in the smooth surface of the unmarked
slates. I was eager to carve my name in the frame. At last with our
treasures under the seat (so near that we could feel them), with our
slates and books in our laps we jolted home, dreaming of school and
snow. To wade in the drifts with our fine high-topped boots was now our
desire.

It is strange but I cannot recall how my mother looked on this trip.
Even my father's image is faint and vague (I remember only his keen
eagle-gray terrifying eyes), but I can see every acre of that rented
farm. I can tell you exactly how the house looked. It was an unpainted
square cottage and stood bare on the sod at the edge of Dry Run ravine.
It had a small lean-to on the eastern side and a sitting room and
bedroom below. Overhead was a low unplastered chamber in which we
children slept. As it grew too cold to use the summer kitchen we cooked,
ate and lived in the square room which occupied the entire front of the
two story upright, and which was, I suppose, sixteen feet square. As our
attic was warmed only by the stove-pipe, we older children of a frosty
morning made extremely simple and hurried toilets. On very cold days we
hurried down stairs to dress beside the kitchen fire.

Our furniture was of the rudest sort. I cannot recall a single piece in
our house or in our neighbors' houses that had either beauty or
distinction. It was all cheap and worn, for this was the middle border,
and nearly all our neighbors had moved as we had done in covered
wagons. Farms were new, houses were mere shanties, and money was scarce.
"War times" and "war prices" were only just beginning to change. Our
clothing was all cheap and ill fitting. The women and children wore
home-made "cotton flannel" underclothing for the most part, and the men
wore rough, ready-made suits over which they drew brown denim blouses or
overalls to keep them clean.

Father owned a fine buffalo overcoat (so much of his song's promise was
redeemed) and we possessed two buffalo robes for use in our winter
sleigh, but mother had only a sad coat and a woolen shawl. How she kept
warm I cannot now understand--I think she stayed at home on cold days.

All of the boys wore long trousers, and even my eight year old brother
looked like a miniature man with his full-length overalls, high-topped
boots and real suspenders. As for me I carried a bandanna in my hip
pocket and walked with determined masculine stride.

My mother, like all her brothers