When I was a little girl we lived for a while in a house by the river. There was a lot of timber there, and we spent a lot of time playing in the woods. In the fall we hunted acorns and black walnuts and wild grapes. All summer long there were wild raspberries, and gooseberries and choke cherries. Some times we would break off a big branch from a chokecherry tree and drag it home and then eat the cherries, pits and all. There were mulberries and rose hips and thorn apples and it was a great day if we came across a bee swarm in a hollow tree. Then Pa would wait until fall and on a cold day when the bees were stiff and slow, he would go out and take the honey, but he always left enough for the bees to eat in the winter. Aa I said, our house was by the river. There was a wooden bridge over this river so that we could take the cow across and let her eat the grass there all day. That was us kids job in the summer, to watch the cow so she didn't run away, and then bring her home in the evening. Sometimes we would go fishing in the river while we watched the cow, and how good those fish would taste for supper. One day Matt, and Nick and I were standing on the bridge fishing, but we weren't having much luck. The water was clean and clear and we could see fish swimming around in it but I guess they weren't very hungry because they weren't biting on our worms that day. Some men rode up to the river bank on horses and sat and watched us for a little while. We didn't know who they were, but it didn't bother us as the bridge was used by a lot of people in the area, and most of our neighbors we seldom saw. So we went on fishing and the men watched. Then one got off his horse and came on the bridge where we were. He asked us if we were catching anything. We said no. So he watched a little longer and then he asked us if we ever heard of Jesse James. Well, we had heard the name, but we really didn't know about him, so we said "no" again. Then the man took a gun out of his pocket and fired into the water, and some fish floated to the top. "That's the way Jesse James catches fish" the man said, and then went back to his horse, got on it and they all rode away. Well, that guy scared us, and believe me, we made fast tracks back home. Pa went and got the cow. Pa found out later that the James gang was in our area at that time, and I have always been sure that it was Jesse himself, who showed us how to catch fish that day. Jesse James was supposed to have shot and killed by a member of his own gang in 1882, for a reward of $10,000 offered by the governor of Missouri, but a lot of people didn't believe he was dead, and I am one of them.....

Kids today never can find anything to do. When I was their age there was always plenty to do, so that there was little time left over for play. So we had to make our own fun and do it while we worked. Since, this is fall and corn picking time, I'll tell you a fall fun story. I was the oldest girl in our family, so besides having to help with the housework, and watching the younger children so they wouldn't climb in the cattle tank and drown, I had to help with the field work and the barn chores too. So there was little time for play. In the fall we had to help pick the corn. In those days we picked corn by hand. We wore a leather strap on our wrist with a hook on it, which tore the husk from the ear of corn as we pulled the ear off the corn stalk. Corn is planed in rows, and the earth is mounded in hills around each stalk when the corn is cultivated to get rid of the weeks in the growing season. This made rows and rows of ruts in the field that held the water for the corn when it rained, and helped the corn form strong roots. In the fall as we picked in one row of corn, our horses and wagon moved over the row we had picked before and broke the stalks down. It was always cold and the ground froze hard. So in the early morning we hitched our horses to the wagons and raced each other out to the rows to be picked. Over the rutted field we would fly, and the wagon would go yubbily, yubbily, yubbily and we would bounce from side to side until we got to the rows where we had to get to work. Sometimes we almost bounced right out of the wagon. We did this every time we had an empty wagon. It made corn picking fun.

What did my father say when he saw us racing over the ruts on the yubbily ride?

Well, let me tell you, he was the one who taught us about it in the first place.

Sometimes if the weather had been bad or the crop late, by mother even brought a wagon to the field and helped pick corn too. She always brought the baby with her, if it was big enough to walk. Once when Frank was the youngest she had him in the field with her. Frank stayed close by and once in a while he threw an ear of corn in the wagon. Mother told him that if he would help just a little they would catch up to the rest of them. His reply "I am helping a little". Sometimes if it was bitter cold we would all climb into an empty wagon and have a game of cards. Pa never said anything, though I'm sure he knew we weren't working all that time. He never caught us, but then maybe he never wanted to. My pa had a good sense of humor and sometimes he overlooked things like that as long as we thought he didn't know about it. But believe me, we had to mind, and when he talked ... we moved. But even he thought that the yubbily ride was fun.....