, “Pressie, isn’t there some way we can coax you to teach our school?” My reply was “No, John, there isn’t.” After talking for some time longer, John spoke up for the third time, “Pressie, isn’t there some way we can force you to teach our school?” My reply again was “No, John, there isn’t.” He soon went home, and I was happy; I knew Douglas had sent him although he had gotten mad early in the spring when one of the patrons had asked him to give me the school. So it tickled me to say, “No.” Oh, it was fun!

An Incident at Berea: I will now tell a funny incident (some might not think it very funny) that happened the last winter I taught at Berea. Barnard Bee had been using bad talk at school, and Draxie had him wash his mouth with asafetida. This raised an awful fuss, and they had Zeke summoned before the Grand Jury. He came to the school house and told us about it. He said he didn’t want to go as he had no fuss to raise about what she did to the boy. We told him to go ahead; it was all right with us.

The next day we went out to town. We went into the clerk’s office, had ourselves summoned before the jury, sworn, and then waited to be called in. When they called me in, the foreman asked me if I knew what I was summoned for. My reply was, “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.” He then asked me what I knew. My reply was, “A little of nothing and not much of anything.” He then asked me about the trouble in school. He was smart and thought he was very smart. The first question he asked after that was, “What is your business?” My reply was, “I take the place of the parents.” I saw several old teachers on the jury, and I knew we were okay.

When he said, “Don’t you know that no one but a practicing physician has a right to give medicine?” I shot right back at him, “Yea, if you go home tonight and one of your children has the bellyache, you wouldn’t dare to give him a dose of castor oil?” “That’s different,” he said. A half dozen said, “No, that’s the same.” I knew we had won. The foreman came out a little later, and we told him we had another witness. He said they didn’t need it; for us to just go on home and teach our schools. This was all done by a bunch of trouble makers and ended as such things usually do.

Draxie and Mike Jett: Draxie also had trouble with Mike Jett. He got mad because she kept Witt in at recess. When recess came, they sent for Witt to come home and then sent him back on the playground to play. Draxie saw him out there playing, so she went and got him. I went up to the house to get a drink. While I was gone, Mike went to the school house, cursed Draxie and took Witt away. I stopped in the lower room when I came back and heard John Bee, John Waggoner and Draxie talking about it. When they said he cursed Draxie, I said I would have him arrested and proceeded to call the squire at Harrisville. He said he would be out as soon as the weather was fit and get him.

As soon as Mike heard about it, he wanted to settle it, so they agreed to meet at our house Sabbath evening. Mike and Ivy and Conza and Draxie came. I told them it was all right with me any way they settled it, if it was satisfactory with the squire; for it was in his hands. Draxie agreed if he would come to school Monday morning and apologize for what he had done, it would settle it with her. Mike thought it was all settled, so he never came about.

A few days later the squire called up and said it could not be settled out of court, but that he would try the case himself. Mike came to Draxie again, when he heard the squire was coming. He told her he couldn’t talk in public. She told him he seemed to be able to talk when he came after Witt. The weather stayed too bad for the squire to come, so Mike was indicted by the same jury we were before. He paid a fine of $25, which was more than I would like to pay for the privilege of cursing a school teacher.

Trouble for Brady and Clee Wagoner: I taught the Sunny Point school two years and had a very nice time. Conza had a hard time with her school; the children were mean and the people meddled. The next winter they got a big man by the name of Alender, who worked for Tom Jackson for a while before school, so they had a chance to tell him how mean Brady and Clee Wagoner were. The boys complained to me that they didn’t get a fair show. I knew this was so, but I told them to wait and he would find out how it was.

There got to be too much courting in school, and we told the boys some of the girls would got jealous and then there would be trouble. Some of the kids in the neighborhood would come in and say, “We are having a good school this winter,” in a hateful tone. Of course, this made us mad, but we didn’t say a word.

All at once word got around that Clee had used vile talk to John Prunty’s girl, and he had taken her out of school. Alender went to see about it, and John said it was not so. When Alender told the member of the board (Ell Douglas) that he found no basis for the charge, Douglas said it was so and he had to investigate it. The girl said it was so; Clee denied it; the girl’s seatmate said she did not hear it; and Brady, who was sitting right by, said Clee did not say it. Alender said she had not proved her case so she must apologize. She refused to do this, so he turned her out. This raised an awful stink and more charges against Clee. Alender failed to find any proof and told them so.

The next Friday noon the Board and 25 to 50 people came in. Alender took up school and went to hearing classes. Then one of the board got up and asked if he might say a word. Alender said, “Speak on.” He (the board member) said they had been sent for to come down there. Alender said he knew nothing about it, for he had received no notice. The member said he knew that was so, for they didn’t know what it was about.

After some talk it was found out that Alender was accused of being partial for not getting Clee for what they called immoral conduct. They said they intended to protect their girls (three of the accusers were the most immoral men in town) and get rid of the vipers like Clee. Alender offered if the crowd would leave that the board could inquire of the scholars and find out the truth. One of the crowd jumped up and said, “I am a taxpayer, and I came here to see that justice is done, and I am going to stay and see that it is.” The board said if that was the way they felt, there could be no trial till written charges were filed and Alender was notified of charges and date. So they fixed the date two weeks off and went home.

The crowd was mad, for they hoped to get Alender and Clee both put out of school. They were mad at Alender because he would not kick Clee and Brady out of school. If they had gotten Clee put out, they would have soon patched up some lie on Brady and kicked him out too. This crowd (not all of Berea by a good deal) was mad at Al Wagoner and me and wanted to ruin us. There was a lot of blowing done, and John Meredith told them there was nothing to it. They replied, “John, don’t you believe in protecting our girls?” John told them it was just a plot to ruin the boys and that there was nothing to it. This didn’t suit some of them very well, but John didn’t care a cent how they liked it.

When the board met, there was a big crowd there again anxious to get Clee and Alender. They had charged Alender with partiality on ten counts-nine for not investigating charges against Clee and one for expelling a girl. When the case came up, Alender proved that he had tried every case but one and had no proof and that they gave him no chance to try that one. The board ruled that the teacher was not guilty, but they reinstated the girl. If Clee was to be tried, they would have to bring charges against him and set another date. Clee told them he had to quit school and go to carrying the mail, so they dropped his case.

I may have cause to mention Clee again, but I will say right here that he graduated from Salem College with a fine name, took a course in agriculture, married a fine girl (her mother was a daughter of George Randolph). The last I knew, he was teaching in high school. In fact, he has done better than any of those that tried to ruin him back in Berea.

Some of the folks tried to get Minter Fox to whip Alender and went to see what Fred thought about their chance. Fred told them Alender would whip them both before any one could pull him off of them; so they didn’t try it. The Brakes, Jacksons, Collins and Douglases went to another school by consent of the board, which left the Berea school very small. Douglas kept his girl at home for a few days, which cost him about $12. This was the best lesson Berea ever had. Since then most anybody could teach the Berea school. So you see that good can still come out of evil.

The next spring Wagoners moved to Harrisville, which took away one of my best friends.

Experiences as Fire Insurance Agent

In the spring of 1911 I got a job of writing fire insurance for the Safe Insurance Company of Harrisville, which I followed for three summers. I was quite successful; I cleared an average of $2 a day, which at that time was good wages. I wrote in Gilmer, Tyler, Ritchie, Wood, Doddridge and Harrison counties. I enjoyed the work very much. But once in a while it looked as if some would get insurance and then cash in on it, if they got too much insurance. I tried to be careful and did not have many fires.

There was a man in Gilmer by the name of Wagoner who had a fine house. I tried hard to get him to write insurance, but he told me that he built the house himself and he knew there was no danger of its burning, so I gave him up. A few months later I passed through a village not far from his home. A friend came out and told me he had some insurance for me. He told me that Wagoner had had a fire, and he said he would write insurance with the first insurance agent who came along. I found it was in a room where ceiling paper had been used instead of lumber to seal overhead. A small boy found the fire. When the mother went up, she found the ceiling paper burned off and the paper burned about half way down all around the wall. The room was shut up tight, so there was no draft and it burned very slowly. They saved the house with very little damage. I wrote the insurance, which made me $2. No doubt a mouse or rat had carried a match to their nest, gnawed it and started the fire.

I saw a two-story house with matched oak ceiling with a hole made by fire which looked as if it had been made for a stove pipe. It was in the parlor, which had been shut up for a week. When a girl went in to sweep the room, she found ashes on the floor. She thought it had started upstairs, so she ran up there but found no way to get at the fire up there. So she came down and put the fire out down there. When they got the fire out, they found the burned remains of some stockings and old clothes which had been a nest. The house was shut up tight, so the fire had not blazed but kept live coals. These are just a few of my experiences while writing insurance.

Jennie Visited in Colorado, 1911

In the summer of 1911, Jennie went to Colorado with Watie [Sutton, her brother] to see Elzie [another brother], who could not come to West Virginia on account of his health. She had a very nice trip. She sure deserved it, for she had never been out of West Virginia except when we moved to New York. Watie and Arlie paid for her trip.

Pine Grove School, 1897: The spring of 1897 I taught a select school of small children in the old Pine Grove meeting house. I had a fair-sized school, which paid me well. They were a bunch of bright children and did good work. One day Jennie taught, and some of the larger girls tried to scare the little children by telling them they saw a ghost. John Bee (the doctor’s boy) just said, “All magination, all magination.” I enjoyed this school very much.

Lower Bone Creek School, 1897-1899: The next two winters I taught the Lower Bone Creek School. The winter before a girl had taught it, and she had not been able to manage it at all. They would not mind her at all and annoyed her every way they could. I had no trouble and enjoyed it very much.

February 12, 1898, was the coldest time I ever saw. It was clear as could be, but the air was full of frost-that is, the moisture in the air was frozen into snowflakes. I had a black cow in a barn by herself, and she was covered with frost until she was white. We could hear the trees cracking in every direction. I had to go one-half mile to feed my sheep, milk the cows, and feed the stock, and then go to school. It was 10 a.m. when I got to school, but there was no one there. The fire builder had stock to feed by the school house; so he had built a fire, fed the stock, and gone home for his breakfast. In one-half hour one came; in an hour three more came; and at noon Rupert and Arlie came. So we had six that afternoon-all boys. It registered 44 degrees below zero. Most of the orchards in the valleys were killed. All of the beech trees half way up the hills were killed, and nearly all of the dogwoods also were killed. Nothing like this was ever seen here before nor since. That afternoon it got much warmer, and by Monday the snow was gone and it was warm and nice.

Measles Outbreak: Erlo Sutton came to the last day of school that spring with an awful cold, felt bad all day, and in the morning he had the measles. He gave them to everyone he saw that day, which was at least 75. One girl about 15 in my school died; also, an old lady in Berea. Jennie, Brady, and I had them at the same time. Erlo had no idea where he got them. The next spring the trustees asked me to close the school a day early to avoid the danger of spreading disease.

Farming Enterprises: That spring I cut the dead trees on a field for Ellsworth and raised a fine crop of corn; it was worth only 35 cents a bushel when I husked it. Some different from what it is now!

In the fall of 1898 I bought an interest in a cane mill with Dad Sutton and made molasses until late fall. The next fall we began to make molasses the 29^th of August and finished the 6^th of October. After that we never made so many, for people quit raising cane. I enjoyed it, but it was hard work. We would begin before daylight and work until 9 or 10 at night.

About this time I bought an interest in a reaper and binder with Ellsworth. We did a lot of work for three years. Then people began to quit raising so much wheat; and I sold my share to Uncle Sam Stalnaker.

The Stansburry School, 1899-1900: In the school year of 1899-1900 I taught on Spruce (the Stansburry School, and may I receive forgiveness for teaching in such a place). There was just one family which was interested in an education (George Brissey’s), and they were the only ones coming at the end of the term. Mr. Brissey said he always had to furnish all the scholars the last month of school.

I had 59 in school, and 19 of them were in the first grade. Of these one was a 16-year-old boy who was almost as heavy as I was One was a girl of 6 who wasn’t larger than a pound of soap after a hard day’s washing or a minute and it half gone.

The most of these first graders had no book but a speller! I told each of them to ask their parents to get them a First Reader, for I couldn’t teach little folks in the speller. The next morning I asked the children what their parents said. Some said their mother said she would get a reader that day; others said she would get one at the end of the week. The little girl before mentioned said that her mother said whenever they learned what there was to learn in the speller, she would get them a reader. I thought, “Poor kids; they will never see a reader.” Their father was working in Ohio. When he came home, he got them a reader. Think of a country school of eight grades and 19 in the first grade!

Now this little girl I wrote about had a sister 7 and a brother 8, and the girls were too mean to live. One day I was hearing a class when they got very much amused, and I asked what was the matter. One of the class told me that Flossie was spitting on Donie; so I told Flossie to go up and sit on my seat. She began to cry and said, “Donie was spitting on me, too.” I then told Donie to go up and sit there too, which tickled her for she thought she would have a lot of fun. But when I told her I would sit between them, she said, “No.” I tried to get her to sit on the bench, but she wouldn’t so I held her on my lap. She fought and kicked and tried to bite, but I just held her while she yelled, “Let me down mister; let me down.” I held her for about a quarter of an hour; then she sat on the seat all right. They did not come back, and the mother said I was holding the girls on my lap so she had to keep them at home. When the father cane home, he sent them back.

They were liars and had little idea of honor or right. I don’t think they were as much immoral as they were unmoral. They had a very low order of intelligence; in fact, they did not want to know much. I will give one instance of lying without cause or reason. A boy got mad at a boy behind him for putting his feet under his desk and said to him, “If you don’t keep back, I’ll cut your guts out.” I whipped him. A girl got excused to go home at recess (she was 14 years old) and stopped at a house on her way home and told them we had had an awful time up there that afternoon. She said that Okey Bird had taken a knife and ripped Russell Haddox right down his belly and then cut him right across. Of course, she was bound to have known they would find out she was lying, but she just wanted to tell a lie-probably to keep in practice, but I don’t think she needed any practice.

I had trouble with a McDonald who told that I had hurt one of his boys seriously. I sent him word to show up or shut up. When I saw him, he agreed to shut up. Of course, he didn’t, because that is not the nature of such people. But it did me no harm, for I still got schools without any trouble.

Harold was born-January 1, 1900. He was a very happy little fellow who endeared himself to everyone. Of course, we did not know that he would not be with us for only two short years. (If we could only know about these things, we might be so different.)

Lower White Oak School, 1900-1901: This next summer I bought the Parker place of Aunt Polly Kelley and moved over there that fall. I taught the Lower White Oak School the winter of 1900 and 1901. This was a rather long trip, but I had a very nice school. I had a very nice First Reader class of four. They each tried very hard to be the best in the class, so I told them one day that the next day I would tell them which was the best. The next day they were all excited about who would get the honor of being the best in the class. Of course, I was likely to get in bad; but just watch what I told then. I told them that the best one in the class was the one that studied the hardest. Everyone was happy, and each one studied his best to let no one in ahead of him. One has to try many things to get the best results.

Watie and Elzie Sutton (Jennie’s brothers): Watie came home from New York with Maggie this winter. They lived in Berea for a while, and Watie got a job with Fox and Meredith. The next summer he got a chance to buy Steve Bee’s farm by the Deep Ford. I got the money for him to pay for it. He stayed here until he went to work for Flanigan. From there he went to Doddridge County to an oil pumping job, which he kept till he retired. He was a hard-working, honest, truthful man who could be depended upon every time. He and I were great friends. Every time I go to Salem, I go to see Wilma, who is his only daughter and a very nice woman with a very nice family.

While I am writing about Watie, I will also write about Elzie, who was one of the finest boys one would want to see. He went to Salem when he was a young man and went to work for Uncle Lloyd Randolph about 1902. He then went to work in Uncle James’ store. He stayed there until Uncle James broke up, when he went to work as a carpenter. In the meantime he married Ethel Lynch. He was so industrious that he exposed himself by working in the rain to finish a job and took pneumonia, which ran into tuberculosis. He went to Colorado, where he lived for ten years. Ethel and two girls are still living in Boulder, Colorado. Ethel is very industrious, saving, and a fine manager. She is a loyal worker in the Seventh Day Baptist Church at Boulder. Bobbie (the third boy) died at Berea nearly fifty years ago.

Typhoid Malaria: In the summer of 1901 Jennie was very sick for several weeks, so that we had to have a hired girl. Watie and I raised a big patch of cane, and it was very fine. A good deal of the cane was down, and it rained nearly every day. We were wet nearly all the time while we stripped it. There was lots of typhoid fever in the neighborhood, and I felt sure I was taking it. So I went to the doctor and got some dope before we got the molasses made. We had 115 gallons.

Sabbath noon, after we got through, I took a chill, went to bed and sent for the doctor. He said I had typhoid malaria. As soon as the doctor said I had the fever, the girl went home. Jennie could just walk about the house a little, and Brady was five years old. John came down that evening and gave me a sponge bath. He said he would be back the next night, but the next night he had the fever. Ellsworth had always helped, but Arley and Aunt Mat each had the fever, so they couldn’t help. The neighbors were so afraid that they would not come near. A neighbor boy (Creed Collins) came and offered to go and get me a school (I had no school), but he would not come into the house. He got me the Upper White Oak School. I was glad for that friend.

Brady gave me the medicine and water, and Mama got us something to eat. I was up in two weeks. It was in late September, and I had to stay in bed for a few days as there was no wood to warm the house until Riley Davis (our pastor) came down and cut some wood. A friend in need is a friend indeed, so I have never forgotten Creed Collins and Riley Davis.

One more I must mention. Someone (I never found out who) went to one of my trustees and told him that I had got me another school. At the same time I was in bed with the fever Tom Bee was carrying the mail in that neighborhood, so they came to the post office to ask him. He told them I had the fever, but when the time came I would be there and teach them a good school. The first chance I got, I thanked him for it; I have thought more of him ever since. Jennie’s father had the fever, and I went there and waited on them. I think there is where I got it. There were over 30 cases of fever about Berea that summer and fall, and only one death.

Whooping Cough-Harold Died, Ashby was Born: I had a fairly nice school this winter. But it was a very sad winter, for Brady and Harold got the whooping cough. When I came home at the end of the week (January 17) Harold did not come to meet me. Jennie said he was sick, that she had had the doctor and that he said it was brain fever. Just one week later (the day Ashby was born) Harold died. That was a sad day for us. We kept Brady in another room in hopes Ashby would not catch the whooping cough. It worked, and Ashby did not get it.

We had a very nice girl (Edna Campbell) working for us. Brady would get lonesome as he could not go into the room where Jennie was; so Edna would take him up and sing to him. In fact, she taught him to sing.

This winter I boarded with a Baker near the school. They had five children in school. Mrs. Baker would help them in their studies every evening after supper. There were three in the same class, and the youngest was the best of the three. They treated me very well.

Middle Fork School: The next winter I taught on Middle Fork. The winter before a girl had taught who could do nothing with the children at all. When she said anything to the big girls, they would jump up, shove up their sleeves, and tell her to look at their muscles and that she couldn’t do anything with them. They took a B-B gun to school, put a mark on the blackboard and shot at it in time of school. I soon tamed them some and had a very nice school.

I fixed up a house on Elva and Dow’s farm and lived there as it was too far to go from home and there was a river to cross. This was a very pleasant winter for us although there was some deep snow and some cold weather. We were all well and happy. We kept the house good and warm, with the best hickory wood you ever saw; and we had plenty to eat. So what more could anyone want?

Friends in Ritchie County: Yes, and we had good friends near, which made it still nicer. I wonder if we ever appreciate friends as we should. We have always had friends, but I still think of the friends back in Ritchie-Mr. Haddix, Mr. Colgate, John Meredith, Mintee Fox, Mr. Wagoner, John Bee, all the Maxsons, Jack Hudkins, Mr. Kelly, Karl Bee, Art Brissey, Maynard Brissey-yes, and so many more that I can’t begin to name them all. But I must mention Uncle Frank and Uncle Herman, Reuben and Albert Brissey, Ves Collins. Yes, and I mustn’t forget Jess Kelley, with whom we used to hunt so much.

Sun Rise School-Avis was Born, October 30, 1903: The next winter I taught at the Sun Rise School. This was a long trip, so when Marshal Ehret wanted us to move into his house and feed his cattle and let me have hay for my horse, I agreed and moved up there. Before we could move, our only girl (Avis) was born. We had a very pleasant and profitable winter there.

I will tell one thing that happened at the house while I was at school. The stove pipe went up through the roof without any flue. One day when Jennie was alone with the baby, she saw that the roof was afire. The spring was a quarter of a mile from the house. She had a pan of dish water on the table and a rung ladder set against the side of the house. She grabbed the pan, climbed the roof, threw water on the fire, and put the most of it out. Then she took her hands and scraped the coals off the shingles. She burned her hands some, but she saved the house. This took lots of grit, but she did it. The baby was only a month or six weeks old.

We did not take our cows with us as there were several there. He promised to pay for the feed for the hens if they didn’t lay enough to pay. Snow came right away, and they didn’t lay enough to amount to anything; in fact, not a dozen all winter. He did not pay me anything as he said he had left some flour and meal, which he thought would pay for the hen feed. This was no pay at all, but I didn’t say anything as I expected to stay there some more because it was handy. I fed nearly 30 head of of cattle and calves. He came out and saw his stock just before school was out and was very well pleased with them. School went very well; but, as in most of the schools, some of the children would not try to learn.

Father Died, Fall 1903: The fall of 1903 Father came to Salem for Conference, where he and many others got ptomaine poison. He got better and came out to Berea. On the train he got worse and was never out of bed after he got to Ellsworth’s. We had two doctors, but they could do nothing. As the children were all there except Virgil and Cleo, they decided to settle the estate at once. There was no will nor debts, so each would share alike. Mother Randolph said she only wanted enough to keep her while she lived; if the children would give her 4 percent of their share per year, she would be satisfied. This was very generous of her, and I feel sure the children all appreciated it.

Ashby had Scarlet Fever, 1904: We went to Commencement at Salem in 1904 and left the children at their grandpa’s. When we came back, Ashby had the scarlet fever. He was very bad for two weeks. In fact, it did not look like he could live at all. He did not cry or make any noise except when we doctored him, which was every half hour; then he would make a very peculiar noise. When he began to get better, he was too cranky to live. When we gave him a drink in a cup, if he wanted it in a glass, he would throw it as hard as he could. If he wanted it in a cup and we brought it in a glass, the same thing happened-we never knew which one he wanted.

The first day I left the house I went a half mile to hoe my corn and stayed all day. When I got home, I found Jennie scared nearly to death. Aunt Sarah Colgate had been there and told her Ashby was deaf, for he wouldn’t notice when they called to him; in fact, he wouldn’t notice anything they said or did. I told her of course he would do nothing they wanted him to do. This did not convince her, so I stepped out in the dark, picked up a board, hit the side of the house; and he nearly jumped out of the cradle. This settled the question of his hearing. He did have a lot of trouble with his ears and nose that fall and later. I think this will be enough about Ashby for the present.

Ellsworth died in 1905: Ellsworth did not have his farm all paid for. He told me in the spring of 1904 that he could pay out by selling his stock. He was killed in the spring of 1905 logging for Zeke Bee. This changed many things for me, as we had always worked together. I would help him when he needed help, and he would help me.  When Blondie was a very sick baby, we went night after night and sat up with him. Then when Ashby had scarlet fever, they came for two weeks and sat up with him. As I said before, “Never did any one have a better brother”. It was during this winter that Ashby was so very sick that he would not notice anything. We were alone for two or three days, but Ellsworth came up as soon as they heard of it and stayed all night. It was this night that he really began to improve. When something did not suit him, he cried for the first time he had made any noise for three days. Never was there a brother that stood by better than Ellsworth.

Middle Fork School: That winter I taught again at Middle Fork. A young man had taught the winter before. He had paid attention to Ada Knight, which had made the Zinn girls very angry. When school began, I found that I had a job on my hands. If I smiled at the Zinn girls, the Knight girl wanted to kill me; if I smiled at the Knight girl, the Zinn girls would try to kill me. They would not sit near each other at class. In two months they decided that Zinns and Knights were all the same to me; so we got along all okay.

One boy gave me a lot of trouble the first winter. He was easily influenced, and a big boy and girl put him up to mischief. But the second winter I got him interested. He studied hard and decided to go on to Salem, which he did and got a good education. I am always very glad when I can get a boy or girl interested in going ahead to school. I feel the school a failure if no one is inspired to go ahead along the road toward education. Every teacher should be able to fill his pupils with such a thirst for knowledge that they will never be satisfied until they have drunk deep of that fountain. I am proud of the fact that I have inspired many to go on in their studies. I am especially proud of the fact that, where no one had ever gotten a diploma from the eighth grade in one school in Braxton County, now more than a dozen have finished high school. I am proud because I know that I was directly responsible-but more of this later.

My First State Teaching Certificate, 1905: My certificate expired in 1905, and I did not try for a school. In July Mr. Mason sent me word to come up and get the Sun Rise School. He said that Port Campbell was wanting the school but that the district did not want him. Mr. Mason, Mr. Hayden, and Mr. Campbell were the trustees. Mr. Campbell could not help hire Port, so he resigned and tried to get someone else appointed who would help Mr. Hayden hire Port. Mr. Hayden said he would be glad to sign my contract. I went up to see Mr. Mason and then to Mr. Hayden. We ran him down, and he squirmed like possessed. At last he said that I could have the school, so I got a certificate. This was my first state certificate.

When Port heard I got the school, he said I could not get a certificate for I couldn’t get anything on “Grammar.” He got 65 percent on grammar, and I got 93 percent. He said the grammar didn’t suit him. It sure didn’t. Since that time Port and I have been good friends.

In spite of all handicaps, I had a fairly nice school; indeed, it was above the average, so I think.

Working in New York for Gene Jordan

Randal was Born: On February 3, 1906, our fourth son (Randal) was born. He was a delicate baby; soon after we got to New York he had a serious case of pneumonia. We were lucky to get a very fine doctor for children (Dr. Loughbead), who fixed a formula for feeding him, and he did much better on it. He was a Seventh Day Baptist at Nile, and we were very lucky that we got him.

We sold some of our household goods and left some. Very little of what we left was to be found when we got back. We took some bedding with us, but little else. The weather was fine, and we had a very nice trip. A livery man took us from Cuba (seven miles) to Gene’s. We stayed there for over a month before they could get our house ready. We had a fairly comfortable house to live in. We put in several potatoes and some corn. Gene drilled a gas well near our house, but it was not much good. Soon after this, he got a contract to drill several wells in Pennsylvania. The boys went down there with him.

He bought a new horse and came up to start harvest. When he tried to work the horse, it proved to be an awful kicker. He went back and told me to work her and they would come back and help me put the hay up when I got a lot of it cut down. They came back and put up 35 acres. He had 30 acres he wanted to get put up on the shares. I told him Brady and I could put it up (Brady was nearly 10 years old). We put the 30 acres up, for which I think Brady got about $7. This wasn’t much, but it was dear gain, and it paid Gene very well.

In the early fall Gene’s family went down to Pennsylvania. We spent the winter in their home so we would have a warmer house and be closer to the feeding and milking. We had a fine lot of winter apples. I had so much work to do and no help that I only got a start when 8 inches of snow came (the 8th of October). It only lasted a day or two, when I went on with the picking. Before I got them picked, we had hard freezing. I would just wait till they thawed out and go on picking. I finally got them all in the cellar, and we had apples till after the middle of July. Two years later the tenant did not get the apples picked till after a freeze and lost them all.

The first summer we were there, Brady caught 25 woodchucks. He would hide near their den, wait till they got away from it, then beat them to it and get them. There are a great many woodchucks in New York.

Brady had a lot of trouble in school. Some of the larger boys would beat up on him, and the teacher would just laugh at him. I, or we, got tired of this (he was having a headache all the time) and took him out of school. The teacher reported him, and the truant officer came. I was prepared for trouble, but he said that the former teacher, who lived in the district, told him the way Brady was treated and said she would not send him a day. A neighbor told him it was a shame the way he was treated and that the trustee said he told one of the boys to let Brady alone, but the boy said he would do as he pleased and he couldn’t help it. The teacher denied this, but the officer told her if she wouldn’t take care of the children he wouldn’t make them come. So he said he would get his stepson, who was a doctor, to give him an excuse. The teacher tried again, but the officer paid no attention. He told her he didn’t do his work twice.

Trading a Kicking Horse: I spoke of a horse that could kick. We called her Maud, and she could kick! She took it by spells. Sometimes she would work for several days without kicking any; then she would kick things all to pieces for a few days. Oh, she was a honey! I saw a man in Nile who wanted to trade for her. I told him she would kick some but that I had worked her at everything I tried but one and that was plowing. He wanted to know what she did. I told him she kicked, ran back, acted the fool, and did everything but plow but if we didn’t trade, I would plow her. We traded even, and he had new shoes put on the horse I got. The blacksmith where we traded told me that the man I traded with said he wouldn’t take less than $125 for her. There was a number by, and he thought he would have some fun at my expense. I just looked at him and said if she had suited me I would not have taken less than that, but she did not suit me so I let her go. The crowd roared. I never saw the man I traded with again, but I learned he was a regular horse trader so I presume he came out all right. The horse I got was a fine worker but very slow, so I came out all right, thank goodness,

Ashby and Avis: The first summer we were at Gene’s, Ashby and Avis went with me up there (Ashby was 4 and Avis was 2). When I got the team ready to go to work, I told them to run on home, which was one-fourth mile away. It was thundering, and they were afraid; so Cleo went along. Avis said, “We’s too good for thunder to hurt us, ain’t we, Auntie?” They were very good just then.

This next story was told by a doctor. He asked Cleo about her little children. She said she had no little children; they were all grown up. Then he told her that he was going by there the year before when he saw two little children playing in a swamp and he said to them, “What are you doing, little children?” The boy said, “We are catching bullfrogs.” Then the little girl piped up, “You mustn’t say that, Ippie; you must say cow frog.” Cleo knew who they were, for Avis always said “Ippie.”

Ashby had a lot of trouble with a gobbler that Cleo had. He could make it too much for Ashby. Gene had a collie pup he called Romulus which thought a lot of Ashby. Whenever the turkey would see Ashby, he would jump on him, and Ashby would say, “Come on here, Romulus, he’s coming.” Romulus would right off and run the turkey away. As soon as the turkey saw the dog was gone, back he would come; and the same talk would happen again, “Come on back here; he is coming again.” He never called for any of us to help, and the dog always ran the turkey away.

Back to West Virginia, Fall 1907

It was not a very successful year. The cows Gene bought did not prove to be fresh in the spring, as the man he bought them of said they would. We did not get much milk (which is the chief money crop in that neighborhood). Jennie was sick most of the summer and fall, and things did not look good for the future. Therefore we decided to come back to West Virginia, which we did in the fall of 1907. I sold the team and some other stuff to the renter Gene got to take our place. Gene took the man’s note for the team. For the rest of the things I got some money, a cheap railroad ticket, and a little surplus which he promised to send-but of course he never did. On the whole I made a good deal with the man, so I never worried about the unpaid balance.

Coon Hunting before We Left New York: The renter said he had a good coon dog, so Gene and the boys and I went out before we left. We got a coon in a little while, and later we treed another in a slump of trees. We decided to watch it. As it began to get daylight, we decided the coon had gotten away, so we started home. But the dog struck a track right away and in a few moments treed. Gene said he saw one and shot it out. I told him to let me have the gun, and I shot another one. This made us three coons in one night, which we thought was quite good.

We stayed in a hotel the first night in Pittsburgh. The next evening Elva met us at Pennsboro with a wagon. We lived in a house on Uncle Elisha’s farm, where he had lived for many years. I taught the Upper Otter Slide school. This was a very pleasant school with one exception. Tom Gribble got mad at me about his son Paulie and took him out of school. He raised a fuss about my being partial toward my children. I called the trustees in and demanded a hearing. They failed to get Tom to come, so they came in and told the school that there was nothing to what he was telling so I let it go. The trustees were Al Kelley, Tom Ward, and I’ve forgotten the other one. Tom Gribble objected to Ashby’s going as he wasn’t quite 6 (Tom sent his children before they were 5, and Ashby was there once).

More about Ashby and Avis: As I have already said, Ashby did not go to school the latter part of December and until January 24. One cold day Jennie got to wondering what the two were doing. She found them playing meeting. Ashby was the leader, and he told Avis to get up and speak. She said, “I don’t know what to say.” He told her to get up and say, “The Lord has gone from me, and the crows are carrying my chickens away.” How quickly children can learn to imitate older people!

Avis was very successful in getting her way with children, but Ashby had a fine way to get her to do as he wanted her to. He would say, “Avis, if you don’t do this, I won’t watch the snakes off of you.” She would always say, “I’ll do it, Ippie, if you’ll watch the snakes off of me.” She feared snakes very much and was certain that Ashby could keep them off of her. Children are so trusting, but they soon learn to doubt us for we fail to do as we say exactly all the time.

Randal Died: We were to move into Pa Sutton’s house in Berea as soon as school was out. Aunt Rachel had not moved out yet, so we had to wait a few days. I was working for Dow and had just gotten back to work after dinner when we heard Jennie calling that Randal (our baby of two years) was dying. She had carried him for about one-half mile. He was dead. Jennie thought he had choked to death, but he hadn’t. He had taken some kind of fit or spasm and died without a struggle. Had he choked, he would have struggled for breath and his face would have turned black, none of which happened. He had never been strong. We were glad he went without suffering rather than being sick and suffering for weeks. It was a terrible blow to us, especially to Jennie. Although she did not talk much about it, I doubt if she really got over it until after the birth of Elmo. Even now it is a sad thing to write about, so I will write no more about it.

A Big Bass: We moved to Berea and raised a garden down at the Polly Place as well as in Berea. One day Brady and I were down there working in the garden when Brady got tired and wanted to go down to the river. He said he heard a big fish on the riffle. I told him to go on as he had worked very well, and I thought he was tired. As soon as he got down there, he began to holler, “Come down here quick! There’s a big fish here.” I knew there was no big fish that we could catch, but I went to please the kid. When I got there, what do you suppose I found-a bass one-half as long as your arm in a hole of water 10 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 6 inches deep, with very shallow water on each side.

I told Brady to drive him up to the upper end where I had put a cross tie so he couldn’t get away, and I would kill him with a club. I didn’t think he would go below, but he seemed to be afraid of me and only came part way. All at once he went by Brady on the dead run. I yelled at him, “Now you let him get away.” The water was so shallow that he had to turn on his side and flop. Brady rushed for it and hit it on the head with all his might. That was the end of the bass! It was 18 3/4 inches and weighed 3 lbs. 14 oz. and made more than we could all eat in a meal.

A Home in Berea; Lower Room at Berea School: That fall I sold the Polly Place and bought the house and lots where we lived in Berea. I got the lower room to teach at Berea, and Ernest Campbell was principal. I did not ask for a place at Berea. When the one they gave the lower room to would not teach, I got it and had a very nice time. I had to teach the first five grades as Ernest would only teach three. He would not try to keep his boys from running over those in my room. One day at noon my room and some of the upper room were playing trim a Christmas tree when Orin Hammond came down and began to tear it up. Then Hose Brake made for him, and they had a time. Orin never bothered my kids again.

I had a bunch of girls from 8 to 10 who were said to be so badly spoiled that they could hardly be controlled. I found them as good students and as nice to get along with as one could ask. They were Guerney Brake, Jessie Hayhurst, May Douglas, Darla Bee and some others. They would do anything I wanted them to do. They each wanted to do more than the others. This winter Guerney Brake came to school the first day with the mumps. We all had them but me, and I still have not had them. Brady had them very hard, for he took a backset on them.

Auburn School, 1909: The summer of 1909 I taught a school for advanced scholars in Auburn. I had a large school, which paid me quite well. I had 40 students. I did so well with the lower room that they gave me the principal’s place the next winter. This was a much harder job, but I got along fairly well. I got the ill will of Tom Jackson and Ell Douglas, which caused me a considerable trouble.

The Grange: About 1908 they organized a Grange, which did a lot of good for a few years. Two years we had a Farmers’ Institute with fine speakers from other parts of the state. This was very fine. Then for two falls we had a Farmers’ Picnic with fine speakers. The fall of 1912 we had five or six of the best speakers in Ritchie and one (a very able speaker) from another section. There were hundreds of people there, and it was a very successful affair. I was lecturer and had charge of the program, and I think I had a small part in its success. We tried to start a Grange store. We bought a suitable building and lumber to fix it up, but we failed to find a manager. We sold the property, lumber and all so that we did not lose anything. Mr. Wagoner moved away, we went to Salem, and the Grange died.

Building onto our Home: After finishing my school at Auburn, I decided to add another story to my house as it was a one-story house. I took some of the ceiling and upper floor from the Polly House, which I still owned. This was red oak and hard maple, very fine, tongued and grooved. I also bought some fine dressed lumber at a sale very cheap. This way I was able to have a good two-story house.

The spring we bought the farm Father traded for a small roan mare, which we kept for 12 years and raised 7 fine colts. One of these (Midge) I bought from Ellsworth the spring Jennie and I were married and kept her for 7 years. This was the first horse I owned.

I lived a rather strange life as a child, as I had no friends among the children of the neighborhood and played with no one except my brother Delvia and sister Cleo and Uncle Elisha’s children. Elva and Dow came down once or twice a year, and Delvia and I went there as often. This was all the friends we had till I was 15 years old, when we began to play with Buddy and Day Hoff, who lived a half mile below us. This is why it has always been hard for me to make friends. I will mention these friends later.

When I was about six years old, we had diphtheria in a very hard form, and it settled in a sore in my foot. It ate a hole larger than a quarter between my big toe and the one next to it. They could find nothing to help it until a man from Weston came to help Father in the tan shop. He said it was the germs of diphtheria settled there. He had known several cases in Weston, and they had to use diphtheria medicine. This soon cured it up, but there was a scar there larger than a quarter long after I was grown.

A Story of Wolves

I will digress now to tell a story as told to us three children about 70 years ago by Dorinda (I believe her name was). She was Uncle Zibba Davis’ wife. She was then about 65 years old, and she said this happened when she was about 8 years old. It had been a very long, cold winter and the snow had been very deep for weeks.

One Sabbath morning her father hitched the horses to the sled and went to church, leaving the children at home. Two or three were older than she. There was not supposed to be any danger, so the children were not afraid. About noon one of the children said he saw some big dogs out in the yard. When they looked out, they saw a half dozen, a dozen. and then hundreds of great, fierce brutes which the older children knew were wolves.

They had a large dog in the house. One of the wolves stuck his head through a window (which was made of greased paper). The dog sprang upon a bed which sat by the window, grabbed the wolf by the throat before it could get anything but its head inside, and held on until the blood ran down the wolf’s neck and it was still. Then the dog let loose, and the other wolves ate it up. In an hour or two they all disappeared.

When their folks came home, there was no sign of the wolves except that two or three acres of snow was cut all up with wolf tracks. No wolves were seen for years. The old people said that it had been such a hard winter that the wolves could find no food, so they had selected that spot to start their migration.

Hunting and Trapping

I remember my first hunting. Virgil and I were out together (I don’t know why) in the woods below the log cabin on the hill, when Virgil caught a rabbit under a rock. I remember how it squealed. I thought it was a ground hog. He gave it to me, and I sold it at Brake’s store. I was about six years old. This was the beginning of my hunting and trapping.

Hunting and Trapping with Delvia: By the time I was 10 years old, Delvia and I began to hunt and trap together. One day that winter we found a hole where we thought a skunk was denning, so we set a trap. The next morning when we went to the trap something was caught. It had dragged the trap the full length of the chain into the hole, so we could not see what we had caught. As everyone knows, you can have serious trouble with a skunk. To save my clothes I stripped naked and pulled the beggar out. It was a possum. Of course Delvia told what I did, and they laughed at me a great deal. But I got the possum!

We would take the dogs out and hole rabbits. Then we would set a box and catch them that night We could make a lot of money, for we could frequently catch two or three rabbits a month. We got from 5 cents to 10 cents apiece.

By the time I was 14, Delvia and I began to set snares for rabbits. We had fairly good success, and we lost no time as the traps were on our way to school. Once we caught a pheasant (which brought us 25 cents), and we felt rich. I remember one night it rained the fore part of the night and snowed the latter part. When Delvia got to the traps (I did not go that morning), he found two rabbits and a possum. We were rich again, as they were worth 50 cents.

I think I will give one more experience with snares and then drop that subject. The next winter for several mornings we found the snares thrown, the strings cut, and no game. I told Delvia we would get the sinner. So we fixed a solid framework, pulled down a strong pole and prepared for the kill. The next morning when we got in sight, the pole was up and there was a possum hanging by the neck more than two feet off the ground. In a week we had 5 or 6 possums; then we could go ahead catching rabbits. There had been a whole den of possums.

When I was 12, Delvia and I began to hunt at night and trap for skunks and possums. This was the fall that we hunted with John Meredith. We caught several possums, one of which was the largest I ever saw. John was a large, strong boy of 17, but he could only carry it a few hundred yards until he would have to stop and rest. He gave me half of what the pelts brought. He was one of my best friends for many years.

After this we hunted by ourselves for several years, as we had two good dogs. We caught many skunks and possums, which gave us much fun and a little money. This we used later to buy some sheep. Our two dogs were named Fisk and Bounce and were good hunters, day or night.

Night Hunting for Rabbits: One Sabbath Elva and Dow came down to stay all night. As this was in October and a good time to hunt, we decided to go; so we went and had no luck. Then at about ten o’clock, we decided to have a rabbit chase anyway and set them on a rabbit (they would not hunt rabbits unless we set them after them). They chased it down into a deep hollow, up a hill for over a half mile, and put it into a rail pile. We caught it and went back on the hill. They immediately started another, which they ran way down the hill for a long way before we got it also. As soon as we got to the top of the hill, they took another one down the hill and soon began to rave. So we hurried to them and found a hollow limb about five feet long in which the rabbit was hiding while the dogs ran from one end to the other and howled. Of course we got that one.

When we got to the top of the ridge, they started another one, which they soon put into a sink hole. It was now about eleven o’clock and getting rather cool, so we built a fire and began digging. In about a half hour we had the rascal. We felt it was quite a successful hunt as it is seldom you can hole a rabbit at night. We would often get two or three possums and sometimes a skunk in our night’s hunting (and sometimes nothing but tired legs). But we had lots of fun.

Mr. Mink, Muskrats and Coons: One cold morning in January, 1888, we saw where something had carried corn from the crib up the road across the river on the ice to a hole in the river bank. We set a trap and caught a muskrat, but its head was eaten off. We knew a mink was responsible, so we reset the trap. The next night we got Mr. Mink, which ended the threat to our muskrat trapping. This was our first mink, but we caught several after that.

We got 25 or 30 rats the rest of that winter, which we thought was quite good. But the next winter we really went after them with traps and barrels set along the bank (which we often visited before going to bed and again in the morning). We got as high as three rats in one barrel during one night. When spring came, we found we had sold 100 rat pelts that winter. This (with the other fur we caught-skunks and possums) made quite a showing as we got from 3 to 10 cents for our rat pelts.

We went ahead trapping, but not until after I was 18 did we get our first coon. There was a den near the school house where the steam would roll out. We decided there was something denning there. So we set a trap and caught a cub coon. Several years later I caught two fine big coons from the same den.

Sheep Enterprise: When I was about 15, Delvia and I took some of our money from furs and bought two sheep, which Father kept for the wool and we got the lambs. We would get from $2.50 to $3.00 for the lambs. When Father went North in 1892, we sold our sheep. We gained some knowledge of trading by buying and selling while we were boys. Father dealt with us as he did with other people.

Tenants

Jetts: The first tenant we had on the Davis farm was Alvin Jett, who was no good. One morning Father went over to the farm early. As he came back Mrs. Jett called to him and said, “Mr. Randolph, we don’t have a bite of bread stuff about the house.” (Jett was running around with the threshing machine getting good things to eat and doing nothing.) She looked as if she were hungry. Father said, “How about your potatoes. You had a nice patch of them.” She said that the potatoes were all gone, that they got along pretty well while they lasted, but it was hard to live without bread or potatoes. Father had Mother fix up a pail of flour and send Cleo and me up with it.

That afternoon Father went to see when the machine would be at our place. He took Jett out to one side and told him to go home and get his family something to eat, or starve with them, or he would cut him a hickory and give him a good whipping. Then he would throw his goods off the farm. For no man could run around and get plenty to eat and let his family starve on his farm. Jett toddled right off home.

Father often said that he hated “blamed orneriness.” (You may not know just what that word means, but in West Virginia to say a person is ornery is about as mean a thing as can be said of him.)

Now the next tenant was Dolph Weaver-but before I speak of him, I should tell one more story about Jett. He was with Marshall Meredith (who lived on an adjoining farm for 20 years and knew Father very well). Jett told him scandalous tales about Father. Some days later Marshall was at the mill when Jett came to the mill with a grist on one of Father’s horses. After he had tied the horse, Jett went to the mill. Marshall said to him, “How much does Asa charge you for a horse to go to mill?” Jett replied, “Not a cent. I can get a horse to go whenever I want it, and it doesn’t cost me a cent.” “It seems to me,” Marshall said, “if a man treated me like that, I wouldn’t talk about him like you did about Asa.” Jett replied, “I just talk that way about you when I am at your back.” So you see Marshall got it in the neck.

Dolph Weaver: This man, Weaver, was a big, strong young man who was married to a nice looking girl, but they preferred to fool around rather than work. In fact, they were both too lazy for any good use. Dolph told some of the neighbors that Father owed him a lot and wouldn’t pay him so he said he intended to whip him. When Father heard about it, he sent for Dolph to come down and settle up. They found on settling everything that Dolph owed Father between $10 and $15.

Dolph started off muttering to himself. Father let him go about 75 yards. Then he called, “Dolph, come back here.” When Dolph came back to the gate, Father said to him, “You have been telling it all around that you were going to whip me. John Snodgrass jumped onto an old man the other day and got an awful whipping. If you jump onto me, I’ll give you a worse licking than John Snodgrass got.” Dolph just went off without saying a word.

Frank Gardener: The next tenant was Frank Gardener, an Adventist from Kansas. Frank had two children (Charlie, about my age, and Minnie, a girl a little younger). Charlie was a playmate of ours while they were on the farm. Frank was a jolly, good-humored fellow who said he had moved over 30 times. So, you can see that he had the wander-lust.

He was a great hand to joke, and I never saw him get mad. I remember one day in harvest Ellsworth was raking hay when Frank said, “Ellsworth, you are a raker and a son of a raker.” Ellsworth said, “Frank, you are a rake and a son of a rake,” which tickled Frank. He only stayed one summer, when he took a notion to go somewhere else.

When I was teaching up in Taylor County, a man came to me on the bus and said, “Aren’t you Pressy Randolph?” I said, “Yes, but who the dickens are you?” “I am Charlie Gardener, and I am living in Clarksburg and working at Bridgeport.”

We met several times on the bus and talked over old times. He told me one morning that his father was living in Belington and was coming down to visit him soon. He thought they would be on the bus together some Monday morning. One morning I saw a gray-haired man who came up to me and proved to be Frank Gardener. He was just as jolly, good-humored as ever, and we had a nice talk. This was the last time I ever saw either of them.

John Meathrell: The next tenant was John Meathrell. He stayed three years and cleared out about four or five acres and raised crops on it, after which he bought where they now live and moved there. I might say right here that they [John and my sister Callie] were married when I was about ten years old, which was the first wedding I ever saw.

After this, Alva lived on the farm over a year. Then Ellsworth bached on it for a time before he married, after which he bought the farm, and they still own it.

More About the Tan Yard

I will now tell something more about the tan yard. Among my earliest jobs was grinding bark. Two of us children would hitch a horse to a bark mill, which was similar to a mill for grinding cane. There was a long whip hitched to a big log, on which were fastened metal teeth which revolved inside an iron rim with metal teeth. The bark was peeled from chestnut oak trees in the spring when the sap was up. When this bark was thoroughly dried, we would break it over the metal rim. It was ground between the two rims into fine pieces, which were used in tanning the leather.

We would sit there all day in very hot weather breaking the bark and keeping the horse going. Sometimes it took one all the time to keep that horse traveling.

There was a place under the mill where the ground bark dropped. When it filled up, it had to be hauled away. We children hated that work, but we did it just the same.

When the strength was taken out of the bark, we would skim out the worthless bark and scatter it over the ground about the vats. Sometimes the vats would be nearly full of water with bark on top and looked like the rest of the ground. When Delvy was about three years old, he came through the tan yard to a field beyond to tell us to come to dinner. When he got there, he was wet from his arms down. We found where he had walked into a vat. On the other side where he came out, water showed plainly where it had dripped from his clothes on the ground. I don’t think there were any of us children who failed to get into the vats at least once.

Many chickens and geese lost their dear little lives here. In fact a goose would only live a little while when she found she could not get out of the vat. Also, I lifted several pigs out of there. One blind horse which Emza rode from her school one time fell into one of the vats, but luckily got out.

The tan yard soon went to rack after Father left. I doubt if there could be a vat found now.

Working with Oxen

Before I was 16, I sold a horse for Father for $100 at Toll Gate. He had told me to take $80 for it if I could not get $100, but he never offered me any commission on it. This left us with but one horse, and Delvia and I began breaking oxen to work. We had two yoke at one time. Sometimes these oxen were quite wild and would run at the drop of a hat. One yoke would often get away with a sled and run through the woods or pasture until they ran afoul a tree or bush. Then we would go and back them up, get them around the tree, take them back to the road, jump on the sled, and away we would go.

We would often do our plowing with these oxen. In fact, we did all kinds of work. We would sometimes ride one ox we called Buck. But sometimes he would put his head down, snort, and we would land on the ground.

The winter I was 17, we cut a large lot of timber and had it sawed. One yoke of our oxen, which was white, helped in this work. We called them Lamb and Lion. They were very able cattle. I did not go to school this winter, but helped with the logging and stacking lumber.

A boy got up one winter’s morn and came to breakfast rather late,
Yet raised a fuss because there was no nice, big pancake upon his plate.
His father took him o’er his knee and raised his hand up in the air,
And when that boy got loose again, he held his spanked ache in the chair.

This was all my experience as an actor until after I began teaching.

The summer after I went to Perie at Otter Slide, I went to school to Callie at Berea. Mr. Brake owned the land all around the school house. He came to the school one day and complained that the children were getting into his orchard and wasting his apples (which I expect was so). Callie told them that she would whip anyone that went into the orchard. A few days later one of the Brake boys and two of the Hise Davis boys got some apples, and she whipped all three. This stopped apple stealing.

Some Memories of a Teacher Named Hall: The winter I was 9 years old, a young man by the name of Hall was teacher. He could do nothing with the children. I will give you one incident that I saw myself. Four or five of the larger girls were in mischief, and he told them they would stay after school. When he dismissed school, they started to get their wraps. He said, “Girls, I told you to stay in.” Ocea Colgate said, in a voice that was plain for everyone to hear, “I don’t have to; I don’t intend to; and you can’t make me.” What do you suppose he said? “Well girls, you can stay in at recess tomorrow.”

When we got outside, John Meredith proposed, “Three cheers for Ocea,” which we all gave with all the power of our lungs. Then someone proposed, “Three groans for the teacher.” This we gave just as loudly as the other. We were up on the hill on the road to Auburn one half mile from Berea and could be heard there. We told about it at supper that evening; and Father said, “If one of my children was in such a thing, I would whip him.” We never mentioned that we yelled as loud as anyone.

Now this teacher had a rule that when he called the roll, if you came in late you were to answer, “Tardy.” Also, if you had whispered that day, you were to say, “Imperfect”; if you had not whispered, you were to say, “Perfect.” Ellsworth was 19 years old and was very careful to not whisper. But one day some of the big girls fooled him into whispering, so he had a time the rest of the day. The girls had lots of fun thinking he would have to answer, “Imperfect.” When the roll call came, he answered, “Tardy.”

The trustees planned to turn Mr. Hall out at the end of the second month (we only had four months then), but he promised Mr. Brake that he would quit his tarnal partiality and not whip his boys unless he whipped someone else. Father took us children out of school and sent Ellsworth and Alva to another school three miles away.

Another Teacher-Tom Brown: The next winter Tom Brown taught our school. He was entirely different from Fred Hall.

One day the trustees came in to visit the school. They were Father, Mr. Brake, and Mr. Colgate. They were seeing about getting some new seats. Of course, the children were watching. After Father left, Mr. Brake made a speech. He said, “There’s not enough studying, too much looking around. Give it to ‘em, whip ‘em. Give ‘em the rod; it’s good for ‘em. We had to take it.” Mr. Brake always said lick ‘em. But if he found the teacher whipping one of his boys, he would take them all out of school.

The teacher was mad. After Mr. Brake left, he told us if we didn’t study better he would get some hickories and whip anyone who looked off his book one minute. He soon got the hickories and told us not to look off our books one minute on penalty of a whipping. I was 10 years old and knew the difference between looking at a book and studying. I looked at the book, but I did not study. (There’s an old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.”)

(I have heard that there is a way to get many to think, but some will not for they have no thinker.) But during the evening while I was looking intently at my book, (with my eyes rolled up, looking at the front of the house), I saw the teacher looking at his clock on the wall, then jump and grab a whip from the wall. I suddenly glued my whole mind on my book. When I heard him pass my seat, I knew I was safe. A moment later I heard him say, “What are you doing?” The boy replied, “I was studying.” But the teacher said, “No you weren’t”; and he jerked him out of his seat and gave him a hard whipping. I didn’t look back to see.

Now, who do you suppose it was? You’re right; it was one of Mr. Brake’s boys. I am sure he had watched all day to catch one of them. Mr. Brake always said, “Whip ‘em!”; and just as he did this time, he always took them out of school if the teacher whipped one of his kin.

More School Memories: I will go ahead and finish the account of my school days, and then go back to give an account of other happenings in my boyhood days. The next year Mr. Luzader (the father of Everett Luzader) taught part of the term. The children were so bad that he quit and Tom Brown finished it. I remember nothing important happening except his giving Elmus Bee a very hard whipping for looking out of the window to see how much snow was on the ground.

Mr. Wade taught the winter I was 12 years old. It was reported that he was very strict, so everybody was good the first month. The first morning of the second month he told us he had heard it was a very bad school, but he had never taught a better one. Poor man! That was the worst mistake he ever made, for the Berea school would not be bragged on. In the next three months he whipped not less than 10 or 12 times. Of these were the four largest boys in school and two girls. One of these girls was 15 years old, would have weighed at least 175 pounds, and was married in six weeks. He whipped her very hard. Mr. Brake again took his boys out of school because they got whipped.

At 13 I went to school to George Hoff for my last term at Berea. This was a very quiet term of school-never but one little flaw. He told us one morning that there had been some kissing games played and that there must be no more. A lot of us boys went down into Mr. Colgate’s field to play ball. We heard the bell in just a little while and went to school. He told us, “I told you this morning you were to play kissing games no more, and at noon you went down behind the house and went to playing them again. There will be no more of it.” And there wasn’t. Mr. Hoff boarded at our house and was a very nice man about the house.

An Incident at Upper Bone Creek: Before school began when I was 14, they had made a new school district at Upper Bone Creek and put us in it. Mr. Hoff was the first teacher. Things went along very well until he got into trouble with Frank Prunty. The school house was built on the Prunty farm. At recess one day Frank saw their sheep in the meadow, so he went to put them out without asking the teacher. He didn’t get back until 15 minutes after school was taken up. When Mr. Hoff asked him how he came to be late, he wouldn’t say a word. So Mr. Hoff told him he could stay in five minutes at noon. But Frank ran out.

Mr. Hoff got a whip at noon. Then before recess he got the key from the janitor and locked the door. Frank told the janitor, who was a boy about his age, that he would kill him if he gave the teacher the key. Before recess he was told that he could stay in all recess, but he just laughed at him. His older brother said at noon that he hoped Hoff would skin him alive as he was so mean none of them could do anything with him. Mr. Hoff proceeded to do what the brother hoped. Frank fought, but he was surprised to find himself jerked out of his seat, thrown to the floor, his hands tied behind him, pulled to his feet, and the whip worn out on him. Frank fought and swore he would kill Hoff, but George just threw him down on the floor and held him there all recess.

It was equal to any revival you ever saw. There was weeping and wailing, but no shouting. The girls all cried; the little children howled; and Frank kept swearing he would kill Hoff and the janitor. After recess he turned Frank loose, and Frank went out and got a ball bat and dared Hoff back there. He then went home, swearing to kill the two.

The trustees met the next day and expelled Frank. Mr. Prunty was away and did not return until the next afternoon after the fight. On being told why Frank was not at school, he went to the woods, got some hickories, and whipped him until he gave out. The next morning he got some more whips and began again. Frank finally said, “Father, if you won’t kill me, I will go back to school.” The trustees took him back when he agreed to behave in school and not bother young McClain (the janitor) while they were at school. He did not keep his word, but picked on him every chance he got and still said he intended to kill him.

One day the next summer, the McClain boy went down to get some sheep that had strayed onto the Prunty farm. Frank saw him and ran down and started a fight. The boy proceeded to cut him up, but not seriously. He was indicted for unlawful cutting, but he was cleared when Frank swore that he had said he would kill McClain but he had decided just to give him a good beating. The District Attorney said Frank got what was coming to him, which proves that justice is pretty sure to come sooner or later.

Another Teacher-John Lowther: I will write of one more teacher so that you may get a fair picture of the schools of that day, both good and bad. The next winter after the events mentioned above had happened, we had John Lowther as our teacher. He was a big man about 25 or 30 years old, but a teacher that kept no order at all. He would yell out so you could hear him for a half mile, “Cut that out,” or “You’re getting fresh back there.”

One cold wintry day, when Frank was the only one of the Johnsons who was there (now Frank had to be careful when any of the other children were there, for they would tell on him and Mr. Johnson would whip the life out of him), Frank was having a big time at the stove and Lowther told him to go to his seat. But Frank did not go. After Lowther yelled at him two or three times, he started back and Frank ran. Just as he got out the door Lowther yelled, “If you go out that door you’ll never come in here again.” Frank had closed the door, but he opened it, came back in, went up to the stove and sat down. Then Lowther really spread himself. He said, “If you ever do such a thing again, I’ll cut every dud off you. I’ll skin you alive! Don’t you know you’ve got to mind me?” Frank replied very quietly, “No, I don’t.” Lowther finally ran out of steam. After telling Frank to go back to his seat and close his knife (which he had been whittling a seat with), he then went on with the school.

My Final Years of School: The next year Alva taught, and I had a very successful term of school. The next year Alva taught again, but I stayed at home and helped with a big saw set. The next winter I was 18 and went to Miss Miller, who was a good teacher for an ordinary school but could not handle some of the outlaws of “Bloody Bone” (as we called the school). They annoyed her until she became a nervous wreck. They would drop a book on the floor to see her jump and hear her scream. They would throw a ball on the roof at recess to hear her scream. She finally had to stay at home and rest a few weeks before she could finish the school.

I will now tell you of an incident that happened at my last winter’s school, to show you the kind of boy my youngest brother, Delvia, was. One evening after school was out a boy ran up behind him, knocked his hat off, and started to pick it up and throw it in the mud. Delvia just lifted his heavy boot up by one foot and placed it firmly in his face, which left a rather muddy spot. The boy just turned around and walked off.

The next morning, Delvia slipped around the garden to the barn with the new hat. When I overtook him, he pulled an old, slouch hat from under his arm and said, “I am going to knock hats today.” When anyone came around knocking hats off, he took his turn. His aim was poor; instead of hitting the hat he would take the side of the head just about the ear. They never bothered his hats any more.

This was my last year in public school, for the next year I got a second grade certificate and began teaching.

I was born one mile down river (South Branch of the Hughes) from Berea, West Virginia. Our home was on the opposite side of the river from the road and the Asa Randolph home (later the Amos Brissey home). There was a ford across the river (maybe one-eighth mile above the Brissey house to our home). I was born and lived there about 3 years.

The first memories of this home I really don’t remember but have heard from my parents and Aunt Sarah, who lived on top of the hill back of our home. Aunt Sarah and my parents visited back and forth often, helping each other. There was maybe one-half mile between homes. I do not remember my Uncle Elsworth, who was my father’s youngest brother and his special buddy. Uncle Elsworth was killed in a logging accident before I could remember.

They tell me of my birth, which was at a tragic time. My brother, Harold, 2 years older than 1, died of membranous croup the same day I was born. Old Dr. Bee was at our place trying to save Harold when he brought me into the world. For some reason, probably because of Harold’s death and other business, he never recorded my birth at the courthouse. I know that because of the trouble I had getting my Social Security at the time of my retirement. Aunt Sarah was a big help at that time, they say.

Another time Aunt Sarah was such a special help was when I had diphtheria, probably in my first year. They said they almost lost me then, but Dr. Bee and Aunt Sarah brought me through. Of course, Mom and Dad did their part, too.

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Elsworth’s only son, Blondy, was a little older than I; and we were playmates and buddies from the time we were babies. After my diphtheria spell, Mother and Dad got concerned as to whether I could hear, so they decided to test me by having Blondy in the next room but out of sight. When he said my name, they knew I could hear.

There were two happenings at our first home that I heard a lot about. One was the time I was in the woodlot at the same time our cow was there, and she butted me over the woodpile. They said I didn’t even cry, and they watched me closer to keep me from playing with “Moo Cow.” The other was the time Mom heard me hollering, “Mom, Mom. Come come.” When Mom got to the river at a sand and gravel bar just above the ford, I had hold of a pole with a fish on the end of its line. The fish would pull me a while toward the water, then I would pull it. That may be why I love so much to see my grandchildren and great grandchildren pull and holler, “Help me, Paw.”

Uncle Gene’s in New York

About the summer when I was four, we moved to Uncle Gene and Aunt Cleo Elizabeth Jordan’s in New York at Friendship near Cuba. I can remember some things quite vividly. First, on our train trip we had to wait some at Wheeling. The trains sounded so near that I was expecting them to come into the waiting room. Also, I have memories of the drays and drivers, probably because Mother cut out connected strings of brownies. (Mother was a real crafter and artist.)

While we were in New York State, I went to school a little while. They took me out because I fell deeply in love with an older girl, Agnes Childs. We were together, it seems, all the time at recesses and noons. Often all of us children would go to an orchard maybe 300 yards away (maybe it was farther but seemed so short a distance because Agnes and I always walked hand in hand or arm in arm).

Another thing I remember well was Uncle Gene’s black dog (it must have been a Water Spaniel) and his big and mean gobbler. Romulus, the dog, stayed with me a lot, and he was seldom out of hearing of me. I can remember one time the gobbler spread his tail and wings mighty scarily; I had a hard time to get Romulus to save me, but he finally did.

My sister, Avis, and I had groundhog pets that my older brother, Brady, had caught for us. Brady knew where their dens were in and around a big meadow. He would hide near a den and watch until they would get far enough from their home until he could get between their den and them before they could reach safety. My pet wasn’t really a pet. He would bite and finally got away.

Avis and I played together a lot because she was two years younger than I. Sometimes I had trouble getting her to play my way or keep up when we were going to Uncle Gene’s, about one-half mile from our home. Then I would say, “”Appy won’t keep the snakes off you.” That got cooperation.

Life on Otterslide

It must have been the fall of 1907 that we went to Otterslide near Berea. I am sure that we were sorry to leave Aunt Cleo and Uncle Gene because they were mighty good to us. Our new home was small and just boarded up, but it was close to many of our relatives and friends. Probably we lived on Uncle Lashie Maxon’s place. Then there were Uncle Delvie and Uncle Elsa Maxson who lived near. They all had children who went to school to Dad and played with us what few times we could get together.

A few things are very vivid in my memory. I remember Dad chopping wood by our woodshed. Once he glanced his ax off the shed and cut his foot badly. Then I remember my mother carrying water up a ladder and into the attic to put out a fire that caught from the chimney. Another time at the supper table our oil lamp fell over, and the kerosene caught inside it. Mom grabbed an overcoat hanging near and wrapped the lamp up and put it outside.

The worst thing that happened while we lived on Otterslide was while Dad and Brady were working up the hollow (like they were when Mom put out the attic fire). My younger brother, Randall, choked. After Mom pounded his back and shook him while holding him by the heels, we ran to Uncle Lashie’s. Mother carried Randall, who must have been about 2 years old; and Avis and I tried to keep up. They could not unchoke Randall. It was such a sad time. I remember Dad and me after dark out by the woodshed crying our eyes out.

I have some hazy memories about going to school in the one room school at Otterslide. Of course, I was in the first grade, and my teacher was my father. But really, the next vivid memory was riding in a wagon and entering Berea. Just after we got through the covered bridge, what to my wondering eyes should appear but George Washington’s son sitting on steps in front of a house. His hair was cut just like the pictures of George Washington, and it was white. Later I found out he was my first cousin, Arden Bee. Probably his mother, Aunt Rachel, told him we were coming, and he was watching for us. Arden and I have always been close friends and still are.

Living in Berea

My memories of Berea are so many that I could never tell you about them all and get done in time to go fishing when the weather gets fit. Suffice it to tell about my schooling, my work, my dog, and my friends and enemies. I may make a mistake telling about the happenings with my enemies. My grandchildren and great grandchildren must realize that I was just a boy eight to almost twelve years old–so you do as your dad and mom say, not the way I did.

Maybe you will be interested in knowing what Berea looked like while we lived there. It was located in an almost round bottom of about fifty acres on the south side of the South Branch of the Hughes River. The business consisted of two stores, a post office, livery barn, and a grist mill. There was a two-room school when we arrived, with another added while we were there; and this was in Berea proper. The school was later moved to where Camp Joy is now. (The house was not moved, but a new schoolhouse was built.) The road made a loop around the bottom, with houses on both sides. There were about twenty houses along the loop and three on the road that extended down the river from where the loop joined at the covered bridge. At that junction was the post office, one store, the livery barn, and the blacksmith shop. The other store and the gristmill were about one hundred yards up the river along the loop, by the dam.

My Schooling at Berea

As for school, I remember I was a very slow reader; and I liked exciting stories like Gulliver’s Travels, Indian stories, Greek stories, poems, and wars in the histories. I once printed a big imaginary story about a character similar to Gulliver. I also often felt very sad, fearing I would never have a chance to be a hero because I feared there would never be any more wars. of course, I was wrong. There have been wars, and I am glad I didn’t have to fight in them.

These stories of Jason, Hercules, the Roman heroes and the Christian martyrs, I suppose, influenced me to try to be a martyr. My worst punishment at school came from that desire. In fact, there were two of those experiences–one in the fifth grade at Berea and the other in the ninth grade at Salem High School. After I was teaching, I realized that I needed the rubber hosing I got at Berea and being expelled from the study hall at Salem because I took the blame for other pupils’ mischief.

Play at the Berea School was real fun. We chose up and played base, both draw base and prisoner base. We also had fun playing ball with a twine-wound ball and no cover. (We had never seen a baseball or softball.) I loved to be the catcher. One noon I was catching for a strong eighth-grade pitcher. The ball was wet, which made it like a rock. A batter just snibbed the under part of the ball, causing it to hit my eye squarely. That ended my catching career. There were many other games, like “London Bridge,” “soccer ball,” and in the fall “Hull Gull, Odd or Even,” and in the spring “Lap Jack.”

Maybe you would like to know how we played “Hull Gull” and “Lap Jack.” As I said, Hull Gull was played in the fall. Chestnuts were plentiful, and we would fill our pockets with them before we went to school. Then we would hold out a hand (with some chestnuts enclosed) and say, “Hull Gull, odd or even.” If the other youngsters said “Even” or “Odd” and when we opened our hand there was what they said, they got the chestnuts. But if they were not right, we got one from them to make it odd or even.

We played lap jack in the spring because the willows along the creeks were extra limber. We took a willow switch with us to school, and we would challenge another child to lap jack with us. Whoever hollered first lost the match. Usually this only lasted one day because it caused trouble that mothers and teacher didn’t like.

There were many programs at school in those days. We had a literary meeting each month during the school term. The older people had parts in it, too. I remember being in a debate: “Resolved that water is more destructive than fire.” I don’t remember whether I won or lost. I also remember a Christmas Program with a big tree for the community and a jolly Santa Claus. On that tree was a pair of skates for me. When I got the skates, I left the program and went to the river above the dam, where there were solid ice and lots of skaters (including my older brother, Brady). I didn’t have a period of falling down because I had practiced stroking just like the big folks even without skates on for a year or so.

This is enough about schools at Berea except to say that I was noticing girls again like I did in New York State (but not quite as much). Pearl Buzzard, who later became Mrs. Curtis Simmons, was my special. Pearl’s husband left her when she became a crippled invalid. We were close friends until her death, when she willed me her wheelchair. She also left one son, who took good care of her to the end. Another girl I liked a lot was Beulah Collins, who later married my cousin, Hollie Sutton. Beulah was beautiful and had an especially beautiful voice. She didn’t notice me because she liked the older boys.

One year while we lived at Berea I went to school at the Fair View School. I walked with Dad about three miles each way. That was the last year I had Dad for my school teacher. That was a great experience. Dad was a wonderful teacher, especially in arithmetic and history and on the playground. Among many other games, we often played “Fox and Hound” at noon, which used about all the noon period and a lot of rough country.

Special Friends (and Enemies)–(Wrestling and fighting)

It was not long after we moved to Berea, the summer I was seven years old, that the boy who was to become my best friend and buddy came to see me. The thing I remember most about his visit was that he wanted to wrestle. So Dad cleared a room of furniture, and we went at it. I couldn’t seem to understand what was happening until after he had thrown me three or more times. Then I said it was my turn to yank. To the best of my knowledge, he never did throw me again.

In fact, I can’t remember our ever wrestling again except once, when we got paid to fight in front of a crowd of men at the livery barn. In the first place, the men told Lester (Lester Jackson was my friend’s name) they would give him a nickel if he would get me to fight him. We fought so fiercely that they got ashamed, I suppose, and paid us a nickel apiece to quit. We took the money and hand-in-hand went to the nearest store and bought candy to eat together. The nearest store was the Douglas one.

Lester and I were at the livery stable another time when the front big sliding door fell on Lester. It hardly hurt him any, but we were scared. Lester was a tough boy. Once he had his head smashed when his father’s combination truck and surrey automobile (the first one of any kind owned near Berea) hit a telephone pole with his head between the truck and the pole. It did put him in bed for a while, but he recovered and served in the Marines for many years.

I saw Lester only once after we left Berea at the age of eleven and almost twelve. He came to our place for a visit at Salem, and we went to Clarksburg to visit my cousin, Arden Bee (the one I thought was George Washington’s son). The three of us went above the dam at Hartland, a suburb of Clarksburg, and had a great time swimming. I went back to try to see him at a Jackson and Prunty Reunion at the old Prunty Place, three miles below Berea. They told me Lester had died in Hawaii ten years before.

I must tell you about the time Lester Jackson saved Avis’ life. We had been on the ice of the river down by Creed Collins’. We didn’t have skates, so we must have just walked on the ice across the river. Lester and I had gotten across and were waiting for Avis. She hollered, “Help!” We saw her sink to her arm pits through the ice. Lester ran to her. They broke the ice in front of her, and Lester led her to the bank. I was ashamed that I didn’t go to her, but no doubt it was meant for Lester because I was so heavy. I might have drowned both of us, or all three. Those of you who read this, beware of thawing ice. It is treacherous because it can have hidden rotten spots.

I remember one other wrestling match, and it was with Odbert Bell, a mighty husky boy my age. Our wrestling was done with one arm over the shoulder and one under for each. When one was down and couldn’t get up, the other had won. We squeezed each other’s back and thrashed around, trying to bend the other’s back in until he would fall. Finally Odbert got me. I think that was why I never cared much for wrestling.

My memories of Berea have many fights in them. Suffice it to tell you of a few. One boy I fought with was Harry Wade. His father bought our home place, and he lived in the same house where I was born. He and I were very good friends, but some of the big boys got him to start a fight after a program at school. We fought with our fists, only quite evenly and so entertainingly that the watchers cheered loudly enough to attract an older person, who stopped the fight and sent us on home (for which I was thankful because I wasn’t sure of the win).

Our next-door neighbor was the village blacksmith, Mike Jett. He had two sons and two daughters. The son Dewit was my age; and the daughters, Pearl and Judy, were older. Leo was the youngest son. There was practically a feud between our family and Mike Jett, along with the men who came to his drinking parties.

Once I was coming home on our horse at night;, and they rocked us, which almost made Nellie run off with me. Another time, I met Dewit, Pearl, and Judy in front of the school house. I got on the school house porch against the house so they couldn’t get behind me. I guess I was pretty desperate because I hit Dewit so hard that I heard a loud crack. Dewit went down. I saw some folks coming who heard it from the post office porch, so I ran home.

Good Times With Cousins and Hunting Dogs

My time at Berea was also very pleasant–especially the visits to stay all night with my cousins, Blondy Randolph at Aunt Sarah’s and Oma Sutton at Uncle Herman’s. Blondy and I played climbing and swinging in the big spreading chestnut tree that had grapevines in it. Aunt Sarah’s big barn had lots of hay and straw in it, where we did tumbling stunts. Most fun of all was training and using a pair of calves to pull a cart our Uncle John Meatheral had made for us.

The times I remember going home with Oma were in the fall during the hunting season. Uncle Herman had hounds. Most of them were foxhounds, but one was a dandy night-fur-animal hunter. He would tree opossums and hole skunks, and we would have fun shaking the possums out and digging out the skunks. We sometimes built a fire to warm ourselves and roast apples wrapped in clay mud, and once a young chicken.

Speaking of hunting dogs, I had a red short-legged dog, Rover, that was a real pal. He used to go with me all the time. Many were the times I grabbed his hind legs and helped him pull groundhogs and rabbits out of their dens. He had such short legs that he would go back in their holes and pull them out.

I remember one time down at our old home place that Rover ran a groundhog into a hole. I heard it whistle before it went in; then, as it came out a back door of its den, Rover grabbed it. They fought over and over on a smooth path; then they got off the path, so Rover just rolled over and over with it until they got to a small flat place at the edge of the river. Rover wanted to do his fighting on level ground. They fought there; but before I could help Rover without hurting him, they got into the river. I was really scared for Rover then, so I went in, too. We finally got it out and quieted, but I had an awful time finishing it off with a club.

There is a story about this hole–in fact, there are two–where Rover and I finished off the groundhog. This hole in the river was just below our ford and between our place and Grandpa Randolph’s. The story goes that another dog, Bruno (a big, ugly bulldog) got revenge on a deer for butting his friend and playmate, Ring (the tall greyhound), with a quilting party of ladies watching.

Bruno’s barking brought the women out to see the trouble just in time to see a big buck send Ring rolling with its horns. Bruno, even though he was fat and lazy, seemed to get determined to pay that buck back for hurting his playmate. He chased it to the river. While it was crossing on the ice, he caught it by the nose. He turned it a somersault and broke its neck. After quite a while, a man on a horse came along and claimed the deer, claiming his dogs had been running it. Grandpa gave it to him.

The other story also happened before I was born and while Dad was a young man. He and his brothers built a fence across the lower end of this water hole, just about where we fought the groundhog. They built it of rocks and put a room below it at the swiftest side. When the river would rise because of grinding grain and using water from the dam at Berea, they would open the door into that room. When the water went down, they would close the door and go in and catch fish with hands and clubs. Sometimes they got mighty nice ones.

Once for a few days we couldn’t find Rover. After worrying and inquiring, we heard that a teamster about 15 miles down river had him. Dad, Brady, and Clee Wagoner went down to get Rover. They walked and took turtle-prodding sticks similar to gaff hooks because it was spring before the turtles got out of the mud. They spied Rover at a house a little way from the road. Brady and Clee waited at the road, and Dad went to the house. Dad told the man he had his dog and he was going to take it home. The man said he would wade through blood before he would let that dog go. Dad said, “Start wading”; and he went back to the road, where Brady had called Rover and had him. We were a happy family when they came home with Rover and two sacks of nice snapping turtles. I think Avis and I were the happiest. Mom let me sleep with Rover in my bed for some time. That was very unusual. I never knew of her allowing a dog in our house at any other time.

My Work at Berea

Besides this fun, I did do some work while living at Berea. One year, we raised a cane patch (probably two acres) on top of the hill near Aunt Sarah’s. I remember that so well because I had to thin it. Dad was afraid the seed was poor, so he put plenty seeds in each hill. I think they all came up. I got a terrible headache.

We also had a garden au the old home place besides the big one we had at Berea. One day Brady, Dad, and I were working in this garden when we heard loud splashing in the riffles at the ford. We ran down and got a fish in a little open place among the seaweeds. Brady hit it with a club, and we had a twenty-four-inch bass. I remember we couldn’t eat it all in one day with Grandpa and Grandma Sutton visiting us.

There were a number of farmers around whose children had grown up and left home, so I got to ride their horses for cultivating, harvesting, etc. One of these farmers was John Meredith. He had a queer way of paying; he would feel in his pocket after I had worked a half day or so and find a nickel, dime, or once or twice a quarter and give it to me.

One day Mr. Meredith got me to help him drive two cows down to Wolf Pen, about 10 miles down river, in order to sell one of them. He thought they would drive easier. I rode behind him on a horse, (a rather sharp-backboned one). When we were coming to a branch road, I got off, ran ahead, and made the cows go the right way. We ate dinner there; then we drove the one cow back. It took about all day. I remember so well because I was so disappointed; he only found a nickel to pay me.

When I was ten and eleven years old, I had a regular job of driving the milk cows for our village to a pasture in the morning and to their home lot in the evening. They paid me by the month, twenty-five cents. I thought I was rich. There were deep hollows and patches of brush. Sometimes it took me until after dark to find the cows and get them home. Dad let me buy a little hand ax, similar to our Scout axes now. With that ax I never was afraid, even if a stump or bush would look like a bear.

That night hunting makes me think of the stormy night when Nell got out, and I went up the river to hunt for Nell while Dad went down river. Dad forgot to tell me how far to go. I kept going and looking in every possible place. She meant about as much to me as Rover did. It was extremely dark except when the lightning flashed, which I learned to appreciate. I must have hunted two miles where there was not a home in sight of the road before I gave up and went home discouraged. Dad had found Nellie, so I was happy; and Mom and Dad were glad to see me.

Another kind of work was hacking. That was cutting brush from one- to eight- or ten-inches in diameter and piling it. At first I wasn’t big enough to use an ax, so I piled. Once in a while when they would find a nice branchy bush, they would let me climb it before they cut it. I would get on the side up hill. When it fell, it would bounce up and down a while, giving me a thrilling ride.

When I was ten years old, Dad let me use a pole ax. I saw my first copperhead that I remember. When stepping up to a bush, I spied a copperhead all coiled up. I yelled, “Dad!” He came and made a quick end to its life.

They also let me use a scythe that same summer to cut weeds and small brush and briers. I went down to the place Dad bought from Grandpa Sutton, which was just across the river from the lower end of Berea. I was feeling big and important. No doubt that made me careless whetting my scythe. I cut my hand, which stopped my using the scythe for a while.

My Colt, Tony

Our horse Nellie finally had a colt that Dad let me call my own . Nellie and the colt pastured in the round bottom where Camp Joy is now. I loved the colt and began petting it whenever Nellie would let me. Finally I got a halter on it and would lead it around near its mother. Then I would get it into the box stall in the church barn, where I would feed it apples, etc., from my hand and put my hand on its back.

One day I led Tony down to Berea. He must have been about one year old then. I took him to drink at the watering hole in the river where the liverybarn horses drank. Tony started jumping up on his hind feet and pawing, so I started him back toward pasture. He gave me a hard time. Once he managed to scrape my back some with his front hoof. Dad (or maybe it was Mom) wouldn’t let me bother Tony for a while. As soon as I could, I got him back in the box stall, fed him, petted him, put my hand on his back, put a blanket on him, and finally would hang onto the top of the stall and sit on him.

About that time, Dad moved him to a pasture at the top of the hill toward Pullman. The Berea cows were being kept in that pasture, so sometimes I would find Tony and ride him bareback to round up the cows. One time just as I got on him he jumped a ravine. It caused me to fall, but Tony stopped and waited for me to get back on his back.

The first time Tony had a saddle on, Avis rode him (with Dad on Nellie) for a visit up Otterslide. They said he was as good as could be. The second time was when I took him back to pasture. I was at the foot of the hill when I met two young men. They had white straw hats. They threw the hats in front of Tony. He wheeled, and my saddle turned. I fell and broke my arm. I took Tony on to pasture without letting the boys know I was hurt. Then I went home and let Dad and Mr. Wagoner set my arm.

More Injuries

Surely you are getting tired of happenings at Berea. Suffice it just to say that Avis got her arm broken while riding an old buggy coasting down the road in Berea. I got one arm broken jumping over a cliff when they were turning off maple sugar at Uncle John Meatherell’s.

At still another time, a young fellow cut my shoulder; and Minter Fox, the veterinarian, sowed it up, which hurt like blue blazes. (I still have a scar on my back that looks like a lizard.)

At another time I was riding to Pullman, and Nellie jumped over the bank and a fence because she saw her first car. When cars first came around, they must have seemed like dragons to the horses. Most car drivers would stop when they met a horse, turn off the engine, and lead the horse or horses past the car.

Fishing at Berea

When the ground was too wet to work and we didn’t have other work we could do, Mom and Dad were real good about letting us have fun–like fishing.

Once we (Brady and I) went fishing in the same hole where Mom helped me catch my first fish, only this was on the road side of the river and two or three hundred yards farther up stream. We went down a steep bank from the road to a small flat where we could throw our baits into the water near an old brush pile. We began catching fish. Brady was catching them faster, probably because his pole was longer. I started stringing his fish, and he caught them as fast as I could get them strung. We had the stringer about full and decided that was all we could carry home. They were nice black and yellow sunfish and catfish. Just as we got up on the road, along came Uncle John Meatherell in his surrey pulled by two spirited horses. He took us home, and we were thankful.

Elmo’s Birth and The Last Year in Berea

August 31, 1913, was a day of many anxieties at our home. Aunt Sarah was there. So was Julia Meatherell, our cousin. Our family doctor was there. Everything was hustle and bustle, so Avis and I stayed out of the way, mostly outside of the house. I have heard the story over and over since–how Dr. Bee could not take care of Elmo when he was born because he was busy saving my mother. Aunt Sarah said she thought Julia and she could save him, and they did. They had to use a medicine dropper to feed him because he was so tiny. It was touch and go for both Mother and Elmo for quite a while. Elmo’s birth, Mom’s being sickly, and Brady’s going to Salem College caused Dad and Mom to decide to move to Salem.

Another reason for the move was our troubles with unfriendly neighbors–like the time Brady came home from school at Salem one evening. Since Dad was staying at school for a program, Brady and I decided to go to the program and come home with him.

As we went by Mike and Dinah Jett’s home, we noticed they were having company. When we got through the covered bridge, we heard loud hollering (“We’ll murder them!”) and a lot of swearing. We knew they meant us. We quickly gathered a good club and a handsized rock. As we went up the steep path (which was a short cut for walking toward Pullman), we planned to wait for these young men and have the downhill advantage. We tried that a number of times before we got to the top of the hill; but even though they were drunk, they wouldn’t fall for our trick. Our plan was for Brady to get them down and me to crack them over the head with the club.

When we started down the hill that would take us to Dad’s school, we traveled on the road. These men (there were five of them about Brady’s age, seventeen years old to twenty) came up to us, trying to shove each other against us, then backing off and rocking US. They didn’t get the fight started that way because we weren’t going to fight unless we had to.

Finally one of the largest ones of them took hold of Brady’s lantern and said he had lost his cap. (He had his cap on his head.) While they argued, two of them went past us and two stayed above. I tell you, I was scared and had my club tightly in my hand. Brady told Luther to let loose of the lantern or he would take him over the rock cliff (which was just off the road); he let loose. The two in front of us stepped aside, and they all left us. Probably Luther’s scare brought them to their senses. Anyway, we were mighty glad to get to Dad’s school.

Life at Salem: Boxing at Salem

Among my first memories at Salem are of boxing at the Pennsylvania Dormitory of Salem College. I guess we lived there while we waited to get in our home on top of the hill back of the college. Some of the boys who lived in the dormitory, including Ruben Brissey, got Otho Randolph and me into a boxing match. It was the first time I ever saw boxing gloves. Otho, my cousin and the chief of police’s son, gave me all I could handle; but I must have done fairly well.

About once a year Otho and I would have a lively boxing match until the summer we were sixteen. I remember that one extra well. We boxed in Uncle Joel’s yard at the mouth of Pennsylvania Avenue. Otho was giving me a mighty hard time, mostly because he kept stepping on my toes with the spikes on his running shoes. I got afraid he was going to get me, but Aunt Gertie came out and stopped us. We never boxed again, but I will tell you of our farming together at Uncle Al Glover’s later.

Of course, that was not all the boxing I did at Salem. Some of us boys stopped at Jennings Randolph’s home on the way back from church (probably a Junior Christian Endeavor meeting), and Jennings brought out his gloves. First Gene Lowther put them on with me. I happened to get him some pretty solid blows, so he quit, never to box with me again. (I never did see him box with anyone again.) Then Jennings boxed with me. We enjoyed many bouts for two years. We never tried to knock each other out, but he was a mighty worthy opponent.

When I started to Salem College Academy, I boxed often in the Rec Room. These were just for fun. But one with Offet Collins was for real. Offet told me he was going to stay with his father at a saw mill in Kentucky the next summer, so he wanted to practice fighting. I agreed to fight with him, even though I was fifteen and he was eighteen. He also had much longer arms than mine. Of course, we put gloves on. We sparred a little; then Offet rushed. He kept on rushing. I hit him, but he kept on. Finally he caught me an extra good one. I went sort of numb. I felt some other blows, first on one side and then the other. The next thing I knew I was wakening up on the floor. I got up and held him off for a while; then he did the same thing again. When I got up the next time, I stayed with him until he wanted to quit. Either the sting had left his blows, or I had learned how to keep them from landing.

This match with Offet probably helped me when I boxed Fay Bunnel, the carnival boxer, before a crowd at Salem. I was eighteen at that time. I only agreed to fight three rounds as a wrestling and boxing card. For some reason the wrestling didn’t happen, so they asked me to go six rounds with Fay. I agreed. About the second round Fay caught me a glancing blow in one eye. The gloves were six ounces and badly scarred. The blow almost blinded me the rest of that round. I had a hard time covering up. His blows came fast. They seemed to come from everywhere. He had a style I had never seen before; his gloves were down at his sides. I seemed to do better after that second round but was glad when the sixth was over. Fay had a good professional career.

My Twelfth Birthday

By the time I had my twelfth birthday, we had -moved into our own house on the top of the hill behind Salem College. Mom had a party for me with some ten or twelve of my friends. Gene Lowther, Jennings Randolph, Russell Jett, and Otho were among them. Among other things we tried to see who could chin himself the most. I could chin myself only once, while a lot of them could go up four times and some more. After that I developed the ability to chin-up more than eight times.

Scouting (Boy Scouts)

It wasn’t long after my twelfth birthday that Oris Stutler started a Boy Scout troop. My, but we enjoyed learning in the Scouts. Oris was a great Scout Master. Jennings saw that he got a Congressional Medal for it.

I remember two camping trips. In the summer of 1914, we camped on Ford’s Place four miles below West Union on the Middle Island Creek. It was a wonderful experience; but my buddy, Russell Jett, almost drowned while taking a swimming test. He was swimming beside me, and I saw him sink without saying a word. When I realized he wasn’t fooling, we pulled him out; and Oris brought him around.

The next summer we camped one mile below West Milford on the West Fork River. One of the things I remember most about the camping was the great food. I even learned to like rice that was cooked with water and sugar (I never liked it before). I also remember catching big frogs.

I meet Ruth Bond

.Another thing I remember about my scouting was meeting the prettiest girl I had ever seen–on the walk by the side of the College Administration Building. She had blond curls, lots of them, hanging over her shoulders. I was wearing my scout suit. I tipped my hat as nice as I knew how. It must have made some impression because I now have her as my own queen and mother of my seven children.

In the scouting I took a special interest in fire-building, cooking, and bird watching. I made many trips back up the ridge from our home, where I would watch and listen for new birds. When eating time came (I could only tell by my hunger because I had no watch), I would prepare a spot carefully and build a fire. Sometimes I had some kind of meat. More often it was a vegetable or just a sandwich to toast on a forked stick. I would wrap corn or potatoes in clay mud (we did not have aluminum foil). My birdwatching was more listening and stalking than watching. I kept listening for new songs or voices. Then I would stalk the bird that made the sound or sang the song until I could get a good look. Sometimes I found it was an old friend but just a different song. That led to my recognizing many birds by their voices.

Some Fights

During the first summer I was at Salem, I had some interesting experiences. One of them was after a ball game on top of the hill back of Jennings Randolph’s home. A gang of boys led by Tad Graham were playing, and my friends (Russell Jett and Dana Williams) and I joined them. After the game Tad and his friends grabbed me. They threw me down. I looked for help and saw Russell and Dana heading for safety and home. Tad said, “Let’s make him eat this cow manure.” (It was real dry.) I broke loose and grabbed a club that happened to be handy. I said, “The first SOB that gets near me is going to get this.” (I used the real words, which I had never done before.) They believed me and finally gave up and went home. I had a few other hard times because I was a country greenhorn.

Many times while on the Main Street I would pass a dray wagon hauling things to or from the railroad station. Mr. Davis and some of his three boys would be on it. The boys got to hollering, “Baby, Baby,” each time when they passed. It got annoying. One day I met one of them with an Ash boy. I just started swinging my fists. I backed up against the side of the Ford and Swiger store so they couldn’t get behind me. We were trading blows hard and fast, especially the Ash boy, when a man came along and parted us. That didn’t satisfy me or the Davis boys either.

Another day I met the three of them walking in front of the college. We started swinging. I remember college students gathered to watch on the lawn. I knew them, and many of them knew me because I went to the 7th grade there where they practice taught. I soon got the Davis boys separated. I would knock one into the street. Another would come; I would roll him. They soon had enough. Later they were good friends.

Tad Graham hadn’t had enough to suit him. One day Jennings brought his boxing gloves up to that same ball field for Tad and me to have it out. I beat him thoroughly because his arms were shorter than mine and he wouldn’t quit trying to clobber me. Tad was a friend from then on.

Working at Salem

I always had a job during the summer. The first summer after my 7th grade, I took office telephone calls for the Salem Block Company (they made cement blocks). Sometimes when they had train cars of sand or cement that had to be unloaded quickly, I would help with that. They had one man laborer besides the owners. I could handle more sand and as much cement bags as he did.

I did not wait until school was out to peddle bunches of onions. They were green onions from sets that Mom had brought from Denver, Colorado, when she and Uncle Waitie went there to see their brother, Uncle Elzie. These were called winter onions because they would be good eating-size by March. We put 5 or 6 onions in a bunch, and I sold them at 5 cents per bunch.

We had a hard time making a living. Dad taught mostly one-room schools and sold life insurance in the summer. His pay was not enough to keep us four children and Mother. Mother took in some washings to help. My father and I took filth jobs the summer after my 8th grade. Some of them were hacking jobs, and some were scythe jobs (like briers). I did not have to worry about copperheads. Dad could distinguish a copperhead smell as well as I could a bird song. Once when we were hacking brush on Dr. Davis’s farm on Tarkill, he said, “There’s a copperhead around.” We looked for a likely place and spied a big rotten stump. When we got it turned over, we killed two big rusty ones.

The next year was my first year away from Salem College for schooling. I went to Salem High School as a freshman. Among many exciting things, about the last of February, I took the measles. With other subjects that I did all right in, I had Latin, which kept me hustling to understand. These measles kept me out of school two weeks. Mother taught me to make flowers out of crepe paper and to tat so I could pass the time. Maybe I should have been studying Latin. When I got back, they had learned about verbs; and I was having an almost impossible job to catch up.

Along came the offer for high school boys to leave school to work on a farm to produce food for England and France during their war with Germany. I jumped at the chance. I went to Uncle Al and Aunt Martha Glover’s dairy farm on Route 23 one mile north of Salem. I had never milked a cow, and all milking was by hand then. The first morning at four o’clock Aunt Martha (she was not a real Aunt but acted like a sweet one) called, so Uncle Al and I went to the barn. While Uncle Al milked seven cows, I milked six. I was mighty proud, but my fingers were almost too tired to hold my knife and fork while I ate breakfast when we got to the house.

There was lots of good healthy work to do on the farm. We prepared the ground and planted the corn, harvested the meadows, and cut filth. If it rained, there were always things to do in the barn, like cleaning up and caring for the machinery.

One very hot evening I heard a buzzing while getting the cows out of the woods. After listening and watching a while, I located a bee tree. The entrance was about thirty feet up in the main trunk of a red oak. When I told Dad about it the next Sabbath on one of my weekly visits, he planned to come over and help me cut it. Uncle Al agreed to our cutting it. We sawed it down with a cross-cut saw (there were no power saws then). When it fell, the tree split lengthwise, leaving the honey entirely open as pretty as could be. The bees did not think we should take their honey. After burning some rags, we managed to get four water buckets of honey and a few stings.

I learned a lot about farming from Uncle Al, and Aunt Martha fed me so very well. One unusual thing I learned to eat was clabber milk from her cold spring house. The milk would be soured into a solid called clabber. When it was in my glass, I would take my knife or fork and chop it up some–then drink and smack my lips. Try this some day. You may find a drink much better than Coke.

Another drink I liked especially well was buttermilk. Often I enjoyed a supper of buttermilk and corn or light bread. Now, 1981, Grandma doesn’t churn; but she makes buttermilk by putting about four tablespoons of vinegar in a quart of milk or powdered milk (or until it starts to curd as you stir it–it might take more than the four tablespoons). I am having some buttermilk and cornbread flapjacks on this my 79th birthday for dinner or supper–or maybe both.

After school was out, my cousin Otho Randolph came to work with me. One of our biggest jobs was the harvesting. I had never done anything but help build shocks and ride the horse to haul them in. This summer I helped build the shocks and pitched it up to Uncle Al while Otho hauled it to us. It might interest you to know that my pay started at $10 for the first month and then raised to $20 per month.

Flinderation School: I was to write insurance, but it did not work out as the insurance men fought us both fair and foul. So I got the school at Flinderation that winter. When the district superintendent proposed my name as the teacher, one of the board turned around and asked if I thought I could hold Flinderation down. I told him I did. The fact is I thought I could hold anything down, but I have had some doubts since. When virtually all of the patrons, as well as the children, do everything they can to be mean, it is hard to make a success in any school, as I found in Taylor County a few years later. Flinderation proved to be a very nice school. Every one seemed to be entirely satisfied and wanted me to teach it again. I thought they would ask the board for me, and they thought I would ask; so I did not get it.

I got a job of Uncle Preston the next summer. He was building a house, and I had all kinds of work to do. I can tell you he was hard to please. I then worked at other places after I quit him.

Black Lick School,  A Bout with Rheumatism: I taught at Black Lick in Doddridge County this winter. I felt miserable most of the late fall, and by Thanksgiving I felt so bad that I let Brady teach a day or more as it was vacation for him. By the first of the next week, I was down with rheumatism. For two weeks I lay on my back and could move but one foot a little bit and neither hand. They fed me for five weeks because I could not get either hand to my mouth. The pain, at times, was terrible—but not all the time, for we found a remedy that would stop it in an hour. (Ring a woolen cloth out of very hot water with a tablespoon of Epsom salts for every quart of water, changing it as soon as it begins to cool. This may be of use to someone.) I did not get to go back to school till late in January; even then I felt miserable. This was not a very interesting school, for the most of them were not very bright students .

I did not get steady work the next summer for two reasons: I was not very able to work, and work was very scarce. I got some work about town and went out in the country and did some harvesting.

This winter of 1916-17 I taught at Buckeye, three miles out of Salem. This was a fairly good school, and enjoyed it fine.

Working for Virgil in New York, 1917

When school was out, I went up to New York to work for Virgil as I feared work would be scarce in Salem. I started about March 20. I had a cold when I left; by the time I got there, it had developed into grippe. I was not able to do anything for two weeks. We put out a crop of oats, about ten acres of potatoes, and an acre of corn for ears. Virgil had a bottom that would mature corn; but oh, it was so hard and flinty. Virgil told me later that the acre produced 125 bushels of corn.

Soon after I got there, World War I started. Potatoes were over $2 a bushel; flour went out of sight, but it soon went down some. They asked everyone to plant all the potatoes they could as they would be needed. Virgil feared there would be so many raised that they would not be worth raising. He need not have been scared; they started off in the fall at $1 a bushel and soon went up to $2. In the spring they went still higher. The farmers, both grain and stock, made big money during the war. The next year the price went way down and did not go back up on farm products until about 1940—twenty years later. I’ll tell you, it was hard times for the farmers. No wonder the farmers rose up in their might and crushed the party, in 1932, that had ruined them and that it has not returned to power in twenty years—but I am getting in ahead of my story, so I had best go back.

I worked fairly hard that summer but did not hurt myself. I did not get wages like others were getting because I began work before the war started. Elizabeth was at Virgil’s that summer. We had a great time together. She was a fine friend and did everything she could to cheer me up when I’d get home sick and lonesome. Vida came out a while that summer and was very nice to me, which I will never forget.

We had a near neighbor who had bad spells with his heart, which scared the family very much. They would come after Virgil in haste, and he would go over and stay for hours sometimes. He was a very good neighbor. One day they came after Virgil at noon, and he wasn’t at home. So I went and stayed till he got better. They told Virgil I was very helpful, which made me feel good. It is really very good to feel you are useful.

Mary was a fine motherly woman who was as good as any could be. Winston did nothing of any amount for he was not strong and did not dare do much.

Back to Salem, Fall 1917

I came back to Salem the last of August so I could go to Teachers’ Institute and got steady work at three times the pay I was getting. I was very glad, for we needed the money very much. I got a lot of work at the lumber yard.

I taught at Dewey Town that winter. It was one of the coldest, iciest winters one need ever want to see. It was a very rainy fall; in fact, once or twice it would rain till I would be wet from my waist down. My rubbers and shoes would be full, and I would wring out my stockings and put them back on. By 4 p.m. my clothes would be about dry; by the time I got home, I would be wet as ever. Between Christmas and New Years it got very cold. For six weeks it was seldom above zero and as low as 17 below. Most of the time the snow was covered with ice, so you were constantly in danger of falling and crippling yourself. I boarded over there the last week of the severe cold weather. All my eighth grade got promoted, which was very good.

When school was out, I got a job on a farm at Glovers and Kings for the summer. They were very good to me except Mrs. King, who hated me, and there was no love lost. She had two girls whom she was trying to bring up to be as big snobs as she was.

I taught at Flinderation again this year. The flu broke out after I had taught a short time, and all schools were closed for about six weeks.

Railroad Work at Grafton I got a job working on the railroad at Grafton. A train came to Salem at 6:45 a.m. and was supposed to come back at 6:45 p.m. We got pay from the time we were supposed to leave Salem until we did get back. We got time and a half after 10 hours, and we always got 11 hours. Once we got 13 besides the extra time. This wasn’t the worst of it; they wouldn’t let us do half work. You wonder why? The railroad companies were running the railroad for the government, and they wanted to make it cost the government so much the government would have to give it back to the railroad companies.

I will give one example of the way they worked. One morning when we got into Grafton, we found that McAdo (the big boss) was there, and he was mad. He told them there were men enough on the job to have done three times the work they had done. That was really an understatement, but I suppose he didn’t want to be too hard on them. The super came out and told us to get tie hooks and go to carrying ties. He said, “Any one found loafing while the government men are here will be fired.” Of course, that meant when they left we could loaf all we pleased.

The men began to carry ties, three hooks, six men to a tie. I was left without any hook or buddy. There was one hook and two men extra, so I told them to catch back a little from the end and I would carry the back end. I could carry my end, but it was heavy. The second tie we carried a boy ran up and grabbed a hold. On the third tie a man came, too. This made me so mad that I let loose, and my end of the tie dropped to the ground. They were pulling down instead of helping. Just then the super came back and told us to carry some old ties. I started for them, and three more came after me. When I got there, I tipped a tie on end, put it on my shoulder, and walked off with it. Several began to curse and rave. I stopped and told them that I didn’t object to help in carrying ties but I’d be hanged if I’d carry the ties and drag two or three with it. Some of them talked saucy, but no one laid hands on me, so it soon died down.

Sometimes they would go over into town and stay for hours. One boy from Salem slipped out at noon and didn’t come back till 3 p.m. They fired him, but he came back the next day and worked right ahead. I’ll bet he got full pay for the day they fired him. It was the greatest swindle I ever saw. I got over $4 a day for six to eight hours play; the rest of the time we put in on the train, part of the time going and part of the time on switches waiting for a train to pass us.

A few weeks after I got my pay, a man came to me and asked if I had got all my pay. I told him I got what they gave me. He said there was more at the depot. I went down and got enough to make me about $5 a day. This was the best job I had ever had.

Teaching Again

About the first of November I began teaching again. This was the great flu year of 1918. I had a very nice school, but it got quite small and they sent the scholars to Bristol the next year. I never taught in Harrison County again. The chief reason for this was that the board of Ten Mile decided about this time to hire no one unless he had as good as a Normal certificate.

The summer of 1919 I worked on Evander’s farm for Brady and Ashby and for Wardner Davis on some city jobs. This was a fairly good summer, but not as good as I had a couple years later.

Teaching in Ritchie Again: I had no school until late in the fall, when they sent for me from Ritchie to teach the Upper Otter Slide School. This was a new school; the district was formed and the house built late that fall. The Moonrise School house had burned down the fall before, and the school had been taught in an empty farm house. This fall they got the board to cut off part of Upper Otter Slide and a part of this district, build a house, and form a new district on the head of Otter Slide with me as teacher. I found it one of the best schools I had ever taught, although they said it had been no good at all the winter before. In fact, the large girls told me they had acted so badly that they were ashamed of themselves every time they saw their teacher that summer.

There were 26 scholars, made up of the following families: 7 from Lee Campbells, 6 from Port Campbells, 2 from Jack Hudkins, 6 from Elva Maxsons, 3 from Dow Maxsons, 1 from Art Brisseys, and 1 I can’t remember. One of the Campbells and two or three of Elva’s girls went through high school, and Maynard went one year.

I stayed at Uncle E. J,’s and worked nights and mornings and Sundays to pay for my board. It was a very good winter except Jennie had a very severe sick spell. I went to see her and found her getting better. A few weeks later Conza said a friend from Salem told them that Dr. Bond said she was going with T. B., so I went home to see about it. I went to see Dr. Bond, and she said there was no sign of T. B., which made me feel very good.

The first trip I made in a pouring rain. I was wet from head to toe. I waded several creeks to my knees. I did not know when the train ran, so I walked very fast and was tired when I got to Tollgate. I had to wait an hour. The station master said I was the wettest, worst bedraggled man he ever saw. He built up a good fire, which dried me out a little. I got quite cold on the train, but it had no bad effects.

Before school was out, the scholars got up a petition to the trustees asking them to hire me next year. I told them before I left that I would try to come back. Some of them were in Salem to a church meeting and came to see me about teaching, and I told them I would. But before time for me to go, Jennie got quite sick and had to go to the hospital for an operation. The surgeon said she would be no better until she had another operation in about a year, so I couldn’t go. I went three years later and taught two terms, but I will write of it later.

Selling Books in Pennsylvania: That summer I sold books in Pennsylvania. I went up there with three other Salem boys. I did quite well in the small towns but could do nothing in the country. You couldn’t sell a $5.00 gold piece to a Pennsylvania farmer for $4.50. They were the sorest, worst disgruntled, sourest people I ever saw. They said the young people had all gone to the factories; they had to pay two prices for anything they bought and could not get half price for what they raised. They were just mad. This was in 1920.

Before the season was nearly over I had to come home, for Jennie was quite sick. She got some better so I could go out for a few days. She soon got worse and had to go to the hospital for an operation. The surgeon performed only part of this then, and she had to go back for a second operation a year later.

Buckeye School and Picking Apples: I taught at Buckeye that winter and had a very nice school. Before the school began, I worked in the lumber yard for Evander a while. Then he sent me to pick apples. He had a man picking peaches that he thought was the fastest picker in the country. He got the peaches picked by noon and came to pick apples that afternoon. I was then 48 years old, but I still thought I could pick as many apples as the next one. So I went to work.

Now the trees were medium sized young ones, loaded down with fine, large, smooth Ben Davis apples. The Ben Davis is not the best eating apple; but when it comes to picking and filling a bushel measure, they are hard to beat. I had plenty of bushel boxes handy to fill, so I went to work. I would stand on the ground and fill the picking bag I had over my shoulder. Once I wanted to see how soon I could fill a bushel box; so I got under a limb that I thought had at least a bushel of apples that I could reach easily, looked at my watch, and went to work. In just two minutes I had a bushel box of apples picked (pretty fair, wasn’t it?). When we quit, I found I had picked three to his two bushels all afternoon. Pretty good, wasn’t it?

This was on Friday before my school began. Alexander asked me to pick apples for him Sunday, so I went out and worked for him all day but did not get done. He asked me if I could find some way to finish them, so I started to school early and picked a while and then picked after school was out. That way I finished picking them.

I saw Elmus Bee one evening as I came from school. He told me he had picked all the apples that were easy to get at and that I could have the rest if I would gather them. So I did and got several bushels of fine apples which lasted till way in the winter, for which we were very thankful.

Cutting Filth and Blackberry Picking: It was in the spring of 1922 that I began to do a lot of work for Lee Davis. I hoed some corn and did some other work for him. Then he wanted me to cut a big field of filth for him where there were lots of blackberries. I was to have all the blackberries on the patch I took to cut. We agreed on what I was to have for cutting a part of the field, and I picked the first day of July. I found I could pick six gallons of berries a day, which was about all I could carry into town, four miles away, and I could get 65 cents a gallon. I soon asked for more filth to cut so I could have more berries to pick. We agreed on a price (a little too cheap), but I was to have all the berries on the entire field. I picked every day and carried into town until my arms ached all the time. I would carry a three-gallon pail in my right hand, a two-gallon pail in my left hand, and a one-gallon pail fastened to the suspenders of my overalls. My arms would ache that winter from carrying my dinner pail, but it paid. I cut the filth on the whole field, which with the berries I picked made me about $100, which isn’t hay!

I taught the Long Run school that winter, and they all wanted me back. But a girl slipped to the board and got it away from me.

The next summer I cut the same field of filth of Lee, built a lot of woven wire fence for him, and worked for some others. So I had another busy summer and a fairly prosperous one,

Trouble in a Taylor County School: I had more trouble getting a school than I had ever had, but I got one in Taylor County and never taught near Salem again. In fact, I never spent a winter there again. This was the hardest school to teach I had ever struck. The children were taught, the most of them, that they had a right to do as they pleased. I only saw two of the trustees when I went to contract for the school. They told me they had been having no school for several years and that they wanted me to teach it and see that they behaved. When I saw the other trustee, I found that he was a ruffian and didn’t want the children controlled.

I got along fairly well until the first of December, when I found the children in the house and the door locked. They refused to open the door, so I went to the trustees (I boarded with one of them). They said that they thought the children should have a little fun. I told them they said they wanted me to teach the school and let no one else run it. They said that they forgot to tell me that the children were to have some fun before Christmas and lock me out. (If they had told me about that, I would have told them to keep their school.) The next morning they did not try to keep me out, so I went on with the school.

The week before Christmas, I found the door fastened again. That evening the trustee where I boarded and I went to see the other trustee, a very nice old man by the name of Taylor. He said that he thought it was all right for the children to have some fun and that they had been locking the teachers out for fifty years. My reply was, “Mr. Taylor, when you were first married, you would get on a horse and Mrs. Taylor would get on behind you when you went anywhere. But now you have an auto.” Mrs. Taylor was in the kitchen listening, and she spoke up, “That’s so, and you men had better go over there and stop those children acting the fool.” They came over the next morning and found the door with one end of a rail against the stove and the other against the door. They opened the door and told the children not to lock the door anymore.

I gave them a treat at the end of that week (they knew I was going to treat them when they locked the door the second time). I hoped that would stop it, but it didn’t. The other trustee put the children up to being mean and came to the school house after school was out and told me I didn’t have sense enough to teach school and that I must never punish any of his children in any way.

Shortly after this the spelling class his girl was in missed every word in their lesson. They didn’t try to spell but would look at each other and grin when they missed. So I told them they would try it again in the morning. It was the same in the morning, so I told them to stay in at recess. The girl said her father told her not to stay in. I told her she could stay in or take her books and go home and stay till she would mind. Just then her father came roaring in. He dared me outside (he was about 35 and I was 50) and said he would be there and get me that night and that he would follow me till he did get me.

I called the two trustees in, and they told me to have him arrested. I dismissed school and went to Grafton and took out two warrants for him, one for assault and one for breach of peace. The squire told me if I could prove what I told him, he would step on him. When I left he told me to go back to my school and take care of myself. I asked if he meant any way, and he said, “Any way.”

I had known I was going to have trouble, so I told the trustees the week before that I was going to quit, for the children would tell any lie. They said they wouldn’t believe anything the children told, but I told them someone else would try the case so I thought I would quit. When I got home, I told them I had quit. Ashby was teaching out in the country, and I told him when he came in that I had quit. He told me, “Dad, you’re not quitting. You have taught the worst schools in the country, and you managed them. You are not quitting this one.” I said, “All right, kid, if you say so, I’ll go ahead. But there will be trouble.” And there was. Just the same I have always been very glad that he told me to go back and that I did.

McDonald was the man’s name (this was the second McDonald I had had trouble with in school, and I could not trust one of that name as far as I could throw a bull by its tail). He did not come back to the school house, but he went over to Mr. Taylor’s and bragged about what he had done. He said I had started the ball rolling and he intended to keep it rolling and that he was going to follow me till he did get me. In fact, he told everything he did, so Mr. Taylor was the only witness I needed. But I took the other trustee and his boy, 12 years old. McDonald took his mother to go his bond, if necessary, his children as three witnesses, and the best lawyer in Grafton. We also got a good lawyer.

I told what happened, and Mr., Taylor told what he knew. When they cross-questioned me, they asked if McDonald whispered. When they questioned the boy, he got along well till they asked if the defendant was mad. This stumped him for a minute. Then he said. “He did not whisper.” When we rested, the lawyer moved to quash the warrant. The squire said, “No.” The lawyer said we had not proved what they expected, so they would have no witnesses. The squire said he would render his verdict. He turned to McDonald and said, “You have done entirely wrong, and I won’t stand for it. I will fine you $25 and bind you over to keep the peace for a year and a day under a $200 bond.” So you see, it didn’t pay him to get extra smart. I finished the school without any more trouble, but I feel it was one of my poorest terms.

Why This School was Called Robinson: I think it might be well to tell the story of how this school came to be called Robinson School. A man by the name of Robinson and his wife lived in a house near the school. They got in debt and borrowed some money of McDonald, the father of the man I had trouble with. Robinson gave him a deed for his farm with the agreement if they could pay the money back within a year that they could redeem it. They scraped and saved and got the money. When they went to redeem the farm, he said, “No, I have the deed for the farm, and I am keeping it.”

McDonald lost a dog and accused Robinson of killing it. Every time they met, he would throw it up to Robinson about killing his dog. One day Robinson said to him, “The next time you say dog to me, I’ll kill you.”

Sometime before the year was up, McDonald came down and ordered Robinson to move out. Robinson told him he would move out the day the year was up and not a day sooner. McDonald came down the morning he was to move and found him loading up to move. “Well,” McDonald said, “I reckon I can keep a dog now.” Robinson got his gun and shot him dead.

They sent to Grafton for the officers. When they came, Robinson was in the house and refused to let them in. He told one of his friends who was with the officers that when he was ready they could have him, but not till he was ready. He also said he had a rifle, a shot gun, and a revolver in the house; and if they thought he couldn’t shoot, to put a penny on top of a post 25 yards away. In a half minute the penny was shot off. They waited around till evening. Soon after the lights went on, they heard a shot. They went in and found he had shot himself. A man may be so annoyed that he will do awful things.

Two Pupils in Robinson School: I believe I will write a little about two of my pupils in the Robinson School before I forget it. The family where I boarded moved away about two months before school was out, so I boarded with her brother’s family the rest of the term. The name was Stark. There were two little girls—Ruth was 8, and Jinnie was 6 about the middle of the winter. Jinnie did not come to school until the last two months. She may have known her letters; if she did, that was all. Neither of the girls came in bad weather, for it was a long trip and Ruth was not strong.

One rainy day when I came from school, Mrs. Stark told me Ruth had tested Jinnie to see how many words she knew at sight anywhere. I told her about 100. She said Jinnie knew 125. Pretty good for a six-year-old girl in less than two months! I think she was a little above average in ability, and she really tried. Ruth was a very sweet little girl. She wrote for two or three years but finally quit. I think I just forgot to answer one of her letters.

Summer Work in Salem: I came home Monday evening, finished my school reports, and went to work for Guy Davis on the school house at noon Tuesday. I leveled off the dirt floor in the basement, cut two holes for sewer pipes through the 18-inch wall (Guy said it was the hardest concrete he ever saw), and laid a concrete floor. I had worked on this school the year before when they were building it.

After finishing the school house for Lee and Guy Davis, I went to work on farms and did not lose any time for rain for six weeks. One rainy morning at about 8 a.m. Lee raised the window of the school (it was right below our house) and wanted to know if I wanted to work. I went down and cleaned up and carried lumber for them. Then for some time, whenever it rained, they would call me down. Then for a while I got no work., Then one Sabbath evening Guy came to me and asked if I could work the next day. He said a man had promised to come Friday but didn’t, so he was through with him. After that I did all the common labor for them. Besides the other work I did, I got a job teaching some children at night who had not passed their grade. I made over $1200 that year, which was a little the best I had ever done up to that time.

Besides the Central School building, I had also worked on the East School building. In 1920 I had worked for several weeks on a glass plant at Bristol. I am telling this to show I had worked on a number of big buildings in Salem. I am sorry to say I was not the contractor or head man on any of these jobs, but I did a lot of common labor on each of them.

My Last Teaching in Ritchie County—1923-1925

The summer of 1923 went by rapidly. In the late summer I was offered the Upper Otter Slide School, so I was fixed for the winter. I boarded with Guy and Mamie that winter. I had plenty to eat and was treated very nicely. In fact, I had a very nice winter. Harold Brissey, Jesse Kelley and some of the other boys would go out hunting at night. We caught several possums and a few skunks. When I left in the spring, the patrons petitioned the board to hire me again. All but one of them signed the petition, and he went to the board and told them he wanted me. They hired me, so I was all set for the term of 1924-25.

This year I did not find as much work about Salem as I had been doing.

As there was a big gas line being laid in Ritchie, I went out there the 4th of July and worked for Elva till they got the line near enough to walk back and forth. I got $4.08 a day, and my board cost $l.35 a day. This saved me some, as I worked for Elva on Sundays. Digging ditches is hard work, but I liked it fine except for a few days when it was so terribly hot. One day I had to go to the shade for over an hour, but they did not dock me any.

I dug in the ditch till we got to the center, where the Italians were supposed to meet us but didn’t. Then I went back and filled in till a mile beyond the center. Our super said he could take 100 Americans and lay more line than 175 Tallies. I finished the job just before time for school to begin.

Jack offered to let me live in a vacant house he had. This was a real good four-room house with a bed and bedding which he said I could use. He didn’t charge me anything for it. He also gave me some beans and apples, which he said he would not pick. Of course, they were not high quality, but they were good enough for me. I surely enjoyed them very much. I helped Willie Jett fill his silo, and he let me have a lot of corn beans. So I had beans for a long time.

I will mention right here that Jack, May, and Ova were very nice to me, and I won’t forget them.

Elmo Stayed With Me and Attended School: I stayed by myself and did my own cooking until I went home to vote. When I returned, Elmo came with me. We had a grand time. Jesse Kelley and I had been hunting some, so we went out in a short time after Elmo came. I could see that Jesse did not like very well for Elmo to go, but I would not go without Elmo. About 11 p.m. the dogs treed something, and we had no ax. Elmo said to give him the lantern and he would go to Jesse’s (which was about one-half mile away) and get an ax. He was back in a little while. After that Jesse was glad for Elmo to go every time. We had lots of fun and got lots of possums. We had a few to eat. Elmo enjoyed them very much.

The girls liked Elmo and got along with him just fine, but the boys were inclined to be jealous of him because he could beat them at almost any of their games. When they played “hide and seek,” he would lie down and be still. They would pass by him, and he could come right in. When they played “keep away” with the volley ball, he could beat them, which made some of the Campbell boys mad. They tried to do Elmo the same, but they didn’t have any success.

When we went home for Christmas, Elmo wasn’t sure if he would come back. When the time came, he was anxious to go back. We bought a quarter of beef of John Meathrell and had beef about all winter. We bought potatoes of someone there and plenty of groceries from the store. We lived fine, and it didn’t cost nearly as much as they (Jennie and Dow) asked for board for me only. They wanted $20 per month, which at that time seemed rather high.

I did not have quite so good a school this winter, as several of the boys decided they were too big to study or behave. The most of them did well, and several got diplomas from the eighth grade.

This finished my teaching in Ritchie (24 winter terms). In fact, I have been in Ritchie but little since the spring of 1925.

Summer Work at Salem—1925

This summer I took a job of filth cutting of Lee Davis. Before I finished it, Leonard Jett came over and wanted to help. He had been working for the city and got his hand badly mashed. He wanted to work some to get able to do a day’s work, and then go in with me and be able to make something. I took him in. After finishing that job, we helped Alexander in his hay. We took a job of cutting four acres of hay with scythes and also helped him put up all his hay.

Work was getting scarce, and we had heard that they were going to build a concrete basement for the Ritchie Church. We found what the sand and stone would cost and what the lumber and labor would cost. When we got there, we found Amos Brissey thought it could be built for less than we could build it. I made a bid, but I have always been so glad we did not get it. There was a big racket over it, and there would have been a much worse one if we had got it. And I hate a racket.

It was a memorable year for me, living in a ramshackle house and going to school with Dad as my teacher. We cut our wood with a two-man crosscut saw to heat our house. Dad was very patient ‘ teaching me not to “ride” the saw. Our furniture was basic: a kitchen stove, a table, two chairs and a bed. Dad was not a great cook but we survived nicely. He baked what he called drop biscuits that were good hot but soggy in a cold school lunch. Once he bought dried apricots and mistakenly put salt instead of sugar in them. A culinary disaster. Mama mailed us cookies, and sometimes bread, every week.

The one-room schools with each grade taking a turn being taught, was a big adjustment for me. Morris Cox was the only other student in the sixth grade with me and we became very competitive, though good friends. Staying at school all day gave us opportunity to play games together. When we played baseball Dad pitched for both sides. Hide and seek was fun with tall broom sage grass all around to hide in. On the hill above the school house there were hickory saplings that could be climbed up and swung out of. I introduced the game of jack stones to the school. Dad expected me to excel academically and I tried not to disappoint him. It was a good year of learning for me.

The older boys in the school had night hunting dogs and would take Dad and me with them to hunt ‘possums. It was exciting to walk in the hills with kerosene lanterns and listen for the dogs to bay on the trail of a ‘possum. There were times when the dogs came upon a skunk–much to our dismay. The boys knew when their dogs had treed the game and welde plunge madly to reach them. I remember seeing Dad knock a ‘possum out of a tree with a rock-a great ego builder for the teacher. The boys kept the ‘possum pelts to sell and gave us the carcasses to cook and eat. They were good meat.

We also hunted a few times at night with Dad’s friend, Jess Kelly. Jess had a fine dog, Shove, and we had good success hunting with him. Dad insisted that I be allowed to go with them and was proud of me when Jess found me worthy to join them. Hunting on the hills at night was quite strenuous.

Dad taught me to trap rabbits. After school in the afternoon I would track a rabbit in the snow to its den and set a steel trap in the opening. Soon after dark I would check the trap and take the rabbit if one was caught. If I took the dressed rabbit to the country store at Holbrook, I could exchange it for twenty-five cents or a steel trap. Sometimes we cooked the rabbits for ourselves.

The storekeeper at Holbrook bought a radio from a catalog–the first one in the area–but could not make it work. When he told Dad about it I took a quick look at the radio and realized that the ground wire was not hooked up. I had learned some things about radios in Paige Lockard’s shop. Of course, twelve year old boys of that day were expected to be seen, but not heard. But Dad had confidence in me, and when I said I could solve the problem he passed the word to the storekeeper who let me attach the ground wire. There is more to the radio episode to follow.

Every evening about dark Dad and I walked down the road to the Jack Hudkins home where we got milk. In their family were Mr. and Mrs. Hudkins, a grandmother, a grown daughter and a foster son, Norris Cox. In the early fall they had gathered sled loads of black walnuts on the hills and brought them down ready for husking, cracking and picking out the nuts. I believe they sold enough walnut meats to pay their winter grocery bills.

When we arrived to get the milk the family would be sitting around cracking walnuts, eating apples and taking turns talking on the party line telephone. When interest in the neighborhood telephone conversations was fading the Holbrook storekeeper would ask on the telephone if we wanted to hear the radio. With a “yes” from all the neighbors, he would put the radio speaker up to the mouthpiece of the telephone and we would take turns listening to radio station KDKA Pittsburgh.

Dad had two treasured tools essential to his teaching profession. One was his Bun Special Illinois pocket watch of which he was very proud. The other was a large fountain pen with a his ink reservoir. One Sabbath afternoon he and I hiked up on a hill to gather hickory nuts. The ground under the tree was thick with leaves and the hickory nuts were large and plentiful. When we had to leave in late afternoon Dad discovered he had lost his fountain pen under the tree. “Never Mind” he said. “We’ll came next Sabbath and find it.” Returning to the tree the next Sabbath, we each began circling from the base of the tree using forked sticks to carefully push the leaves toward the tree. I was surprised and amazed when Dad picked up his Fountain pen.

BOY’S LIFE magazine came to me as a Christmas gift, I believe, and Dad enjoyed reading stories to me from it. I got annoyed when he would come to an interesting part of a story, stop, and read ahead to himself–while keeping me in suspense. Dad was an excellent teacher, a stalwart Christian gentleman and a wonderful Father. He was a great storyteller and I still enjoy retelling the ones I remember.