Down at Schubert’s, Mahlon drank coal oil and put the dried peas up his nose. Once he had his whole mouth full of those black wasps. I think he was stung and once I remember he had a bumble bee in his mouth. Mahlon had a dark temper as a child.
In the morning when the stove was really hot in the living room, like red hot, he would get too close and burn himself then he would get so mad and hit the stove. That’s when mom talked Elizabeth into getting the enamel stove, or Sis, I forget now who bought it. Could have been the boys.
They weren’t dried peas they were fresh peas…I was in the garden eating fresh peas and I put em up my nose to see how far I could blow them. I’d get them up too far and couldn’t bl;ow them out..Mom would wrap or roll me up in a sheet like a mummy and sit on me; then she would use a hair pin from her hair and pull them out. I don’t remember the coal oil or the beans at all.
Bea, be careful what you tell these kids. I’ve been telling them all these years how sweet and wonderful a boy I was growing up. Now you let them know that I was not exactly as I said.
Now Bea, “Do you remember instead of having a horse to ride we would make halters out of string and put them on the baby goats. We’d pickup the goats and put them on the silo foundation and we’d ride those goats around like on a merry go round? We’d have almost as much fun doing that as going to the neighbors junk pile for treasures.
I feel sorry for modern day kids who don’t have all the creative things to do that we had…we just had to imagine and create our own. Keep the stories coming Mahlon and Bea!!!
An older black man I used to work with at LU milked cows for 40 years. When I read the story about the peas it reminded me that he told me that when he was growing up his family was so poor they ate peas for breakfast, drank water for dinner and swelled up for supper.. Now that’s poor…