by Everett Reid
That time when the 1800s lapsed over in the 1900s was a time of peace and tranquility. The Civil War was far in the past and no one suspected the Great War was in the future. There was considerable labor unrest but that was confined to the cities. Our rural area was undisturbed. Papa's little 10-acre place was lost in the hundreds of acres of beets that was the dream of all his neighbors. But then Papa was a carpenter, not a farmer. That summer he was putting new roofs of cedar shingles on all the big barns on the Hart farm. In his spare time he grew beans and potatoes on his little farm.
I was taught at an early age to bag potato bugs. I would walk along the rows carrying a pail with a little kerosene in it in my left hand and a stick in my right. With the stick I would bend the potato plant over the pail and tap it causing the bugs to fall into the pail.
There were always weeds to be hoed. Papa and I would work adjoining rows. "I'm going to beat you down to the end of the row," he was always telling me and I would hoe with all my might. But by some miracle he never did.
There was a big elm in our front yard where my swing hung. In the evening great numbers of crows settled there to roost. Daylight, they would awaken and fly about crowing themselves hoarse. Papa always threatened to borrow Uncle Bill's double-barreled shot gun and blast them as they were interrupting his sleep but Mama said if he did that she'd never make him another "Johnny cake."
Now and then, Papa would take me with him when he went to his roofing jobs and I would sit in a shady place and watch the hoeing crew. There was always a race on to see who could finish his row first. It seemed they put a lot more effort into their work than they do today. I remember that years later I had a job unloading a car load of foundry sand. There were three other men working on the job and I dug in and made the sand fly. Pretty soon there was a hammering on my car and when I looked my three fellow workers were standing shaking their fists at me and one yelled, "Slow down, you fool. You throw out more than one car and they'll cut our price."
Every fall Papa would pull his bean stalks and dig his potatoes. He'd beat his bags of beans against a canvas tarpaulin to shell them and in the evenings we'd sit around sorting pails of beans for winter storage.
Then would come the day when Papa would load several nail kegs of beans and potatoes into the light spring wagon and we'd go to the Bay Shore where the fishermen lived in shanties along the waters edge. There Papa would trade his wares for kegs of salt herring, and both parties would then be supplied with a very important part of their winter food supply.
Papa's war with the crows continued. He got an alarm clock and set it to ring about daybreak and hung it in the tree. First few times it rang they scattered in great alarm. Then their curiosity got the best of them and they began roosting around it waiting for the darn thing to ring, at which time they'd clap their wings and claw with glee. Not only that but they'd invite all their neighbors in to see what an amusing toy they had. Pretty soon all the crows in the county were in our tree to greet the dawn. Well sir, Mama had been nagging Papa to move into the city for a long time and that episode with the crows did the trick for Papa became so flustered that he sold the farm soon after and we moved to the outskirts of the city.
Our new house also included 10 acres of land, a five-room house and a small barn. On this 10 acres Papa raised had and we had a nice Jersey cow. Her milk was very rich in cream – and cholesterol, a thing we never knew existed in those days and so butter, ice cream and other creamery products were added to our diets.
The railroad track ran along side of our house and just over the track was a baseball park.
Papa didn't know anything about baseball and could have cared less, but all his friends were avid fans and used to stand outside of the eight-foot wooden fence that surrounded the park and watch the games through knot holes. A lot of the knot holes were artificially made with brace and augure and the company got tired of nailing tin over the holes so before long a big sign appeared saying "The baseball company owns four feet of land all around the park. Anyone found trespassing will be arrested. Two men put the sign to the test and were fined $25 dollars which was considered a great sum in those days.
When Papa heard about it he was so furious that he told Mama that he was going to saw a door in the gabled end of his little barn that faced the ball park so he could watch the games.
"But George, you don't care anything about baseball," Mama said.
"It's the principle of the thing, Em," he replied hotly, and true to his word, a door appeared in the gable. But I don't remember his ever sitting up there to see a game.
A block away was the box factory where Papa worked in winter. It was a place of fascination where all kinds of wooden boxes were made. The huge barn was loud with the sound of band and circular saws running full stream along with planers and tendon cutters and the banging of hammers driving nails. I liked it best when Papa and I visited it on Sundays and walked the rounds with Mr. Robertson who was the watchman. It gave us an opportunity to inspect the machinery at rest and I loved the smell of fresh cut wood. Mr. Robertson was also a millwright and always had big straps of belt leather, scraps of which he would give to Papa for soling shoes.
Among Papa's friends was a man named Petey Newman, a man who was about Papa's age who after his wife died, married a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.
No one expected such a marriage to be a success, but in the beginnings it seemed to be. They bought an old house and furnished it with furniture they bought on credit. Credit buying was just coming into being and every one was buying with a dollar down and a dollar when they could catch you. The house even sported a Seth Thomas clock and Jewell range which made it the topic of conversation.
As the newlyweds showed friends through the house, Petey would brag about how much more sensible it was to buy on time and have use of all these grand luxuries than it was in the old days when you paid cash and therefore couldn't afford to have anything until you were ready to die. The first sign of trouble came when one Saturday night Mama returned from the butcher's to report that Mrs. Newman was refused credit at the meat counter because their bill hadn't been paid in over a month.
Papa noticed too that cold beans were the only thing that Petey carried in his lunch box when he came to work and it was soon rumored that the reason the Newman's didn't come to church on Sundays anymore was because the clothing store had repossessed Petey's best suit.
One Sunday night I overheard Papa and Petey talking on our front porch. "Well, George, I've figured out how to settle my debts," said Petey. "I've taken out an accident insurance policy and if I had one finger cut off, I'll receive $350 which will pay off all my debts."
"You aren't planning a foolish thing like that," exclaimed Papa.
"I'm dead serious. I just can't let Flossie down and the money will pay all my bills."
Papa and Mama agreed that Petey was crazy and would never have the courage to do something like that.
Soon after however, Petey traded saws with one of the other workers claiming that a finer blade was needed for the work he was doing. Suddenly, Petey jerked his hand back and stumbled to the floor. Everyone ran to his aid expecting to find a bloody stump where his finger had been … Instead, there sat Petey crying about how he was such a coward that he couldn't go through with it and that he had let his Flossie down.
"If I had a woman like that," volunteered someone in the crowd that had gathered, "I'd blister her bottom for being so selfish."
Well, sir, that night the neighbor reported that the sound of Petey's hand on Flossie's bottom sounded like thunder claps and her wails could be heard in Jerusalem.
It wasn't long after that Petey made a big show of paying off the butcher bill that was owed and the fancy furniture was returned.
I think I've found the reason that almost half of the marriages of today end in divorce. They don't make men like Petey Newman anymore.
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