The sun came up over our granary and went down over our barn. Both the granary and the barn were painted red with white trim, and between them stood our all-white, two story, square house. It had one lean-to for a kitchen and another for an entrance porch, and sat in a slight depression between the barn and granary, facing south. Just north of the house there was a small grove of trees that provided shade in the summer— and places for birds to build their nests and for children to swing and climb.

When I arrived there were already six other children in the family. We all shared two bedrooms on the second floor; my parents had the one on the first. There was no running water, electricity, or telephone. The toilet was back of the house, and it was painted red. We called it a "two-holer," because it had seats for two people. Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogs provided the toilet paper, free of charge.

I was born at night in the winter of l9l4, and my father had to walk a mile to the nearest town to get a doctor. On the way back he passed a house in the town and he noticed through the window that a stove inside was giving off an orange-red color. Later that same night the stove apparently over-heated and caused a fire that destroyed the house. A small boy sleeping inside burned to death.

I was not named after this boy, but after an older cousin in the western part of North Dakota. He had died shortly before as a result of an accident. His head was crushed under the wheels of a wagon he was driving when he was hauling water from a neighbor's well to his home.

As with all of my brothers and sisters, I was given certain responsibilities from an early age. I had to bring in wood and coal for the stove, and water for the kitchen, and in the winter I had to bring snow to be melted in a steel barrel by the kitchen stove so we could make soft water for washing clothes and people. But that wasn't all. I also had to help with the milking, churn the butter, pick the eggs, help clean the barn and— after our motor-driven washing machine broke down and we didn't have enough money for another one— I had to help my mother do the washing every Monday with its hand-powered replacement. Mother insisted on twenty minutes for each load, and would not accept one minute less.

In spite of all the work, there was still time to play as well as to hunt and fish, especially in the summer and on winter days when I was not in school. And there was always at least one dog who was my constant companion. But perhaps the best time of all came every two years or so when my older brothers and sisters returned from far away California to visit. Then every day seemed like a holiday, with good food, less hard work, and much merriment in the evenings around our kitchen table or in our living room.

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LEAVES FROM A FARM BOY'S DIARY by Eddie W. Schodt

Story Copyright 1994 Eddie W. Schodt
All Rights Reserved
Line drawings by Frederik L. Schodt
Black and white photographs printed by Misao Mizuno

http://www.jai2.com/farm1.htm
Copyright 1998, Frederik L. Schodt
Revised -- Dec/25/98