Music Box, Chickens and the Man in the Moon

Music Box, Chickens and the Man in the Moon

Mother and Pa bought the farm south of Rockville in the mid 40s. There was 80 acres with quite a bit of woods, some pasture and the rest in tillable land. Pa had been a carpenter and blacksmith most of his life up to then but he always wanted to have a farm. I don’t know how he was able to purchase the farm but I suppose he got a loan of some type.

The property had an old two story house on it that had not been maintained over the years. The house did have electricity but did not have plumbing other than a pump in the kitchen supplying water from a well. The electricity consisted of an electrical wire with a light bulb hanging down from the center of each room. There was no indoor bathroom. An open front porch spanned about half the front of the house and an enclosed porch was on the side. The enclosed porch had a trap door that went into a cellar. After they moved into the house Pa kept the cream separator on this porch. It always smelled of warm milk when we would enter the porch. There was also some free standing cabinets (we have one of them in the garage now) that Pa made. The egg scales (to weigh and grade eggs) was also kept here also. (The egg scales is in the living room)

Pa didn’t want a two story house because he didn’t want Mother having to go up and down the stairs. Their kids were all gone and they didn’t really need the space so he removed the upper story. I don’t remember how he did it but I do remember feeling that he really must be a great man to be able to remove the top of a house.

The front yard had two big maple trees and we use to sit in the front yard in the summer and cool off under those trees. In the back yard was an outhouse and a chicken house. There was also a large garden. A path went from the back door to the outhouse. On the east side of the house Pa built a garage and barn. The barn had a hay mow, stalls for animals, grain storage area and a place to store equipment. The pasture area opened from the barn. The path out the back door to the barn went behind the garage and along a wooden fence. On this fence Pa kept a ladder that he made in 1943 from sassafras.

I would occasionally stay with Mother and Pa. He would let me ride on the tractor or in his truck or play with the bellows that he had for his blacksmith fire. Mother would let me go with her to gather eggs or get some vegetables from the garden.

On the wall in the living room behind the coal stove hung a knick knack shelf that had a silhouette of a moon cut into it. On the shelf were two plaster chickens about two inches high. I always thought I should get to play with those chickens but I never did. I would lie on the floor looking at those chickens longing to get my hands on them. Once in a while Mother would let me hold the chickens. I now have those chickens in my living room.

The living room at the farm had a bay window. In the area of the window shelf Mother kept the music box. That was another item that I was not to touch. The problem was the music box was easily reached. I had strict instructions not to touch. I never did unless I was told I could. That music box belonged to Mother’s Dad, Winfield Scott Cottrell, who had a store in Coxville. It was a premium that he got for purchasing some goods for his store. He died of pneumonia that he contracted on his way to that store in a cold rain in 1900. I now have that music box.

In the spring Dad, Pa and me and sometimes Uncle Frank or Melvin and Sid when he got older would walk out the back door and go down the fence line on our way to the woods. We would be looking for mushrooms. We would walk through the woods and spend several hours and would usually find a good mess of mushrooms. When we got thirsty we would drink from the stream that flowed through the woods. You would have to find a place where the water was flowing fast and preferably with a rock bottom. By the time Sid started going we had pretty much given up the drinking out of the streams because of contaminants that we had heard about. We would circle the 80 acres and end up down the road from the house. When we got back to the house Mom and Mother would clean the mushrooms and we would have a feast.