A Little Trip Down To The Mill The first memory I have is of my brother Paul, under strict orders from Mother, gently rocking me to sleep. by Martha Hatch The first memory I have is of my brother Paul, under strict orders from Mother, gently rocking me to sleep. He was doing it under protest, as there was a neighborhood baseball game going on out in the lot and he was more than eager to be present when the Lewiston Red Noses walloped the Richmond Clodhoppers. Small as I was, I sensed the air of intensity about him. Once he whispered fiercely, "You! Go to sleep!" I won't say I did it deliberately, although I suppose I did at the time. I closed my eyes and waited until he had put me in my bed and was making for the door on all fours as fast as he could. Just as the soles of his feet were disappearing around the door, I let out a plaintive wail which brought him back muttering savagely. The same process was repeated at least three times until I tired of the game and finally drifted off into dreamland. I have a feeling that the better part of the playoff game was over when Paul arrived at the lot. For the most part, those days were spent in a carefree, undisturbed manner. Since our horses were too fat and lazy to ride, I borrowed one from the neighbors daily. It was a sort of ritual. I sauntered down the dusty road, in the gate, over the knob of lawn and into the back yard. Longingly gazing at the corral, I stood on one foot and then on the other. If no one paid attention to me, I finally approached the subject in a coy way. "Are you going to use Doughnut today?" The answer was always in the negative because Doughnut was an old horse and never got any exercise except that I gave him. Then followed the agony of asking if I could please take him for just a little trip down to the mill for some ice cream. Each day as certain as the sun I appeared in the back yard and demanded to be heard. Almost as regularly, old Dougnut found some excuse to dump me into the nearest hole or cockle-bur patch and head for home. They finally gave up worrying when he appeared at home riderless, because eventually I turned up and claimed him again. There was a continual feud between that horse and me which grew into a friendly hatred. If he could bite at me, kick at me or step on me, he felt it his duty to do so. In turn, though it was not purposeful meanness, if there was ever a way of making his life miserable I seemed able to accomplish it. I believe the only thing that kept us from perishing together in an irrigation ditch or in a plunge over a cliff was the circumstance that my parents moved away and took me with them. Herding cows was the lot of Knolyn, my third brother, my sister Esther and me. It was a pleasant job though. We always took the cows up to the clay pits. It wasn't the very best pasture land, but there was a pleasant little stream running down the middle of a valley of clay. It was fun to take our shoes off and slide down the slick banks of the stream and let the clay ooze through our toes, or to dig some of the clay out and mold little men out of it in the evening. Father wasn't exactly a farmer. He had land, yes, but he supervised only the running of it. We Page Twenty-two kept cows, hogs, chickens, turkeys, horses, and, of course, Knolyn's 150 tame rabbits. They were all over the place under the granary, in the barn and in the pigpen. Occasionally one of our horses would step into a rabbit hole burrowed in the field and would be crippled. I am certain that whenever Mother looked at those sleek fat creatures she never saw them as furry live things but steeped in gravy, simmering in a roaster. Knolyn always said she was bloodthirsty. It was only the natural course of things. When a new litter of pigs was born, we all had to have one for a pet. At slaughtering time we watched with streaming eyes and even turned our backs when the sharp knife slid deftly across the gullet of our pet. We proclaimed loudly that we would not eat the flesh of that creature, but as winter covered the ground with snow and other things came into our interest, we found ourselves fighting over the last pork chop without even a twinge of conscience. Up until the time I started to school, I hadn't seen much of the outside world. I stole an occasional glance at the postman from behind Mother's apron, but strangers were a novelty around our place. We had a snug little circle where there was seldom an intruder. But the fine morning rolled around when I had to admit that my days of freedom were over. Not without a good deal of dread, I brushed my teeth, took hold of Esther's hand, and was led off to school. We had to catch a bus which came by the house. When we boarded it, we were met by the solemn eyes of all the boys and girls with whom we had played and gone to church; yet they were all strangers in their still new shoes and shining faces. I was self-consciously aware of my long cotton stockings, bagging at the knees, and of my short hair, which had always been cut like a boy's because Father was an amateur barber and knew only how to cut hair boy-style. The humiliation I felt when the teacher, after assigning us seats, said, "Eyes front,-hands on desk" is indescribable. As the appointed students went down the rows inspecting ears, neck, hands, and fingernails, I felt my first urgent need for home and Mother. For the first time someone had violated the sanctity of my person. I was shocked and uncomfortable in the first knowledge that the outside world is a place where people whom you have known and become familiar with under one circumstance are hard - dealing strangers under another. I was also finding that one's life was no longer a private affair. It had to be lived in the open where conquests and failures alike were nakedly exposed for all to see. From the outset I disliked school. There was one girl in my sister's class who ate her lunch with us. When we passed the boys sitting along the window sills they sang out, "Bea, Bea, with the bow in her knees." I hatd them passionately. I didn't understand how Bea could take it with such composure, but I suppose she, too, was only covering a seething anger toward mankind. That year Father decided to accept a position with a firm in Colorado. He left the family and went ahead for a few months to establish a residence. I remember the day the rest of us left. I went out into the orchard to take one last look. The apple trees were just blooming, and some of the limbs had been trimmed and were lying on the ground under the trees, making a sort of blanket. Every detail is clear the happy chirping of the birds and the streaming of the sun through the blossoms of the trees. Each picture sang its own song of farewell. The house looked naked and unhappy with the curtains all stripped from the windows. Packing crates were lying about where the freight men had left them in their haste. It wasn't the litter which made the overall picture so tragic; but the fact that the very roots of the family were being ripped from their moorings to be transplanted in a less fecund soil where living wasn't to be so pleasant and satisfying. That was the last time I saw the place as our home. Since then strangers have overrun it and have taken away the happy, loved feeling. After the first summer in Colorado had passed and it came time to go back to school, I was in a dilemma. If I could have had my choice, I would have become a barbarian and wandered through life without any formal education whatsoever. However, I didn't have anything to say about it, and again Esther and I caught the school bus and went off into a strange world. This time it was different. I was supposed to be in the second grade, but the principal said what schooling I had was only equivalent to kindergarten so she took me to the first grade and I started the process all over again. Miss Bishop was kind to me. When I wept, which was during every lunch hour and recess, she held me on her lap and soothed my fears away. The children I associated with were much different from the others of my experience. They were all olive-skinned, black-haired youngsters and when they didn't want me to understand what they were saying they lapsed off into their native tongue. There were only the two of us in the school who were not capable of cursing the teacher in a foreign language. Esther and I soon found that we had to fight tooth and nail to retain any kind of a position at all in the school. We developed a hard exterior towards the remarks and endured them. However, I recall one day when Esther took her stand against a gang of boys who were trying to regain the baseball and bat which she had gotten away from them by some ruse or other. One boy who was holder than the rest rushed in and was about to seize the bat when she yelled like a Indian and swung the club about her head. She would have brained him had he not ducked and retreated. She held the boys off until they went in and brought the teacher out. She approached Esther standing alone and undaunted guarding the ball and bat with her life. With a lot of persuasion she was induced to join the girls in some other game and let the boys have their toys. That was the last time she was ever molested. The boys all had an awed respect for her and kept their distance. Instead of having the usual crush on one of my teachers, my first love took the form of a handsome, curly-headed Italian boy who drove our school bus. His name was Johnny. I went through the torture of getting my hair curled for him one night and the next morning when I caught the bus with my pretty curls the other boys laughed at me. I didn't care about that because I was calloused to it, but when Johnny laughed that was the first crack in the armor of my affection. When I was ten, he married some girl he knew and started selling beer. That was the last of him. In the fall of 1932 Mother took Esther and went back to Lewiston to sell the hay and rent the farm for the coming year. The two older boys had also gone back to try their luck at farming. That left Knolyn, Father, and me to watch things at Vineland. There was a continual feud between that horse and me. Page Twenty-three