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Jim was riding in a little wagon which turned over in front of the Keech residence in our block on First Avenue and Jim fell out and broke his collar bone.
In front of Fred McDaniel's house, I crawled into a monster tile which was to go in the storm sewer on First Avenue. I sat on a sharp projection and cut my posterior deeply. Bleeding like a hog and crying, I ran home. Mrs. McDaniel said afterwards that she couldn't help but laugh at my predicament.
I shacked a bob loaded with hogs in front of our house. Missed my footing and fell under one runner in front of Ford's. The runner went over my right thigh. I couldn't get up but Ed McDaniel, who was probably studying medicine at the time came and carried me into the house. I laid for some time in a bed in the sitting room with those bow windows and small blinds. Lordy, how I enjoyed it there.
I rode up on the bicycle to the side porch steps and turning was grinning at a passerby. Lost my balance and fell, hit my chin on the foot scraper and bit my tongue in two. Dr. John Ristine sewed it up without benefit of sedatives but it didn't hurt a bit and I could see mama was horrified at the procedure. For quite some time afterwards, I didn't have to go to school because I could not talk. Friends called me "Dummy" when I rode by the school grounds on the bicycle, while I was thus handicapped.
At Madison School, Roy Farr called me a name and quick as a flash, I knocked him down with a blow in the mouth. He told his father who approached me with fire in his eye and might have clouted me excepting that big, overgrown Chris Wenig said if he touched me, he'd have to answer to him.
John and I used to be the horses and drag a wagon fitted with a closed box in which Ralph (Red) Moore would be riding unseen to shout whenever near a pedestrian, in stentorian tones, the warning, "Look out for the Amaroojin."
Willy Baker cornered me in front of Aborn's house with a big rigamarole and ended with "I've seen it all, Grant, from the Parlor Brussels to the floor that God made, covered with moss."
Father used to laugh till little tears wet his cheeks when he'd read the nonsense I wrote in THE OPTIMUS.
I used to rob the Siberian crab-apple tree behind the Bettis house. That pleasant-looking woman who staid there wouldn't mind nor Mr. Bettis either, I feel sure.
Mr Brandt was to look after John and me when we went to Moline to visit Aunt Birdie and Uncle Gus. He never did as he promised. Father and I never liked him thereafter. He did stay at his engine smarting it up when the depot was on the bank of the Mississippi. No one came for us for quite a while but we did not mind or get scared. Finally, Uncle Gus got there and took us across the river on the ferryboat.
The McDonald plumbing dog used to get under the wagon to avoid the gangster dogs, finally, he had to run between the horses to keep out of harm's way. He was a big hound.
Greasey Joe putting black grease on the tracks where they turned from First Aveue onto Third Street.
The barns where they kept the mules which drew the horse cars at Third Street and Third Avenue West. NE corner.
Coming from the Universalist Church one Sunday, we went over in front of the Greene's Opera House and looked through the windows of the basement and saw the ponies from the dog and pony show that showed there on Saturday.
Father had Bert McDaniel take us boys to Greene's to see Sandow, the strong man. George Graham was to take us, but didn't.
Riding in the horse cars over Third Avenue bridge.
The flimsy bridges for walking over May's Island.
The dump on May's Island where I used to hunt for canceled postage stamps.
The horse racing on the ice around May's Island.
Skating above the dam when the ice would be black with skaters.
Hurrying home one night I skated into a runway to the ice house and went in over my head. I climbed out and got my skates off and ran home. Ice formed on my clothes in no time, it was so cold. Never did me any harm that anyone could see.
Going after the mail at King's corner and taking it on up to the factory.
Going after the mail of a Sunday morning and Bert Taylor passing it out the window at the post-office on 2nd Ave and 2nd St.
Going up to the pump at King's for a jug of water.
Selling a wagon full of water from King's pump.
Father would get us boys behind on the snowplow and we'd get those walks clear of maybe twelve inches of snow at one fell swoop.
I climbed up with Ruth onto the leanto and got my stomach on the eave of the barn and could neither get up nor down and got scared and bellered. Ruth comforted me until Father climbed up and got me down.
We used to climb onto the woodshed from the wide gate and go across on a plank onto the leanto and then on up onto the barn roof.
We spent many a hot afternoon in the cupola of the barn. I left a can of tobacco tags up there when I left home and always wondered what ever became of them - a baking powder can.
Will Kaufman, Charlie McDaniel, Max Lewis and I were playing upstairs in the barn one time when we quarreled and they left in high dudgeon.
Mama caught me running to go upstairs in the barn one time and paddled me good for getting smart.
How many Saturday mornings did I slave at the washing with Mollie Chamberlain out in that barn. Mama would hang up clothes on the coldest day and take them down stiff as boards. How proud she was of her washing.
John and I had to pump the cistern water and lug it down to fill two or three tubs in the barn every Friday night. We used a pail and the old brass kettle. Later, Father rigged up a reducer and we used a garden hose to fill the tubs.
I had to help with the washing down in the basement under the kitchen for many many Saturdays, too.
I remember old Nig, the cat, having difficulties when the washing was done and I finally got to help her when Mollie told me to go ahead and she'd push the washing machine while I was gone.
Mollie Chamerlain's sister comes to mind but faintly and more faintly still Mollie's husband.
We had a cross-looking Indian-looking woman once who took the wild crabapples I had gathered without my permission.
We had another washerwoman from Time Check who had a Spaniard for a husband. He got the lay of the land and came one night and took all my Golden Laced Wyandotte chickens. We found the heads of the common chickens up the alley back of Fred McDaniel's house.
The lightning rod man who lived back of Belle Brant's and had the barn full of truck.
Old Man Reinhart who whipped his race horses unmercifully. When the horses would scream in fright or pain, us boys would promptly fire a lot of rocks onto the roof of his barn and the old man would dash out to try to catch us but never could see a soul. His roof got to sag with the weight of the big pile of rocks which lodged thereon. Once, Ralph Hamllton came over to play and when the screams of a horse began, we all reached for rocks. Ralph held up his hands for us to desist and bravely went and climbed the half door of the stable and bang the rocks fell. Old man Reinhart bounced out of the half door and caught Ralph and said, "I've caught you at last and I'll horsewhip you within an inch of your life." He proceeded to whip Ralph who protested that he never had thrown a rock in his life. There.
There was a parrot in the big house on A Avenue which had a carrying voice on occasion. Back of us.
John used to have Carl Bagby (Cora's brother) sit on the porch with a thumb in the air for some unaccountable reason.
I set a trap fashioned after Dan Beard's drawing in THE YOUTH'S COMPANION near the back porch. We were at dinner that night when an awful screeching was heard and John and I ran out to find a big tomcat strangling in the noose. We released him at some danger to ourselves. Didn't set the trap again.
I used to climb to the roof of our house and shoot cats at Wentch's barn with a slingshot. Cats of wild aspect used to hang around in that sweat-smelling grass over there.
Mama complaining that Father had to go every Wednesday night to the Building & Loan.
Mr. La Tourette coming to our house and his poor table manners.
Uncle Gus bringing bedbugs to our house. Mama crying and mad as a hornet at him for it.
Going by slow train from Marion to Martelle to visit on the farm of the Breeds. The horses running along in the pasture alongside the team and Mr. Breed saying that they were saying goodby.
Mary getting a bumble bee sting in the yard at Breeds.
The gallery of the farm house. Breed's.
The drunk man who sat in on a concert by Ruth and Margaret Burr playing a piano duet.
Bess Wlllis whistling alot and soprano at the same time.
Harve Getty from the gas company over to sing with Alice of a Sunday night.
Cashier R. Tasker Forbes of the Citizen's National Bank ridiculing Father as a director insisting on counting the reserve funds. (Think he is still living at Marion.)
George Graham died the other day. He always said that Alice was the prettiest girl Cedar Rapids ever produced.
How John and I would spade the garden and plant it.
How John and I would saw and split that mountain of cordwood and Jim piled it in the barn and woodshed.
The hop pile and gathering the hops and putting them in bags.
The Christmas trees in the attic and Mary tiring of the job of unwrapping a gift with multiple wrappings.
Where Alice and Ruth sat at the dining table; not so clear about Mary and think Betty didn't always have the same place. John and Jim on the east side, I believe. Father at the south and Mama at the north with that high window back of her.
My trip to West Point and the stopover at Deansboro to see the brook Father stepped across as a boy.
Keeping the grate fire going in Mama's room.
Emptying the ashes from both ash pits.
Firing that cranky old furnace.
Baking beans in the door of the furnace.
The big jars of green tomato pickles and cucumbers.
Eating away at the fruit cake put in the big jar to age for Thanksgiving thinking that it was forgotten.
April Fool's Day when Father called upstairs to say, "Grant, you went and left the spigot open on the cider barrel and it has run all over the cellar floor."
Father's spring frame bicycle and what a job he had to learn to ride it.
Grandpa planting the grape vines and insisting that spoiled meat go down with each one. His sorrow that the cold winter killed all the vines.
Grandpa wanted me to go prospecting with him in Colorado but Mama said she wouldn't trust me with him.
Father said I could go to work one summer at the Snake river dredge in Idaho on that gold-mining scheme.