In spite of all the routine chores that came with our new rustic way of life, we still had many hours of leisure, usually in the hot afternoons. John and I did not always play together. His friend, Darrel lived close enough — at least by rural standards — for frequent visits. While I played alone with my dolls, they devoted themselves to typical boyish pursuits; armed with cap guns and homemade bows and arrows, they fought perennial battles between cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. I was enough of a tomboy to join in occasionally with my own bow and arrows — if my doll Betty June didn’t need my attention.
I sometimes sat on a blanket in the shade, and amused myself by cutting out “Tillie the Toiler” and “Toots and Casper” paper dolls from the Sunday newspaper comics Daddy sent up. I supplemented their wardrobes with my own creations, colored with crayons, or drawn on wallpaper samples from a book he included in one of his packages.
John and I often overlooked our age and gender differences and played together. We commandeered an old log pig shelter in the grove to set up a military headquarters, where we ate our lunches and planned strategy. We drew a map of the grove and all the buildings, including our shelter, and sent it to Daddy, trusting him to keep it safe from enemy agents.
The toy wagon my parents had given John as a gift before we moved quickly became an indispensible piece of farm equipment. We always enjoyed combining regular chores with creative play. After Jensens delivered their first load of firewood, John and I selected the biggest un-split chunks and piled them on top of each other to make gas pumps at strategic locations around the yard. We appropriated quart jars to hold our “gas” and placed one on each pump, so that they looked like the glass-topped gravity pumps found in town. Our faux gas was water tinted red, green, or blue, with scraps of colored crepe paper my father had sent in a package. When it was time to haul firewood to the house, or grass and rubbish from the yard, we first pulled the wagon into one of our gas stations to “fill ‘er up” making sure we’d have plenty of fuel for the day’s work.
Clip-on roller skates
Photo by Dan Forman, courtesy of the North Spokane Farm Museum
The first time the road grader went by, it left the edge of the road looking as hard and smooth as a concrete sidewalk. Roller skating was the only pleasure I really missed from city life, so I eagerly grabbed my skates and ran back out to the road. But my excitement was short-lived. As soon as I stood up, the narrow roller-skate wheels sank in the soft sand. I consoled myself by racing the wagon with John. We took turns pushing and riding back and forth on the shady side of the road all afternoon, sometimes maneuvering the wagon alone with one leg in and the other pushing.
Naturally our play together was not always idyllic, and we did a fair amount of teasing and quarreling. On the farm, we also had a greater theater of operations for battle. Instead of merely chasing each other around the dining room table or our tiny yard, we used the entire grove, running, backtracking, and occasionally engaging in hand-to-hand combat, followed by tears and violent threats. Mother’s forced arbitration usually involved separate quarters for the remainder of the afternoon, and peace was restored. At times we were at odds with Mother and she would say, “Ruth is on her ‘high horse’ today,” or “John is in one of his pouts.” But most of our minor conflicts were never mentioned in her letters.
Mother sometimes intervened when our creativity waned. As she told Daddy in one of her letters, “I try to see that they have plenty to do all the time so they won’t be lonesome.” She arranged afternoon picnics, where our beverage of choice was usually some form of cambric tea — a weak brew made with milk and sugar. I usually prepared the food, and given my limited repertoire and ingredients on hand, the menus could be somewhat unusual. One time I served cake and fried eggs, with some biscuits Mother had made. John, lured mostly by the food, cheerfully participated.
Despite our creative games, the extreme heat that year made caring for the garden a tiresome, unpleasant duty that John and I came to loathe. Weeds, those marvels of evolution, seemed to thrive in drought. To combat them we used our largest piece of agricultural equipment, a push-type wheel cultivator originally owned by my Grandfather Linsley. John and I fashioned a rope harness for ourselves to make the job easier. One of us pulled while the other pushed and steered, going down one row and coming back the next. The hot dry ground burned our bare feet, so we hurried — as fast as the cultivator would allow — down each furrow, then cooled our grateful calloused soles in the shade of the trees at each end of the garden.
We could have spared our feet by wearing shoes, but farm children in our community were always barefoot in summer. Shoes were expensive and considered non-essential in warm weather, so we dispensed with them — even at the cost of occasional discomfort. We wore them into town for errands and shopping, to protect our feet from broken glass and hot paved streets, and for dressing up on special occasions.
We had three washtubs, two new ones for bathing and laundry, and an old one we used to catch rainwater. On days we could tell were going to be “scorchers,” we put one of the new tubs in the morning sun and pumped the many pails of water necessary to fill it. By afternoon it would be shaded, but warmed to a comfortable temperature, perfect for rowdy play — until the water was all splashed out. But for a quick impromptu cool-off, one of us would pump while the other blocked the spout with one hand, forcing water to erupt through the top of the pump, dousing us liberally with the icy cold spray.
One particularly hot day, in a fit of battle-weary desperation, Mother shocked us into action with a breathtaking offer. She promised us all of the lemonade and sugar cookies we could eat if we finished cultivating the garden that afternoon. It was the first rash open-ended promise she had ever made, and we responded by attacking the garden furiously, while she went inside to do the baking. By the time we had finished, her cookies were in the oven. We waited until the last moment to pump water for the lemonade, to ensure that it would be as cold as possible when the cookies were ready. Daddy had sent the lemons — a rare treat — in his last package.
With sweat still running down our faces from plowing, we sat on a blanket spread in the shade, and ate those delicious warm cookies — with alternate drafts of the cold lemonade — until the last crumb and drop was gone. Before this occasion, we were never allowed to eat more than three or four cookies at one sitting. That afternoon became an unsurpassed benchmark of personal gluttony. Some things should happen only once so their memory will stand forever….
Dwarf Iris; direct descendants of the plants from the farm, now growing in Spokane WA
Photo by Dan Forman
That event took place in our front yard, which we had gradually transformed into a tiny park. The bristly branches of tall young jack pines, their long slender trunks oozing pitch, shaded the grassy areas. In the center was a small round flower garden, edged with stones that we’d discovered — to our delight — the first time we cut the grass. The bright pink sweet william and tiny violas were in full bloom, but it was not until the next spring that we first saw the color of our favorites — the dwarf iris that framed the circle in elfin blooms of deep purple velvet. We later met the woman who had brought them to the farm, carrying on the pioneers’ tradition of transplanting treasured plants from gardens left behind when they moved.
We always began each day neat and clean, but by bedtime Mother would complain we “looked a sight.” Dirt clung to every spot of pitch we picked up from the pine wood. Removing it from our skin was challenging enough, but it took Mother extra time, strong soap, and vigorous scrubbing on the washboard to remove it from our clothes. With our hand-pumped water, bathing during the week consisted of sponge baths at night — except for Saturday. That evening, we each took our turn in a big round galvanized washtub brought in from outside, and placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. A drape hung from the ceiling ensured our privacy. Pumping and heating three separate tubs of water in one evening would have been impossible, so we all used the same bathwater. When the heavens cooperated, we caught rainwater in a tub below the edge of the roof, a luxurious treat we all loved. The natural soft water left our skin feeling slippery and our hair squeaky clean, without leaving the annoying dregs of scum and soap curds that were always floating in our well-water after bathing.
Our hardest and most time-consuming chore was doing the washing. John and I began our laundry day ritual the evening before, pumping and carrying endless pails of water inside. First we filled the giant oval copper boiler — already sitting on the kitchen stove — and then two round galvanized rinse tubs set on one of the benches. Then Mother placed white clothes in the boiler, and the colored things in one of the round tubs to soak overnight.
In the morning, she lit a fire under the copper boiler, its contents having warmed to room temperature overnight. When it was steaming, she used a paring knife to shave a half bar of laundry soap into the boiler. With her laundry stick, bleached white from years of use, she stirred the soap around until it dissolved, turning the hard water milky white. As with bathing, we used rain water whenever possible to get frothy, curd-free suds.
It took a roaring fire quite a while to bring all that water to a boil, radiating heat into the small room, which on a hot summer day must have already been over 90 degrees. The increased humidity made it even worse, turning the kitchen into an unbearable sweat lodge from which there was no escape — our presence was required for the entire process.
We fastened our manual wringer between the two rinse tubs. When the white clothes had boiled about twenty minutes, Mother began transferring them to the wringer with her laundry stick. John and I took turns cranking the wringer, as she fed the clothes through in batches. As the hot soapy water oozed out of the clothes in the wringer, it ran into the tub of soaking colored clothes. After sloshing the whites around in the rinse water, she sent them back through the wringer again, catching them by hand on the final pass and dropping them in the clothes basket. We carried the basket outside, and hung the clothes on lines, which had been strung between pine trees.
While the whites dried, we started on the colored clothes. Using a cooking pan, Mother scooped most of the hot soapy water from the copper boiler into the tub, reserving some to scrub the floor afterward. These clothes — -overalls, shirts, dresses and socks — all had to be scrubbed by hand on the washboard. Sometimes I helped with the socks, but Mother did all the rest. As we finished, she and I fed things through the wringer and into the rinse tub while John turned the crank. After a final wringing, we shook them out to remove as many wrinkles as possible, and hung them on the line to dry. Mother wrote in one letter, “I washed yesterday and believe me I missed the Maytag.”
She always took advantage of the fire in the stove to cook a pot of beans on laundry days — although they might have cooked almost as well just sitting on the kitchen table. The aroma of the beans, molasses, and salt pork mingled with the acrid smell of hissing, soapy water which had splashed on the hot stove. Years later, I finally realized the reason that my baked beans never smelled the same as Mother’s wash-day beans — that distinctive odor of burnt soap mixed with molasses.
The next day came ironing — ensuring that we’d endure suffocating heat for two days on a row. Kerosene irons were available for homes without electricity, but Mother seemed quite satisfied with the set of sadirons from her days in West Concord. She particularly liked the added advantage of free fuel. The fact that using them made the house even more intolerable in the summer was no reason for extravagant spending on fancy new equipment and kerosene. Her set of three irons and one detachable handle, allowed a continuous rotation: one iron being used while the other two heated on the stove. Each iron weighed about three pounds. Although many of the line-dried clothes looked quite smooth to me, she insisted that everything must be ironed — except socks and underwear. First she dampened the garments, dipping her hand into a bowl of clean water and sprinkling each piece evenly. Then she rolled them up tight so the moisture would spread evenly, and placed them in the clothes basket. I never quite mustered the courage to mention it, but I thought rolling them probably created more wrinkles….
I was so eager to help that I begged Mother to let me do some of the ironing. I was allowed to do flatwork — handkerchiefs, tea towels, and pillow cases — and she ironed the rest. Our ironing board was pointed at one end, padded with pieces of old blanket, and tightly covered by some worn sheeting. It had no legs, so Mother placed it over the tops of two chair backs, which made it a bit high for me, but it was a steady work surface. I would slip the handle over the iron, flick the lever to lock it in place, and carry it over to the board. The irons were heavy to move around, but I certainly didn’t have to press down while gliding over the cloth.
The loose fit between iron and handle made a clicking sound each time I changed directions, so ironing a large piece produced a rhythmic accompaniment to my work. The irons were pointed at each end with a much smaller surface area than electric models, so clicks were plentiful as it slid back and forth, making narrow smooth trails across the material. But my favorite part was the sweet, fresh smell of clothes dried outdoors, heightened by steam produced as hot iron met damp cloth — a stark contrast with the odor of burnt soap from washday.
Mother added to our work load by insisting on doing Daddy’s laundry also, “So it will be done right”. His erratic schedule made it difficult for him to get the blocks of time necessary for keeping up with his own laundry. But doing this also made her feel more like a part of his daily life while they were apart. Regular parcels were moving back and forth between Minneapolis and the farm. She looked for other ways to contribute to his quality of life, “I am baking today. If you will send things in small pasteboard boxes, I can send you cookies and such when I send the laundry.”
Meanwhile, daddy was becoming more skilled at cooking and housekeeping. His letters kept us well informed about his successes as well as failures: “I’m beginning to be a pretty good pancake baker. I mix the flour, salt and soda at night and then in the morning all I have to do is put in the sour milk and egg and heat up the pancake griddle…. Tell Mama I use the putty knife as a pancake turner along with its other uses.’
He told me about another learning experience: “Daddy made himself some rice pudding yesterday. Wish you could of been here to help me eat it as the rice swelled so much that I had to have two dishes to bake it in.” I sent him explicit instructions with a recipe for rice pudding in my next letter….
His first attempts at baking provided many amusing stories,” Well, I wish you could have seen Daddy trying to make an apple pie. I got the crust all mixed but when I tried to roll it out it wanted to wrap around the rolling pin and then it stuck to the board so I could hardly get it in the pan but I finally got more flour on it and the pie tasted pretty good.” Mother offered some advice for the future. “You bake it for 3/4 to one hour in a medium oven. Put plenty of flour on the board and rolling pin and the crust won’t stick.”
His letters show his determination to increase his work hours “I was the first one on the chiseler’s list [A sign-up sheet for unscheduled work. They would wait at the station to get an extra run or fill in for another worker.] I was at the barn at 4:50 A.M. and I got a day run out of it and am marked up for a day run for tomorrow.” But sometimes his quest was not successful: “I got up at 4:30 this morning and thought I could get a day run along with my night run but so few were laid off that I only made about a dollar extra taking cars over to the Snelling shops where they are repaired.”
Tommy, still being a rather young and tractable cat, allowed us to dress him in doll clothes on occasion. However, he would invariably decide — quite suddenly — on a change of venue, and quickly squirm out of whatever dress and bonnet I’d coerced him into. Like his mother, he’d become an accomplished hunter, and proudly brought his prey back and dropped it at our feet before eating it.
One day he presented me with a tiny field mouse, still very much alive. It seemed too young to meet its end, so I snatched it away and decided to play benign liberator, allowing it to experience more of the world — perhaps even live to a ripe old age. While I nobly cradled the helpless little thing tenderly in my hand — it bit me. I returned the doomed creature to Tommy without a qualm….
We wrote to Daddy about a large old gray tomcat that had started hanging around the farm shortly after we were settled, and how he had been “fighting” with The Mother Cat. I did not know anything about the birds and the bees then, so I was a little surprised when daddy suggested, “Take good care of the old kitty …. Fix her a nice bed in one of the old boxes.” We did, and on the last day of August, she gave birth to four cuddly gray kittens.
These new arrivals became the focus or our intense observation. We watched her wash them, cringing as her rough tongue pulled their wobbly little heads this way and that while she licked around their ears and under their chins. Satisfied at last they were clean enough, she snuggled around her brood, purring with a new maternal sound as they eagerly nursed and began kneading her soft belly with their tiny paws.
After a short while they were all asleep. Careful not to disturb them, she pulled away, stood up, sniffed them again, gave us a warning glance, and walked over to the kitchen door, where Mother let her out. She disappeared into the undergrowth of the grove to hunt food for herself, her sides now thin and lank compared to her full pregnant figure.
Eager to examine the kittens without her interference, we each picked up one of the tiny bits of sleeping fur, soft as moleskin. Their ears looked very small compared to the size of their heads, and their eyelids were sealed tightly. Our attentions wakened them, and their little tails stood straight out to help them balance. We carefully turned them over to tickle their fuzzy little tummies, where their umbilical cords were beginning to shrivel up.
Not pleased with our rough fondling, they began mewing loudly, begging their mother for rescue. She was soon at the door demanding to be let in. She quickly gathered them together with that same maternal purr, licked them all over again — perhaps to remove the smell of our hands — and again offered her milk. We waited patiently watching the whole procedure until she left to resume hunting. This time she delivered a stern, piercing glance at us; her message was unmistakable.
Without a word between us, John and I instantly succumbed to childish temptation. Waiting long enough for the cat to get out into the grove, we gently lifted each little sleeping kitten and placed it on the floor, well away from its litter mates. They were all soon awake and mewing loudly, bringing The Mother Cat running back to the door. She glared at us while reassembling and soothing her upset family, again….
By this time Mother had figured out what we were doing, and came into the room with the same reproachful look in her eyes, saying, “For Heaven’s sakes, don’t you have anything better to do than pestering that poor cat? Get outside, the two of you — or I’ll find something for you to do!”
After shooing us out the door she went back to reassure the cat that she would protect all of them from further harassment. Our energies were redirected for awhile, but the sport was destined to be short-lived anyway. Once the kittens’ eyes opened they could find each other and their nest without a call for help.
The road by our farm was so lightly traveled that mailmen, delivering on their daily routes, were the only regulars. Occasionally a neighbor would drive by — but rarely a stranger. We always stopped to look when we heard the sound of any approaching vehicle, expecting to see a familiar car. On the few occasions when someone actually pulled into our yard, it was usually a neighbor who had just butchered a cow or pig offering to sell us meat, or who was perhaps returning from a fishing trip with pike or walleye to share.
We always looked forward to the Watkins man when he came through. He was obviously different from the neighbors because he wore a suit and tie — about the only man we saw in our neighborhood who did. Mother always enjoyed chatting with him while John and I gazed in wonder at his trays of exotic flavorings and aromatic spices. We noticed Mother seemed more at ease talking with him than with most folks around there, probably because he was more of a city person. She would invariably choose something — like a bottle of vanilla or a tin of ground cinnamon, and then he would be off to his next customer.
It was a momentous occasion the day one of the Jensen’s relatives moved to a farm a few miles away. Family, friends, and neighbors all helped. They used any mode of transportation they had — trucks, cars, horse-drawn wagons — to transport farm equipment, cows, pigs, and crates of chickens, as well as furniture and other household possessions. Our road suddenly came to life. John and I watched this unlikely parade all day — each approaching vehicle bulging with some unwieldy load.
A few days after that extravaganza, the road brought us yet another surprise, as a familiar car turned in to our yard. Out stepped my two aunts — Daddy’s sisters, Emily and Reo, and their husbands, George and Roy — on their way home from a weekend fishing trip. It was a brief stop — they only had time to stay for coffee — but they wanted to visit and to finally see our farm. Afterward, we walked beside their car as it pulled back out onto the road, and waved goodbye until we saw them dip out of sight beyond the hill.
John and I were overjoyed to see them, a reminder that we still had family in the great outside world, but Mother’s feelings were decidedly mixed. For almost three months we had been living in a state of blissful isolation, preoccupied with getting our house livable, establishing a routine in our new environment, tending our garden, and learning about country life and new challenges. Suddenly Mother found herself viewing our place through the eyes of outsiders….
They were not wealthy or snobbish, but George and Emily were accustomed to a traditional spacious farmhouse on a successful working farm in southern Minnesota; Reo and Roy lived in a modest but comfortable home in the city. Not only were we still confined to the lean-to section of our cabin, but the house and yard were littered with left-over materials from daddy’s remodeling projects.
Mother could handle the unfavorable comparison between our house and theirs, because it was obviously in the process of renovation — but she could never justify visitors seeing waste materials strewn around her premises. The next day she led our vigorous clean-up campaign, reporting to Daddy, “Our yard looked very untidy so Tuesday I got busy and raked together the piles you started and all the loose papers and such and had a bonfire.”
Never again would friends or relatives spontaneously stop by and find our place disorderly….