Orlie and Richard (Bud) did not like farming and left when I was seven. It seemed strange to me being in first grade that they took jobs as hired farm hands. Dad told me that I would have to do more now that they were no longer at home. I asked Mom and she said they could not find work in town. Three days a week when Dad barbered in Parkers Prairie Mom and I did the milking of our 18 cows and did egg washing from fifty hens. The other days Dad and I did the milking and Mom gathered and washed the eggs. It was Harriet's job everyday to take the dry eggs and put them in the pressed paper layers in the crates and wash breakfast dishes. Every Saturday Dad took the eggs to town.
When fall plowing time started before corn picking Dad told me that he had rented for a year another eighty acres. It needed plowing too and if I learned how to plow he would buy me a rifle, a .22-caliber rifle. I knew we did not have the money for a rifle but went with Dad two days to watch how to plow.
The first day he gave me Lyndee, the last descendant of Crazy Jane the horse that Grandpa rode to the railroad to get to the land rush in Tripp County, South Dakota; and Barney, a horse a farm owner gave to Bud instead of money for two months work to sell to the fox farm, to pull our one bottom plow. Bud did not have the heart to do that so Barney stayed at our place and Dad tried to get enough work out that horse to justify the hay and grain it ate. I think it was a losing proposition. Lyndee was old and Barney did not like to work. Dad gave me a pitchfork to poke Barney with when he slacked off.
Four days I stayed home plowing with Lyndee and Barney in the mornings. Lyndee was too old to work all day so I took Knight for those four afternoons. Knight was a horse that Orlie got paid with, really a wind broke riding horse, a pretty white star-face black with four white stocking feet.
After plowing was over Orlie and Bud called from the Crossroad Store for the fox farm to come and get Barney and Knight for seventeen dollars a head. After that Dad and I picked corn during a week school shut down. I wore a hand strap with a hook on the back to pull the husk back, twist the ear free, and toss it into the wagon. Dad and I worked first on the three rows the wagon knocked down, turned around, and on the way back worked both sides, two rows each. If a tossed ear was high it bounced off the splash board down the middle. Pat and Mike were too high strung to work together so they were teamed with Lyndee.
After corn picking it was winter wood cutting time. We would go down along the edge of the swamp, cut logs with a crosscut saw, trim branches with a double-bit axe, start a fire, and toss branches on the fire. When we got a load the logs were chained together in a bundle and dragged to the house.
Whenever we rested we roasted on one side and froze on the other. As the ice got thicker we could go out into the swamp for logs. At home we sawed the logs into fire wood length in a twin x-frame. One Monday Bud came home to help us get cut logs up to the house and borrowed the car. That night coming home he ran off the swamp road and walked home.
In the morning Dad and Bud rode Pat and Mike in harness over and pulled out our old 36 Ford. It would not start so Dad pulled to a mechanic just past the Crossroads, for he had to have the car by Friday to go to work, and Thursday afternoon Dad got the car back. It worked. Bud left the next morning to go back to work.
Orlie came home to show a good bolt action 30.06-caliber rifle made like a Winchester, later a nice double-barreled shotgun, and finally an old cracked and taped stock single barrel 12-gauge with a hammer to cock. When you hit the bottom or side of the stock the hammer clicked forward.
"That's dangerous," Dad told Orlie.
Orlie laughed and put it in Dad's closet.
Addscript: One weapon Orlie traded for was a 10-guage. Both brothers shot it and then made me, a second grader, shoot it. It set me back on my backside and left me with a black-and-blue shoulder.
The wreck
Popcorn filled two grocery sacks. It took forever for Dad to get home, but he made it. The cows were up yet milking and chores took a lifetime. Washing before supper consumed time for Mom found two repeaters. The littlest ones wanted to play and not eat. With a sign of relief Mom said she could do the dishes in the morning as we helped her clear the table. Still she was the last one to leave the house for a triple feature. It had been month and months since out last movie. As Mother walked toward the car we piled in. I climbed in the front seat besides Bud, the proud driver, and was surprised Dad did not shoo me into the backseat. There behind us as Bud past the barn sat Dad behind me, Harriet and Neal in the middle and on the other side Mom holding Janet. Orlie was away hunting in the swamp and an overnight stay with the Adrian Herrick, O.K.'s older brother. Harriet was so excited she seemed to see everything and every minute or so half-shouted, "Oh! Look there!"
We seems almost there when Bud turned south on highway 29 and crossed the Wing River. Still anticipation stretched and slowed time. Dusk closed around us and Bud turned on the lights. What seemed like hours driving the six miles before Harriet shouted, "Oh! There it is." What she saw was the raised railroad tracks on the north side of Parkers Prairie. We all looked through the gathering dusk at where the road dipped underneath the tracks. Down the dip we raced, blinding lights, and?blackness."
Pain in my mouth pushed back the blackness, eye-hurting lights, and a white masked face above me. The mask face spoke to someone I could not see. "The teeth and jaw are back. I'll need to sew those." Blackness slowly closed around needle sticks and a strange pulling feeling at the corner of my mouth.
The nurse said I'd been in an accident. I could not think of why no one came to see me. I lay in the hospital with nurses coming and going. I wanted to see my family-was I the only one alive. They kept telling me that my doctor was back from the army and how lucky I was. On the third day the doctor, a young tall dark headed gentleman came, looked at me, and told the nurses I could go home next week. Also, he told me that I was the only one in the hospital. Dad had a fractured leg and could not drive. Besides that he said grinning, "He can't drive until the car is fixed." Now I imaged how long it took to fix a smashed car. In my mind that was weeks and weeks. All I knew was it was boring to lay there listening to the ward radio drone endlessly on and wonder what was under the bandages on my face. Another thing that bored me was the food: soup, mashed potatoes and gravy, oatmeal, pudding, strawberry Jello with mashed bananas, and applesauce- not a piece meat or bread for two weeks. That was tough for those two were my favorites. The day they served the first bowl of stew I got to go home. Dad with Orlie driving came to get me. Dad walked with crutches and had his right leg below the knee in a cast. I was glad to see him but worried that he'd cut off the right leg of his black work trousers just to get me.
At home Mom and Harriet fussed over me and I was glad to get outside and play. Harriet wanted to play tag and she caught me quickly. For some strange reason I could not run very fast or long and she got away. At last I had her. Harriet was up on the hay wagon. I climbed and she jumped off. I jumped too, got dizzy, felt of my face and my hand was bloody. Mom screamed, wiped the bleeding stitches above my eye and at the corner of my mouth, and put me to bed. It was the only time I could remember Mom taking Dad's razor strap to Harriet's backside. She screamed frightfully and cried for a long time. For some strange reason I was sleepy and dizzy for two days. I ate a little, sat up, and slept. Harriet, Neal, and Janet stayed away from me. It was as lonely as being in the hospital.
In the evenings Mom came to sit beside me and talked of the accident. How I was sitting up on my knees in the front seat and go the worst of it. My head hit the dash; the front window shattered. I bounced back against the seat and went out through the open front window. Mother told me I rolled face down in a puddle of ditch-water. Dad crawled outside and rolled me over. I always felt I owed him another debt I somehow never managed to pay. It is difficult living with a feeling of task unfinished.
Addscript: Orlie and Bud were off working as farmhands again. That left Dad without any help but me. Father said I was too young but Mom and I did the milking. As a first grader when Dad barbered I
stayed home from school and pitched bundles with a team and wagon with the men folk. Men watched me carefully while pitching bundles of oats into a threshing-machine powdered by a belt to a steam tractor. Mom and I pick corn when Dad worked. As the war ended Dad put his name in for a tractor. On a first come basis you took the next tractor. Dad got a Farmal Cub. After the harvesting I learned to plow with four horses and Dad promised me a .22 caliber rifle when he had the money. Without enough help Dad sold the cattle and farm. I hated that but enjoyed the fuss of sale day and listening to the auctioneer. Dad kept on barbering and rented a house a mile and a half east on the other side of the Crossroads. All of us kids finished that year in the same school. After the sale I found out that Dad had not cashed a single monthly milk check until the farm sold and used that money and what sale money from the farm that was his to pay for the next farm.
In between farms Dad quit barbering in Parker Prairie. Orlie, Bud, and Dad left to work the summer harvest north from Texas up to Nebraska. When they came back they had money and Dad brought in from the car my Remington .22-caliber rifle. I still have in the closet. While they were gone Mom and I walked down to the Crossroad Store to carry back sacks. Harriet looked after her brothers and sister. After paying back the farm loan that Rex co-signed for Dad had enough to almost buy outright the farm Grandfather George Benjamin Peterman lost at the beginning of the depression-the 269 acre Erickson Place with half of Russ Lake shore. Also, both brothers wanted to go into the Army Air Corp. Dad agreed and signed for Richard. Dad found two days a week work in Battle Lake.
Chapter six
Erickson place homecoming