Mahlon fixed up an old bicycle for us to ride. It was hard because there was no money to buy new tires, but I all of us little kids got a chance to ride it some. He made a wooden gun for Lloyd when Lloyd was about eight. I remember how lucky I thought Lloyd was because he got to play with that gun. The hoodlin’ wagon was the best invention. He made a cart that had two big wheels. We used this for everything, to haul milk cans, garden produce, flower bed clippings and everything that required something bigger than our Radio Flyer red wagon. We often pulled each other around in it also for fun. There was a shed in the west field that was divided in half. There was a square cut in the bottom about 15 inches square for the chickens to go from half to the other. This shed was used to store junk and machinery. Mahlon bet me I couldn’t crawl through that square. I did and to this day I have nightmares about being stuck in that square.
We used to all play hide and seek – “Ollie Ollie oxenfree, who’s all out, come in free” – indoors as well as indoors. Playing this game inside with dim visibility of coal oil lamps, so one night, my brother Mahlon picked me up and put me in daddy’s overalls that always hung behind the door. Being very small, I just sit there, hanging inside the overalls, and no one ever found me. Very imaginative!
We made our own fun. It’s so much more interesting when you tell the story.
Mahlon says, one time at Schubert’s we were playing hide and seek. Mom wanted to help so she took her dress off and put it on Bea and stood Bea on a bucket at the sink. We all thought Bea was Mom. Bea was so mad because we didn’t find her and she did all the supper dishes while hiding. Mom was standing on the porch in her slip, so she wasn’t naked…laughing and freezing her butt off.
Mahlon still relives those times in his dreams. The other night he woke me up calling for Beatrice. You are all so lucky to have such wonderful memories.
of all the games of childhood , theres non so dear to me as when you and I were playmates in childhoow days so free, we’d gather all our play toys as quiet as a mouse , and when we found a cozy place, we all played house. this is the way I remember mother singing it.
That shed was at times our play house. Using the theme of the song (Come Ye Thankful People Come, Raise the song of harvest home) It was our storehouse. We had all kinds of grain, and hay and such stored up in there. It was the most wonderful storehouse there ever was. We could imagine all kinds of wonderful things. I remember us hiding in the dinning room at night. It would be pitch dark in there, one of us would be it, and stay in the kitchen. the rest of us would hide. The person who was it, had to find us in the dark. That was fun too. Mother would have a song for every word you said to her. It was amazing. I find myself doing that too.