Chapter 2

Chapter II

            No record was kept of the dates of birth of Great, Great, Great Grandmother Sophia’s children. If she ever had kept them, they were lost in moving.

            When Grandpap Ambrus Colvin was some eighteen years of age, he moved with his family westward to Platte County, Missouri, and settled between Weston and Fort Leavenworth. He enlisted in the army at Ft. Leavenworth and served four years. Part of the time he spent at Ft. Kearney, Nebraska, where a guard was kept as a protection against Indian uprisings.

            He was discharged when his time expired, but when war with Mexico broke out, he was called back into the army and served as quartermaster teamster.

            He always claimed the distinction of having driven the first cannon into the city of Mexico. Soon after the war ended Grandpap was given his discharge from the army and a land patent from the government for 160 acres of choice land in Nodaway County, Missouri.

            Thus endowed Grandpap hurried back to Platte County and the little gal whose image he had carried in his heart as he drove the mules pulling the cannon across the prairies and into the captured city.

            According to his own expression: “I God, she shore looked purty settin’ thar by that spinning’ wheel”.

            The little girl was Delilah Fulks. She had come with her parents from North Carolina and settled near Beverly, Missouri, in Platte County. Neither she nor Grandpap could read or write, but they managed to communicate by having a third party write the letters, and they were carried by a messenger who happened to be going that way.

            They were married in 1847 soon after his return from Mexico. She told me she spun and wove the material for her wedding dress, and it was so fine she could pull it through her wedding ring. The she pursed her lips and added, “And it was white, the color it should be”.

            On December 17, 1848, their first child named Missouri Ann was born, and on June 4, 1850, they came to Nodaway County and settled on the land granted him by the government. It was rolling prairie land located a few miles west of where twenty-nine years later the town of Elmo was started.

            Grandpap built a log house on this land; it was some thirty feet long and less than half as wide. There was one large room below and a half story attic above where the children might sleep. A hold was cut in the logs at one end of the large room below and a great chimney was built of sticks and mud; this made a fireplace which was equipped with dingy “andiorns” with a spooky looking iron crane. There your great, great grandmother did her cooking. The fire had to be kept burning as they had no matches and a new fire had to be started by striking flint rock among wood shavings, which at times required a great deal of effort. During warm weather when cooking was done she let the fire burn down to embers and then raked ashes over them to hold the fire until time to cook again. At times, if neighbors lived near enough to one another, coals of fire were covered with ashes and carried in an iron kettle.

            Venison and other meats were cooked by hanging it over the fire in the fireplace where a dripping pan placed under it caught the drippings from which gravy was made.

            The corn bread was baked in a covered pan which was placed firmly on the coals of the fire with more coals raked over the top of the pan and ashes raked over the coals to hold the heat. It evidently took an experienced hand to know just how to select the burning embers for the baking and how long it was required to bake under different conditions of the fire. But, according to her children, your great, great grandma never missed perfection on her corn bread, gravy, and meat. The youngest child in the family was usually given the privilege of sopping its bread in the gravy that was left in the pan, while the older ones looked on in envy.

            It was universally conceded that green hickory wood made the best fire for cooking, and the smoke that puffs of wind sent spiraling back into the room had a very pleasant aroma. A sweet syrup cooked out of the ends of the green hickory logs that were sticking roomward out of the fire. These made coveted lollypops for the young children who sat warming their shins around the fire. The fireplace not only furnished heat for cooking; the fire warmed the room, and its flickering flames lighted the room at night. There were no glass windowpanes; the windows were covered with cloth which was oiled or greased with tallow or hog lard.

            While Grandpap was busy breaking the virgin soil, planting corn which was dropped by the hand and striving to get a start of cattle, sheep, and hogs, he found that raising hemp was a money-making sideline. At one time he sowed as much as forty acres of hemp, and hauled it to St. Joseph where he sold it for making rope. One day while Great, Great Grandma was out helping break hemp to be loaded on the wagon she left her two little girls in the house alone. Virginia was playing about the room when she picked up a broom and started sweeping around the fireplace. A spark from the fire popped out and caught her clothing on fire, and she was so severely burned that she died June 7, 1853. She was buried on the farm where they lived, and four years later another child, Ambrose, was buried beside her.

            On February 11, 1854 the weather was cold and your great grandfather Platte Colvin came with a snowstorm. Some of the chinking had dropped from between the logs on the side of the house, and Great, Great Grandma said the snow had to be shaken from the top of the blankets on her bed the next morning.

            During the next nine years Catherine Anne, Ambrose, William Ignatius, John Boureguard, and Frances M. were born, and the rounds of the ladder leading to the attic were worn slick by the many little feet as they climbed them at night when going to their one-legged bedstead which was made by cutting a stick the proper length, boring holes at one end and one-half inches in diameter at right the length and breadth desired for the bed, in which were inserted poles. Upon these poles clapboards were laid, or lynn bark was interwoven consecutively from pole to pole. Upon this primitive structure their beds were laid.

            Being the oldest, Missouri became a source of great help to her parents; she was quick, active, and a willing worker. During the cornplanting season she would walk in front of Grandpap and drop the corn from her hand while he followed with the hoe and covered. This would continue all day for many days until the corn was planted. All agreed that it took a good one to keep up with her.

            She also learned to spin and wave and knit and sew. She did the major part of the spinning, working late into the night after the other members of the family had retired. Whir, whir went the old spinning wheel as she ran back and forth, back and forth with her strings of yarn. If the candles burned out, she threw more wood into the fireplace and worked by its light.

            She was in demand at the quilting parties; her stitches were small and neat, and her block was soon finished, which gave her an opportunity to slip out and speak to some of the young men who were taking part in the house raising or log splitting which was being done by the men of the neighborhood.

            Grandpap was stern and very severe with his family if they disobeyed him. If the children were running and playing noisily in the room and he stepped in, at once all was quiet as a mouse until he went out again.

            One evening just as the family was sitting down to supper, a stranger pulled the latch string and stepped courteously into the room. He asked if he might feed his mule and put up for the night. Grandpap looked suspiciously at him and started to demur, but no stranger was every turned away from the door of an early settler, so-----Grandpap told him to “Come in, set up to the table, and eat a bite”. He readily accepted the invitation and visited with the family as he ate heartily.

            Grandpap observed him silently, and it was with reluctance that he went out with him to bed down the mule for the night. (Grandma said, “He walked behind the stranger all the way to the stable and back to the house”.)

            When they returned to the house, the supper dishes had been cleared away and the hearth swept clean. Grandma was settling down with her knitting, and Missouri was washing out the stockings that she had knitted off that day.

            The stranger found a stool on the opposite side of the room, and as he seated himself the children gathered around him and began asking many questions which he answered quite entertainingly.

            Grandpap settled himself in the easy chair in front of the fireplace with his back to the rest of the family, stretched his legs to the warm fire, and began whittling and hollowing out a corncob pipe.

            Soon the stranger was teaching the little boys tricks with string. Missouri, attracted by the fun, hastily finished her work and came to stand with hands on her hips as he tossed the string over Catherine’s (Kitty’s) head, gave it a jerk, and it slipped right off. Then he laughingly told her he had cut off her head; then they all laughed as she felt of her head to know if it was still in its proper place.

            Just then Grandpap called in a loud voice, “Woman! Bring me that wire with the twist in the end of it”. Grandma got hastily to her feet to do his bidding. She fetched the wire from a niche near the cupboard, gave it to him, sat down, and picked up her knitting. He thrust the end of the wire into a bed of coals in the fireplace, and as he did so he hitched his chair to one side so that he could see what was going on in the room.

            The end of the wire was soon red hot, and he proceeded to burn the pith from a small stick that he was going to use for a pipestem. It required several heatings and burning before the stem was open, and he was quite busy with it, but all of the time, from the corner of his eye, he was watching the antics of the stranger.

            After the children had seen all of his tricks with the string, the stranger told them if they had a white curtain on the wall he would show them some shadow pictures. Missouri hurried to the chest and brought out a bleached flour sack which she fastened to the logs on the wall. The candles were placed nearby, and he sat between them and the curtain.

            He put his hands together, held them up, and there was the exact likeness of an eagle’s head on the curtain, then the head of a snake licking out its tongue. The children were spellbound, and Grandma dropped some stitches in her knitting.

            Then came a cow’s head with horns. All at once! up hopped a little rabbit with its nose and ears wiggling, and as it hopped it went squeak, squeak so real that the children looked around to see if there could be a real rabbit some place in the room. Grandpap forgot to pick up his wire that lay red in the coals as he sat watching and forgetting his pretense of indifference.

            Then the stranger rubbed his hands together, blew through his fingers, and quick as a wink, a pig’s head came racing across the curtain; it opened its mouth and let out such a squeal that it brought Grandpap to his feet thinking surely it had come from his own pigpen. He stood glaring at the stranger for a moment as the children ran to Grandma, and she started knitting so fast her needles just clicked together.

            Grandpap pointed the pipestem he was holding in his hand at the stranger and said, “Lookie heah, sir, wh-what was that? Did you do that?”

            The stranger laughingly to him that he did, and the he was a ventriloquist; he could throw his voice. With a “Hump”, Grandpap sat down in his chair and slowly went ahead burning the hole through his pipestem.

            The children were sent up the ladder to bed, Missouri helping Frances as she was so small she could hardly reach from one round to the next.

            Grandma layed a bed for the stranger who was soon sleeping soundly. Then she, too, retired, but Grandpap sat late into the night slumped in his chair rousing only to fill and refill the cob pipe from the box of tobacco that sat by the fireplace. The pipe was a good one, and the stem drew well; the room became so filled with smoke it caused the stranger to cough in his sleep.

            Finally when the fire had burned down until there were hardly enough coals to light his pipe again, Grandpap got up and put fresh wood on the dying embers, raked ashes around them, and he, too, retired for the night. But the frown was gone from his face, and there was a shrewd twinkle in his eyes as he glanced toward where the stranger was sleeping.

            Next morning Grandpap ate his breakfast in silence, hardly seeming to notice the stranger who also seemed puzzled by the queer behavior of his host.

            The children were nervous from wanting to ask for more pictures or tricks with the string but were afraid of arousing their father’s anger. When breakfast was finished, Grandma herded them away from the table as she, too, expected something to happen.

            When there was only Grandpap and the stranger left at the table, Grandpap called, Woman, bring us another cup of coffee”. A hushed silence fell over the room. The stranger appeared to be the most surprised of all, but being a jolly, good natured fellow, he felt equal to almost any occasion and remained silent, waiting.

            Grandma hurried to pour their coffee and when the cups were emptied, Grandpap turned to the stranger and said, “Lookie heah, young feller, how would you like to stay around heah a few days? I calculate to butcher some hogs as soon as the moon sign is right, and you might give me a lift at it”.

            The stranger, thinking of the warm bed and the good vittles, quickly accepted. Then Grandpap began asking him many questions: How and where he learned to throw his voice that way, and could he make a pig squeal outside as well as in the house, and many, many more.

            When they left the house together to go out to feed the mule and do the other barnyard chores, they were so chummy that Grandma could hardly believe what her eyes saw. And the children stood by the little white curtain trying to make shadow pictures.

            At different times in the past Grandpap had missed hams and other pieces of meat he had hanging in his smoke house, and in talking with other people around about, he had learned that they too had lost meat—it just disappeared when they were away from home, it seemed. Now the early settlers were an honest class of people who endeavored to help one another instead of taking away from their neighbors. But there was an old man named Eli Flint who lived down the draw a mile or so; he had a large family, and they always had meat on their table and lard to cook with, at least, they had every time Grandpap had happened to drop in about meal time. He never seemed to butcher any of his own hogs, and Grandpap had become suspicious.

            Grandpap and the stranger talked a lot with their heads close together, and they laughed more when the stranger threw his voice into the pigpen and the old sows came “boo, booing” looking for the pig that was caught in the fence. They took long walks down the draw, walking single file. They soon had a path worn in the snow right toward Eli Flint’s house.

            After two or three days Grandpap seemed to be pretty well pleased with his plans, and he just happened to be passing Eli Flint’s place, and Old Eli was out feeding his hogs, dumping the corn over the fence and calling, “Pooie! Poo—ee”! Grandpap stopped for a chat; he admired the hogs Eli said, yes, they were fat, and he was going to sell the last dang one of them a-fore they took cholera and died on his hands.

            In parting Grandpap said he had to hurry along home; he had to get his kettle and scalding barrel ready to butcher the next day, and he was going to let his meat hang outside all night to cool out. He didn’t think anything would bother it, and Eli agreed with him.

            Next day Grandpap and the stranger killed the hogs, scalded and scraped them clean, and hung them on a pole which was fastened between two trees near the smokehouse. They cut them in halves, tied them up by the hind legs with the heads hanging down, and there they were left to cool.

            Grandpap made the children go to bed early that night, and he said he didn’t want to hear a whimper out of them. The stranger rolled up his sleeves and pitched in to help Grandma and Missouri strip the fat from the entrils which had been placed in a tub. Grandpap sat by the fireplace smoking. By the time it grew dark outside he got up and opened a crack in the door to let in some fresh air, said, “The smell is bad”. He seemed rather nervous and went to the door for air several times.

            When the fat was all taken off, Grandpap and the stranger put on their coats and caps to take the tub outside and look to see that the hounds were securely tired. When everything became still and the moon was sailing high in the sky, making a weird glistening sheen on the white skin of the hogs hanging on the pole, Grandpap and the stranger took on last look around and slipped down the draw and hid in a heavy clump of underbrush close by the trail they had made in the snow a few days before. They kept very still and, sure enough, just as they expected, footsteps could be heard crunching in the frozen snow, and Old Eli Flint came cautiously up the path stopping now and then to look and listen, but all was still and he prodded on.

            Grandpap got so cold from sitting crunched down in the snow waiting that he was afraid the stranger wouldn’t be able to have any voice to throw by the time Eli got back, but by and by here he came with a half a hog thrown over his back, him a holdin’ to the hind leg of it and the head almost dragging the ground. And just as he got even with that clump of bushes that hog grunted a time or two, then gave such agonizing squeals that Old Eli jumped almost out of his tracks; he looked around behind him and saw that hog’s head and he was so scared that he dropped that half a hog and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

            Grandpap and the stranger let him get out of sight down the draw, and then they picked up the hog, carried it home, and laid it on a table in the smokehouse to be cut up and salted next day. They didn’t laugh at their joke as they came back into the house and went to bed. Grandpap said, “I God, that hog looked so ghostly there in the moonlight that it skeered him, too”.