Live must have been very “real” and very “earnest” to those growing children in a time when the land had to be cleared and the stumps of trees disposed of, many of them in that section were used to make fences and more still in existence in my young womanhood, picturesque, but using a lot of land. The barns were built on the knoll, their present site, where Grandfather planned to build his frame house. This meant crossing the creek, on a log at first or fording it, every time they went to the barn.
One of Father’s early memories is of falling off the log into the creek at time of spring flood. Grandmother had said, “Jimmy, don’t cross the log, the water is too high for you, and you are a little boy.”
Probably being a “little boy” didn’t set very well, and he wanted to go across to the barn. He would show them he was bigger than they thought he was. he started bravely over, but the water rushed and the roared right around his feet and he didn't feel big at all, and suddenly he fell. The water rushed him down the stream near enough to the bank so he could grasp some willow branches. He yelled lustily and Jote rushed down and pulled him to shore and up the bank. Of course they all were scared and glad that he was safe, but little papa got a switching.
Grandmother had the endless task that falls to the home-maker in a new country. Her flax wheel, and spinning wheel and swift, I can remember upstairs in what was the carriage house when I was home. There was plenty to do both in doors and out. But I’ve no doubt the children were happy; fun and play meant something and were the sweeter for being earned.
Father said he could remember how his mother used to put her work basket away and have everything ready to begin the Sabbath on Saturday at sundown - and on Sunday at sundown the Sabbath was over. When they went to church they had to go to York.
I wonder if on Jotham, the oldest son, the heaviest work fell. I gather from remarks and vague impressions that Jotham was not as keen mentally as the others. I wonder. He never married and was only fifty-one when he died.
District school of pioneer times was where school education began, and for Jotham and James was all they had. The school house stood at the top of “Teed Hill” on the right side and was red. Father told terrible tales of how discipline was maintained. The teacher seemed always to be a man. Perhaps it was necessary to have a man to deal with the pupils, for some of them were young men and women.
Poor James! why didn’t someone teach him how to spell. He never mastered the trick, nor have some of his children and grandchildren. It just doesn’t seem to come to some of us, and even with a college education there is room for vast improvement. I shed tears over misspelled words in my childhood — and my son should have. Brother Bob got through the Regents exam in spelling after trying many times, because his principal wrote on his 74 paper: “For Heaven’s sake let this fellow pass!” They did.
Up the creek and back of the house was “The Gulf”, a beautiful deep ravine, a lovely place for anyone to wander through, and a most fascinating place for each generation of children as they came along. In Father’s day, as in mine, the school children often came home down the “Gulf”. Father told me that one day as he was coming home, barefoot of course, probably dreaming with this head in the clouds, he stepped squarely on a dead rattle snake, which a boy going before him had killed and, in retaliation for some quarrel, had stretched across the rocks, hoping that Jim Dodge would step on it. Jim did, and leaped high, bringing his head back to earth.
Indians were still about. The remnant of the Seneca tribe, who had remained in the loved valley after the terrible raid of Sullivan’s army. “Friendly” they were called, but poor things, they couldn’t have felt very friendly. They must have felt subdued and, I fancy, sullen when they thought of their lost lands and homes, and their scattered tribes. However, they became attached to certain individuals and families.
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