I have always been glad I grew up on a farm instead of in town. Even though we had very little money, lived in an old house that wasn’t insulated, had outdoor plumbing, and had to walk to a one room school, we ate good and had a lot of fun. I can never remember when I didn’t have chores to do, or not having to work on Saturday or Sunday during the school year. Summer was a different story. When I was too young to go to the fields of course you were never too young to be a gate watcher for the thrashing crew which paid a nickel a day. The gate watchers opened the gate for the wagons to come through into the pasture where the straw stack would be located and kept any animals from getting out. The water boy carried fresh water on a horse to the men loading wagons with bundles of wheat. Water boy got paid 25 cents a day.
We lived on an old poor farm on top of a hill. My cousins, Bill and Kenneth Turner, lived on the next farm, and there was a small creek between the two farms. Kenneth was my age and Bill was a couple of years younger. The three of us decided to make a seine. We got a metal ring off a wooden barrel, tied a gunny sack to the ring, and two ropes to either side of the metal ring. Kenneth got on one side of the creek with a rope, and I was on the other side with my rope. We were going down the creek pulling the gunny sack, and got to the end of the little hole of water, we got together, and let the water drain out of the sack. I stuck my head down in the sack to see what we had caught, and looking me in the eye was a snake. I let out a war whoop, and Kenneth and I headed to the house in a hurry with little Billy trailing behind.
It had taken us almost all day to make that seine, and as far as I know, 70 years later, it’s still laying by that hole of water in the creek because we never went back to get it.
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