With its fabled bright blue weather, October brought unmistakable signs of winter approaching. John and I switched to winter coats and mittens as temperatures dipped to near freezing by morning. In the evenings we enjoyed sitting by the woodstove listening to Mother read The Little Pioneers. We were amazed to see how similar our life on the farm was to the old frontier days. As we continued making seasonal preparations, we felt a special kinship-through-time with the characters in the book.
In yet another futile attempt to convince my father to buy something for himself, Mother wrote, “PLEASE get yourself a raincoat…. “
Shortly after Daddy left, she went to work on the front room walls, nailing the rest of the blue building paper and lath over the section he had not finished. She felt more secure knowing that our “insulated” barrier from winter storms was complete. Once she had cleared the front room of all remodeling debris, it got the same treatment as our lean-to had before she allowed us to move in. John and I kept her supplied with pails of water, and, armed with soap and scrub brush, she scoured every square inch — floor to ceiling. When she finally pronounced it fit for human habitation, we helped her move in the few remaining pieces of furniture: the chiffonier, an oval oak end table, the bookcase and John’s metal cot. As she laid her hand-made braided wool rug on the clean floor in front of the wood stove, the transformation was complete. With almost three times the living space — it felt palatial. We admired our handiwork, and each new feature with growing satisfaction.
The new wood heater had a larger appetite than the little cook-stove we had been using. Our spacious new room, plus feeding two fires, required splitting and carrying considerably more wood. We soon learned that, despite its larger capacity, the heater could not hold enough wood to maintain a fire overnight. When the temperature first dropped below freezing, Mother got up during the night to add wood, crawling out of bed twice a night, shivering in her nightgown. She soon concluded the effort required was not worth the small amount of heat that found its way back to our sleeping quarters.
We piled on more bedding instead — -wool blankets, quilts, and the black cowhide carriage robe — to keep us snug and warm at night. In the morning, Mother quickly got a new fire going with kindling dried in the oven, and we dressed as close to the stove’s glowing red sheet metal sides as we dared.
There were two more jobs on Mother’s list to be done before she considered the house ready for winter. The first was closing off the space under the foundation, which would insulate the floor and prevent wind and snow from blowing under the house. Daddy had purchased the materials, but ran out of time. John and I helped her put tarpaper around the base of the house, and secure it with strips of lath. While we were in school, she carried pails of sand up from the cellar and banked it up over the lower edge of the tarpaper, providing a sturdy seal between house and ground. Her final bit of weatherproofing was stuffing strips of cloth rags into all the cracks around the doors and windows.
Once these were completed, Mother turned her attention to more creative pursuits and interior amenities. She searched through the packed boxes looking for curtains. The three pair she found did not match and were a few inches too short for the windows, but after dying them a light yellow, she felt they were close enough to pass for a set. She solved the length problem by hanging them below the top of the window frame, and then covering the gap with valances she made from a yard of flowered print she bought for fifteen cents in Nevis. They framed our view of the grove and frosty sunsets with a warm yellow glow…
With the change in weather came our first round of illness, mild cases of stomach flu which kept us home from school for a few days. But we soon learned it was part of a local epidemic of sorts — that led John and me to an extraordinary experience later in the week….
Mother decided to drive into town by herself, dropping us off at Jenson’s to walk the remaining half mile to school. We arrived to find the building stone cold and Miss Eula — still wearing her heavy coat — looking pale and queasy. She stayed long enough to tell all the students she had the flu and was going home. Expecting to warm up inside after their frigid morning walk, most students scurried away quickly to enjoy their unexpected holiday, but John and I were not sure what to do.
The five Bliss children quickly solved our problem by inviting us to spend the day with them, and we eagerly agreed. So, the seven of us — over half of Miss Eula’s class — merrily headed down the road together. John and I had passed by the Bliss place many times, but never to visit. As we all arrived, the rest of their younger brothers and sisters ran to meet us….
Everyone was outside where a fire was burning under a huge black water-filled cauldron. They told us it was ordinarily used for making soap, but today they were butchering a pig. Before we had time to feel squeamish, a gunshot rang out from behind the pig-house. We were grateful that the men at least slit its throat and bled it out of our sight. The older girls left to go help, and we soon saw them carrying pails of blood into the kitchen, where Mrs. Bliss had the stove hot and large kettles ready — to make blood soup…. One of the girls told us that some would be used for blood sausage. I tried to imagine what such foods would be like, but didn’t get much past their names…
Mr. Bliss, jovial and stocky, worked with his helpers to transfer the cauldron water to a barrel, and then used a rope and pulley to lower the pig’s carcass into the boiling liquid.
From a suitable distance, John and I watched this entire scene unfold in an odd slow-time — with a growing sense of shock and wonder. We, who had rejoiced at the miracle of our failed kitten extermination, were strangely both drawn and repelled. The numerous Bliss children answered our questions — no doubt marveling at our ignorance.
They next moved the carcass to a heavy table and began scraping hair from the hide — a process that reminded me of plucking a scalded chicken. From the stupefied look on our faces, Mr. Bliss must have realized that we were the new city kids from down the road — putting a twinkle in his eyes as he watched us. Smiling, he turned back to his project, directing his workers in a heavy German accent, as they turned the pig’s bulky slippery body over to scrape the other side. Next they removed the head — which was sent immediately to the kitchen.
Using a rope and pulley, Mr. Bliss then hoisted the carcass up in the doorway of a nearby shed. With a few deft strokes, he cut through the underside from tail to neck. As he pulled the incision apart, all the viscera tumbled out into a washtub positioned below. This was too much; we went back to the kitchen….
Near the kitchen door, we noticed a foreign, slightly sweet smell, and soon learned it was the aroma of boiling blood. Mrs. Bliss was busy scrubbing the pig’s head in a large pan. With her thick Dutch accent, she tried to explain to us how she made her favorite porcine treat — head cheese. Her jolly laugh, as she shouted orders — cradling the pig’s head — made it sound like a festive holiday. John and I sought another change of venue….
We found the older girls rinsing and cleaning intestines in a big tub of water, for use later as blood sausage casings. The bouquet of gag-inducing odors from every quarter had grown progressively worse, and John and I hastily retreated upwind to a distant part of the yard and stayed there with the younger children.
By lunchtime, our appetites had miraculously revived. We joined our friends under a stand of poplars, where the midday sun, shining through their yellow leaves, cast a golden shade. Chattering away, eating our sandwiches, we enjoyed the full measure of our respite. John and I planned to arrive home at the usual time, so Mother would not worry about us.
During the afternoon, we periodically checked on the pig project. The men cut up the carcass, which hung in the doorway of the smokehouse. Great chunks of fat lay on a bench, hardening to the creamy white color of the lard that would later be rendered — another job for the ever-cheerful Mrs. Bliss. All meat that could not be eaten immediately, would be canned, smoked, salted, or sold. By the time we made our final trip to the shed, the pig looked like a side of pork hanging in a butcher shop. The extremities had been cut off, and taken to the kitchen for another family favorite — pickled pigs feet. As they described it to John and me, attempts to conceal our true feelings obviously failed — and Mr. Bliss could not resist teasing us…
As our day sped by, we lost track of time, until the low slant of the sun told us it was late. Quickly gathering our lunch pails, we started toward home, with some of the Bliss kids in tow part of the way, clinging to the last moments of our remarkable day.
We arrived home, out of breath, to find the car parked in the side yard, but Mother was nowhere around. The tables were turned, for once. We had no idea where she was… We found her at Jenson’s, oblivious to our concerns, busily pumping away on their treadle sewing machine, making a pair of pajamas for John. Engrossed in her work, she had lost track of time as well….
With our milk pails, lunch pails, and Mother’s bundle of sewing, we walked home together — no doubt, sharing the events our day in more graphic detail than she cared to hear. She did appreciate, however, the chance to buy half a fresh ham for 50 cents, when Mr. Bliss drove over just before dark.
Miss Eula let the furnace fire go out one day while school was in session, and by the next week, I was sick again. My most frightening symptom was the dreaded earache. It stirred memories of an ear infection I had at six years old, which spread into the mastoid bone. My parents had taken turns then, sitting with me through searing pain, to keep the ice packs in place. When I did not improve, the doctor put me in the hospital, where the infection finally drained. Before I was completely back to normal, after weeks of recovery — I caught scarlet fever….
Now, we were in the backwoods, with no telephone or doctor we knew. Mother started a regimen of cold compresses immediately, and in a few days, I was able to go back to school — with strict instructions to come straight home if the classroom wasn’t warm enough.
While working on one of her clean-up projects outside, Mother had an unfortunate encounter with some barbed wire, and punctured a large vein on the back of her hand, causing it to swell up. She described her treatment in the next letter: “We went home and I opened up the cut and put on some Lysol, then got some boiling water and put on hot compresses the rest of the afternoon. That stopped the swelling and the pain and today it is just a little sore to the touch.” Although we handled each of these incidents with Mother’s home remedies and first aid savvy, they did emphasize our vulnerability, and gave my father more cause for concern.