Buying the cows was the easy part. Our landlord had agreed that we could use the old barn on the property for our little cattle. Before we could get them delivered, however, we found just exactly the house we had been looking for! It was a huge, old farmhouse, sitting on about 5 acres of land, on a bank across the street from the Connecticut River. Behind it was a beautiful little mountain called Sam's Hill.
We moved in the night before Thanksgiving. Right away there was a problem. You see, the house had been empty for five years, and the owner had removed the water pump. There was water running into the cistern in the mud room, but it ran right out through a pipe under the yard and into the horse trough.
("What's a horse trough?" Wally wondered aloud. "Well, it's a big cement tub that fills up with water that the horses or cows can drink," I answered. "The water came down the mountain behind our house in a big pipe, then ran into the cistern until the cistern filled up, then ran through the pipes into the trough." "Where did it go when the trough filled up?" asked Maggie, curious about this kind of arrangement. "It ran through more pipes down under the barn and into a little brook," I explained.)
So here we were, ready to move in, and no water in the pipes. Grandpa got in touch with the former owner and he remembered that the pump was in his barn. He brought the pump out and he and Grandpa installed it. They turned it on, and Wow! there was water coming out everywhere! ALL the pipes had holes in them! Quickly, they turned off the pump.
Meanwhile, I had scooped enough water out of the cistern to cook macaroni. When the macaroni was finished, I couldn't drain it in the kitchen sink because Grandpa and Mr. Fish were under there, trying to fix the pipes. So...I drained it into the bathroom sink, and, OOPS! that drain was split, and the hot, macaroni water poured out all over my feet.
The next few days were exciting as Grandpa tried and tried to find all the holes in the pipes. ("Well, why did all the pipes have holes?" Maggie asked. "The house was empty for so long, and there was no heat in it during the cold winters. So the water that was in the pipes froze and split," I said). Everyday, Grandpa would repair holes in the cold water line of pipes, then turn on the pump. And...zap! there would be NEW holes somewhere else in the line. One time, Lyra was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom when Grandpa turned on the pump, and a spout of cold water came out of the bathroom pipe and hit her on her bottom. She didn't think it was a bit funny, although the rest of us couldn't stop laughing.
While all this was going on, the two boys were exploring this huge house. Downstairs, there was the milk room, attached to the mud room, attached to the kitchen, attached to the dining room and small bedroom. The dining room had a fireplace in it that really worked. In the front of house down stairs, there was a central doorway from the porch, and a big living room on either side of the central hallway.
Upstairs there were two big bedrooms on the front. Thea took the one that had the view of Mount Ascutney, in Vermont, and Grandpa and I had the other one. The big bedroom in the back was for the boys, and there was another little bedroom above the little one downstairs. Then, there was a very narrow door that went into the rooms over the kitchen, mud room, and milk room. The house seemed to go on for miles, with lots of little spaces to hide in.
In the hallway between our bedroom and the boys, was a staircase up to the attic. This was huge, covering all of the main house. It was a great place to play, except for the hornets who nested there.
The most fun for the kids, though, were the two enormous barns behind the house. One of the barns had some old hay in it, and the kids played there. The other barn was the one we put our animals in, when we finally got them that spring. It certainly was my dream house, and the perfect place for that big garden I had always wanted.
We also had a lot of company that year. Bobbie and Janie came with their folks for a long weekend, and slept in the camper. Your Dad's cousin Tony, who was also five that summer, came and stayed for a week without his parents.
But it was the visit from Gary that sticks in my mind. He came to visit with his parents and DeeDee, and then stayed for two weeks after they went home. We took him hiking up the highest mountain in New Hampshire during that vacation. And what a trip! Gary couldn't take more than ten steps up those rocks without falling down. It reminded me of the sliding incident I wrote about earlier.
He'd fall on his face, ka-boom!, then get up, brush himself off and start off again, only to fall after another 20 yards. He never cried, or complained; he would just get up, brush himself off, and continue. We never figured out why he couldn't stand up. Grandpa checked out his hiking boots, but they were all right. We tried to slow him down, but that didn't work, either. So, while the rest of us enjoyed the far off views of the mountains, Gary became intimately involved with the floor of the forest, or the rocks on the mountain.
When fall came, we enrolled Chard in Kindergarten. It was a new experience for me to be alone in the house for the morning. I had had so many children around for so many years, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Luckily, Chard was only away for a couple hours each day. I would then drive to the school to pick him up, and we would spend the afternoon visiting friends, or walking on the country roads, or driving around the area.
On Fridays, I would pick Chard up and hurry into the nearby town of Claremont. Chard and I would meet Grandpa at the old hotel and have lunch. Those were lovely days.
That little house on the 100 acres had a feature that I loved. There was a big old black iron wood stove in the kitchen. When we lit a fire in that wonderful stove, the whole house smelled good. I learned to cook on the stove, finally. It is quite different than an electric or gas stove. You have to build the fire in the firebox, then wait until the top of the stove gets hot. Then, of course, you can't turn down the heat, so you learn to move the pans around to different spots from very hot, to hot, to not-quite-so-hot, to warm, to not-very-warm. It was quite a trick!
There was a shelf above the stove's cooking surface that was just the right place to keep things warm. If I made toast (I put the bread right on the stove top), then I could put it on a plate on the shelf and it would stay warm until the eggs were ready. The shelf was a good place to warm up the plates, also.
The boys slept in a bedroom upstairs, and Lyra slept in the bedroom opposite theirs. Grandpa and I were downstairs. That was difficult for me at first. I was used to having the children on the same floor with our bedroom. We talked about fire drills, and planned the exits for the children. Skipper ("I remember him!" says Wally. "He moved to New Hampshire, too?" asked Maggie. "Oh yes," I said, "That's where he became a farm dog.") would begin the night upstairs with the kids, then he'd come downstairs when Grandpa and I went to bed and sleep under our bed.
We explored every inch of that 100 acres. The children had a brook to play in, and old house dump that had many treasures, woods all around to play hide and seek in. It was a wonderful place. The kids built a little town in the woods near the house, using the broken dishes and other treasures from the dump. They played many hours out there.
Meanwhile, I was working in my huge garden. How I loved that garden! One summer morning, I got up very early, to find that the heavy rain we had had during the night had leaked into the kitchen. The floor was covered with about 4 inches of water, all full of black soot from the chimney. I was standing there, wondering how in the world I would ever clean up that mess, when I happened to look out the back window. There was the funniest sight I had ever seen.
The neighbor’s cows were standing in the deep water in the garden, munching on my corn! They weren't just eating the ears of corn, they each had a whole stalk in their mouths and were munching on it. Cows have a funny way of chewing, and the stalks were disappearing slowly into their mouths. ("What do you mean, a funny way of chewing?" asks Maggie. "Your daddy will show you how they chew their cud," I replied.)
Even though this was my precious corn, it was so funny I had to call everybody to come look. Then I thought of Skipper. "Whatever you do, don't let Skipper out!" I warned everybody, "He'll get those cows running all over the garden and ruin everything." Too late, the excitement was too much for him, and he pushed open the door before we could catch him.
Before we knew it, he had rounded up those cows and trotted them neatly, in a little pack, back to their field. That's when we realized he was a farm dog at heart!
("How DID you clean up that mess?" asks Maggie. " I opened up the door, and swept it all out with the broom!" said I.)
An organic garden is one that has no chemicals in it, no pesticides, and no artificial fertilizer. I convinced Grandpa to dig up a spot about 15 by 12 feet at the end of the yard. ("How big is 15 by 12?" asked Wally. "You really like this measuring business, don't you?" I asked him. "Yup!" he said.) This garden was very small, but Chard and I worked everyday to dig in the old chicken manure I had had dumped on it. Chard would put on his big old boots, and we'd rake and dig and dig and rake.
When the garden was smoothed out, and all the natural fertilizer was dug in, Chard and I planted seeds. And when they came up, oh my! What a garden! We had huge and delicious vegetables, including tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beets, and lots of other stuff I don't remember. It was so much fun, harvesting those vegetables.
But, it was too small. I dreamed of a huge garden, on land where I could have a cow and pigs, and lambs, and chickens. Well, we couldn't do any of that in that yard. So I dreamed on. Someday, I thought, I Wally have a garden that is big and bountiful.
Meanwhile, our family began to go to New Hampshire on our vacations to hike. The first camping trip, we rented a tent camper and drove to the Old Man of the Mountains (you can see his picture on the new New Hampshire quarter), and camped in Franconia State Park. What a wonderful trip that was! It was our first time to try camping, and we all loved it. And Chard was a real trouper. He climbed the 1 1/2 mile trail up to Lonesome Lake with us, where we had our lunch.
Just as we finished lunch, an old man who was fishing in the lake said, "It's going to rain in 20 minutes". Grandpa asked him why he thought that. "The mosquitos are gone, and that means the wind has changed." Sure enough, in 20 minutes the skies opened up and rained poured down. Grandpa and Dannie ran down to the camper to close the tent flaps we had left open, and Lyra and I took Chardy's hands and pounded down the dirt trail that was now a running stream. We ran so fast, slipping and sliding in the mud, that Chardy's feet weren't even touching the ground. About 2/3 of the way down, Grandpa came running back up and put Chard on his shoulders. We dashed down the mountain, all soaked to the skin.
But we were laughing and happy. It was such an adventure! The next day it was beautiful again, and we took a mile walk to a wonderful little waterfall. We had a great time on that trip, and when we got home, Grandpa and I decided to buy a tent camper and take hikes more often.
And so we did. We hiked a lot around R. I. and Connecticut, but whenever we got the chance, for the next two years, we drove to the White Mountains in New Hampshire to climb the beautiful mountains. We got real good at the camping and hiking and climbing. We would practice on a small mountain called Monadnock in southern N. H. each spring as soon as the snow had melted, then climb up Mount Washington on our vacation. We had many adventures in the mountains that I'll save for later.
Every time we returned home, after the long drive, everyone tired and sleepy, Grandpa and I would stay up late talking about how we'd love to live in New Hampshire. One day, Grandpa came home from work and said that he had heard of a job opening in New Hampshire; what did I think about that? I was so excited. He and I left the children with our friends and drove up to Claremont, New Hampshire, for his interview. We stayed in a little motel in Charlestown, and I stayed up late typing Grandpa's resume for him.
The next day, he was interviewed. When I picked him up from the factory, after his interview, he felt he wouldn't get the job. We stopped in Massachusetts on the way home to talk to the gentleman who had told Grandpa about the job. This man was certain Grandpa was the man the factory needed. And sure enough! A few days later, Grandpa was offered the job!
Grandpa had to leave in February for Claremont. I stayed behind to sell our R. I. house, and wait until Lyra and Dannie were out of school. Chard and I packed up things, sorted out things, cleaned corners, and generally got ready for the move. In the meantime, Grandpa was looking for a house for us to live in. And he found one, a Cape Cod, sitting in the middle of 100 acres. ("Ask your Daddy how big 100 acres is," I told Wally before he could ask me.) On Memorial Day weekend, your Daddy's 5th birthday, we camped on the property in New Hampshire for the first time. We finally were able to move up there in the middle of June, when the older two were out of school.
Oh, and I planted a BIG garden that Memorial Day weekend. We stayed in the camper because the landlord who owned the house was putting in a new floor. Grandpa stayed in the camper the next month, until we all moved up and our New Hampshire chapters began.
("Don't stop there!" begged Maggie. "I have to," I said, "it's bedtime for me...and probably for you and Wally, too.")
For several years, a magnificent pair of Great Blue Herons set up housekeeping in the pond. In the twilight, when the children were in the house and it was quiet outdoors, you could see the outlines of the herons, standing majestically at the edge of the pond in the reeds. But the best was the early morning drama, as they would spread their enormous wings and sail past the windows. I looked for that every morning in the summer. And after a long winter, when spring finally came, and the herons again took up residence in the pond, I would know that summer was surely coming.
During the winter, the ducks moved in. There was always open water near the edge of our yard, where a fresh water spring ran into the pond. And the merganzers, the mallards, and especially the buffleheads, would fly in to fish. They were such fun to watch. The buffleheads, especially, were entertaining. They would be drifting along and suddenly, they would dive into the water. Then, one by one, they would pop up. You could get the idea of how funny they looked if you pushed a small ball under the water in your tub, then let go. Pop! There they'd be, floating on the water again. And they seemed to do it in some kind of order. First one would dive, then, bing, bing, bing, the rest of them would be out of sight. They popped up the same way, first one, then pop, pop, pop!
The merganzers would stand on their heads in the water to fish, so their black and white tail feathers would be sticking out of the water. Between the merganzers and the buffleheads, it was a kind of fishing dance. Down and up they would bob. The mallards didn't have any unusual way to fish; they would just put their heads in the water and come up with whatever they wanted. But their beautiful feathers added color to the pageant in the pond.
There was one breathtaking moment during the spring and again in the fall when the snow-white egrets would land in the reeds on the other end of the pond for rest and re-fueling on their way north and south. One year there were over 30 of them feeding in the reeds. What a sight!
But then the next year, the parents and a couple of their babies returned and set up housekeeping. Swans are vegetarians, and they require a lot of pond weeds to keep them fed. One of our neighbors referred to them as "vacuum cleaners", and it certainly looked that way. They ate so much of the pond plants that the fish couldn't live there anymore, and that meant that the fish-eating ducks had to find somewhere else to feed.
But the saddest result of the swans, to me, was that the herons no longer came, and the egrets found another spot to visit on their trips. I missed those herons so much. There had been very few mornings that I didn't watch their majestic take-off as they left each day for a quieter place.
Swans are NOT friendly. In fact, they can be rather dangerous. When they are out of the water, they stand nearly 7 feet tall, and their wings, fully stretched out, are nearly 8 feet from wing-tip to wing-tip. The most dangerous time is when their babies are newly hatched. A male swan would come right up out of the water to chase you away. And that's a scary sight!
The swans, when they were nesting, or had new cygnets, did not like my clean wash hanging on the line. One day, when I was hanging out sheets, the male swan came out of the water to chase me. After that, I would see if there were any swans about before I went into the backyard to hang up my sheets!
The children knew to play in the front yard when the swans were in the water near the yard. That wasn't a problem to the kids, because they loved playing on the porch or in the dirt pile. I do remember one day, though, before the swans took over the pond, when Chardy and Bobby took off all their clothes and rolled around in the backyard grass, laughing and giggling. They were only about 2 years old, and they were having so much fun, I let them play naked for a little while.
In many ways, Maggie, I think that was my favorite house, but the farm in New Hampshire became my favorite PLACE. "Are you ever going to write about New Hampshire and the farm?" Maggie asked. I need to tell you how came to move there first. And that's for another chapter.
Surprisingly, I don't remember too many times that they were bad. I'm sure they were, sometimes, but I don't remember anything specific. I do remember about the bottom step.
This R. I. house had a staircase that went from the front hall to the upstairs. I wrote about it in the first chapter. Well, when Lyra was the only child around, I discovered that when she wouldn't do as she was told, if I said she had to sit on the bottom step, this is all I had to do and she would mind me. Once in a great while I might have to "count to three", but not very often. The bottom step was the most effective method of getting her to behave.
Then, when Dannie came along and was walking, I could tell him to sit on the bottom step if he was naughty, and it worked for him, too. The magic of the bottom step lasted all through the years we lived in that house. I've never been sure why it did, but it worked for all the kids that came and went in the house, including the three boys, Chardy, Bobby, and Gary.
I think it was just a good place to think about what one had done wrong, or to get over a "mad", or to calm down. Usually, when the kids would ask, "Can I get up now?” I said yes. Once in a while, they weren't really ready to play nicely, and I would have to send them back to the bottom step. The funny thing is, even if there were three of them sitting on the step, they didn't fool around or play (at least I didn't catch them at it!); they just sat there until I let them get up.
When we moved to New Hampshire, there were doors on either side of the stairs going upstairs, so the bottom step didn't work in that house. Everyone was older then, so it probably wouldn't have been effective, anyway.
I remember two funny stories about misbehaving boys. The first one involved Dannie. He was about four, and had done something that made me angry. I told him to go sit on the bottom step and he just sat on the floor glowering at me. I said, "I mean it, Dannie, go sit on the bottom step!" He glared at me some more. So I counted 1, 2, 3... Now, you understand, I had NEVER had to get to the three, with all those kids I took care of. So, when I said, "3!" and Dannie still didn't move, I wasn't sure what to do about it. I was stunned for a few seconds. Then I recovered, and Dannie got the flat of my hand on his bottom and THEN still had to sit on the step. That never happened again. He must have passed on the consequences of ignoring that 1, 2, 3, to the other kids, because no one else defied me.
The second isn't really about the bottom step, but about one of the times when Bobby was not happy sharing Chardy with Gary. They were outdoors, riding down the side hill, on a little bike that just had wheels, no pedals. They were pretty young, probably about 3 or so.
They had worked out a system, all on their own. First Chardy would ride down the hill, then drag the toy back up, then Bobby would ride down the hill and drag the toy back up. Gary was third in line. They had been doing this for a while, conscientiously giving each his turn, when I heard a ruckus outside. I looked out the sunporch window to see Chardy sitting on the bike, and Bobby trying to push him off.
Chardy was saying, "But, it's my turn", and Bobby was saying, "I want to ride NOW." This went for a couple minutes, Chardy never moving off that bike, and Bobby screeching. Bobby, totally frustrated by now, started to hit Chardy, and I thought I would have to go outside to referee. Then I heard Bobby crying, "How come I'm hitting YOU, and I'M CRYING?!" Chardy just shrugged his shoulders, and went rolling down the hill. Bobby was screaming and crying. Chardy finished his ride, dragged the bike up the hill, and gave it to Bobby. Bobby sniffed a few times, got on the bike and rolled down the hill.
The storm was over.
We knew we wanted a dog for the children, so when we saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a mutt, we went to look at him. He seemed to be afraid of men, but eventually came over to Grandpa to lick his hand. We decided to take him home.
Almost immediately, I felt we had made a big mistake. Skipper would growl at me when I went near the kids. He snapped at friend, and I was afraid he would bite someone. But Grandpa insisted we give him a chance to get to know us. So I relented and let Skipper stay.
I think that dog knew I hadn't wanted to keep him. He spent the rest of his life trying to think up ways to drive me crazy, and often succeeding. He was great with the kids, patient and careful. But he wouldn't obey me at all. At first, I would let him go outside, but he would run away, and not come back when I called. When I tried to get in or out of the house, he would push past me and run away as fast as he could.
I would call and call, and sometimes he would come right up to the door where I was standing. I would step aside for him to come in and he'd take off again, running as hard as he could. The most annoying habit he had was to totally ignore me, and then walk calmly back into the house if Gary’s mom called him. In fact, he would come for almost anyone except me.
One day, Bobby and Chardy had done something really naughty (I don't remember what it was, but it made me very angry), and I was chasing them up the stairs to the second floor. (“What would you have done if you had caught them?“ Wally asked. "Probably swatted their bottoms," I answered.)As I reached up the stairs to grab them, Skipper grabbed me by the backside. Was I ever mad! When I told Grandpa about this awful dog, after he stopped laughing, he said, "He's only trying to protect the boys." Well, I didn't see it that way.
When we took him hiking, he was in heaven. He loved all the smells in the woods. He loved sleeping in the shelters with the kids, snuggled up on their sleeping bags. He would run ahead of us on the trails until he was out of sight, then come flying back to run circles around us and take off again. We figure he went at least three times as far as we did on any hike.
Many years after we had moved from the Rhode Island house, we went on a camping trip to Colorado. That's another story, but for Skipper, being in a campsite with the smell of bears was complete joy. When we heard them snuffling around our tents, we were afraid Skipper would bark and upset them, but he kept quiet, and the bears went away.
We had that dog for eleven years. He was great on our hikes. He adjusted to all of our houses. He was a wonderful playmate for the children. He made friends with every lady dog within a hundred miles. But he would never come when I called him.
Remember the pond in our back yard? Well, it usually didn't freeze very hard because of the salt in the water and the tide changes. But this year, it had a thin layer of ice on it, and a few inches of snow.
The children ran outdoors and sat on the top of the hill to put on their skis. Now these skis weren't not very expensive ones, so they didn't have the contraption that locks onto real ski boots. And the kids didn't have real ski boots, anyway, so that was OK. But, the straps that were to keep the skis on their feet were hard to buckle, and before I knew it, zoom!, all three pairs of skis had slipped away from the kids and gone skiing by themselves, right onto the frozen pond!
The kids were stunned; Grandpa and I were, also. There were the three children, still sitting on the top of the hill. There were the three pairs of skis, sitting on the snow in the middle of the pond. Grandpa did try to rescue the skis, but the pond never froze solid enough to hold a person. So, the skis sat in the middle of the pond until spring, when the snow and ice melted, and then, water-logged, they sunk into the pond.
The children were crushed. Grandpa and I wondered how we were going to explain to Auntie and Uncle that the kids never got to try out those skis. I don't remember what we said, but I still remember those three sad faces.
Another time the ice on that pond created a different kind of problem. Grandpa was looking out of the window to see what the weather was like and saw the pair of swans, Mr. and Mrs., sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings. As he watched, Mrs. Swan woke up, stretched her long neck and wings, and climbed up on the snow. She took a few steps on the frozen pond, then flapped her wings and flew off over the breachway.
Mr. Swan woke up then, and stretched. He stepped up onto the snow-covered ice and took a couple steps. The thin layer of ice broke beneath him. He tried again, got three steps, and the ice broke. You see, swans need a long running start before they can take off. Well, Mr. Swan couldn't walk on that ice far enough to get his wings working.
Grandpa watched for a few minutes; Mr. Swan tried and tried again. Finally, he made it, flapping his huge wings, his long neck leading him up and over the telephone wires to follow his wife. Grandpa smiled, and left for work, with the picture of Mr. Swan, falling through the ice, in his mind.
Remember that big sun porch I talked about in Chapter 2? Well, that was the playroom on days it was too cold to go outside. We didn't get as much snow in R. I. as we did in New Hampshire, but there could be days at a time when storms came in from the ocean and there was freezing rain or sleet. And there were storms that left several inches of snow on the ground for a few days.
After one long stretch, when no one had been able to go outside for several days, and the older children were in school, the three boys seemed to be constantly getting into arguments. I decided that I needed a break, and called my friend next door to see if she would put the coffee pot on. She agreed, but I knew she didn't like me to visit with the three boys.
The temperature was around zero; so cold that the snow had a hard crust on it that I could walk on without falling through. It was as slick as an ice rink. But I needed that coffee. So I talked about how much fun it would be to slide on that icy hill between our houses, and Chardy and Gary got very excited at the idea of taking their sleds out. One of the three wasn't happy about it, do you know who? ("Was it Bobby?" asked Wally. "You got it!")
So I made sure all three boys used the bathroom BEFORE they got into their heavy shirts, their boot socks, their snow pants, their sweaters, their snuggly warm jackets, their wooly hats, their long scarves, and their hand-knit mittens. And when they were so bundled up that they could hardly walk, I threw on my coat, boots, and gloves, and we braved the zero weather.
The sun was shining brightly, so the icy hill became very slippery. I put the sleds at the bottom, near my neighbor's stairs, and ran up into the house to have some coffee and adult conversation. I looked outside, and there were Chardy and Gary, struggling up the hill (remember how hard it was for them to move at all in all their warm clothes), pulling their sleds. They would take two or three steps, lose their footing, fall down, slide on their tummies or their bottoms back to the steps, sleds following them.
Now there is something you need to know about Chardy and Gary. When they made up their minds to do something, NOTHING GOT IN THE WAY, and they wanted to slide down that hill. So, it was struggle a few steps up the hill, fall down, slide back almost all the way to the bottom, get up, grab the sleds, struggle up a few more steps, fall down...well, you get the idea. It took them at least 15 minutes to get a distance that was about half as far as it is from your house to the road.
But they did it! I was watching from the doorway, and triumphantly, after a few tries to keep their sleds still while they sat on them (which was pretty funny to watch), off they went, lickety-split, down the hill. Chardy was in front, and he steered to the left of our neighbor's swing set, zipping way out of sight. Gary? Oh, no! He was headed right for that swing set. I started out the door, knowing full well I couldn't get to him before he got the swing right in the middle of his forehead, and I was afraid I had just killed my best friend's little boy, and...HE LAY DOWN ON THE SLED, zipping right under the swing set, disappearing behind the house with Chardy.
("What was Bobby doing?" Wally asked. " What do you think?" Grandma looked at Wally. "Crying?" guesses Wally.) Bobby was sitting on the bottom step, screaming at the other two, "I don't want to slide; I want to go in the house." He kept crying and screaming. It was bad enough for him that he didn't want to try to walk on that slippery slope, but he was mad that the others had that magnificent ride. The two super-sliders sat on their sleds, too tired from all that climbing, falling, climbing, falling. So I said goodbye to my friend, and took the three boys home. All three of them were red-faced; Chardy and Gary from the exertion of making that one glorious trip down the icy hill, and Bobby from the tears on his face.
I never did get that cup of coffee. And all three boys took a long nap. And so did I!
We walked across the yard, me carrying the new baby, Chardy, and Grandpa carrying all the stuff from the hospital. Up the steps, across the porch and into the old house in R. I. that was our home. Grandpa went to get the other two, Lyra and Dannie, from our friends' house, where they had stayed while Chardy and I were in the hospital.
Chardy was born as the marching bands were warming up for the Memorial Day parade. I could hear the music while I was waiting for the doctor. We stayed in the hospital for four days, and I was anxious to get home with my new baby to the older children. Lyra was five, and Dannie was 2 1/2 when their new baby brother was born.
The older children were glad to be home, and excited to meet their new brother. But, they had gotten into poison ivy at our friends' house, and were itching terribly. ("Why did your friend let that happen?" Maggie asked. "Well, there were already 5 kids in that family, and Lyra and Dannie made two more. It's hard to know exactly what so many children are doing when they are outdoors!" Grandma told her.)
What a night it was! The new baby cried, of course, as most new babies do. Lyra and Dannie cried too, because their poison ivy was itching them so bad. And, we had a puppy that was howling because he had a puppy disease. Grandpa slept through the ruckus, but I was up all night, walking or feeding the baby, giving the older kids baking soda baths to relieve the itching, and trying to ignore the puppy's howling.
By morning, I was exhausted and furious at Grandpa who slept through it. To make matters worse, he had to go to his monthly weekend at the Naval Reserves, which meant he wouldn't be home for two days! By Sunday night, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Chardy was settling in, and the itching had slowed down, but the puppy was worse. Grandpa had to call the vet when he got home and take the puppy over right then, because I couldn't stand it anymore.
The puppy didn't make it, but the kids and I finally all got better and I got rested, and we started to enjoy each other again. Chardy was a good baby, and in a matter of days, he no longer had crying jags. He actually was pretty quiet and content most of the time. Lyra loved this new little one, and she would change her baby doll every time I changed the baby.
Dannie adjusted to having his brother in a crib in his bedroom. Even when Chardy would fuss a little before going to sleep, Dannie didn't mind. Dannie was a great sleeper, and very little kept him awake. Sort of like Grandpa! One time, Chardy caught a cold that the other two had had, and the vaporizer was going all night in the boys' bedroom. I would go in every 15 minutes or so all night long to be sure the baby was OK. Dannie never even noticed.
Lyra and Dannie had a lot of make believe games they played. I would sit Chardy on the couch, tucked in with a blanket, and he would watch them closely for hours. As he got older, around 6 months old, I would put him in a rocking chair that had long rockers, and a tray in the front and a strap to keep him safe. It was low to the ground, so he was at the same height as the older ones. He would watch and watch them playing.
When Chardy was 10 months old, I began to take care of two children whose parents were our friends. Bobby was 16 months old, and walking everywhere. Janie was about 3 1/2. Chardy watched them, too. He really was a happy baby. He would creep around after the older children if I put him on the floor, scooting after them as fast as he could go. When he caught up with them, he would sit back as if to say, "There, now I can play, too." Of course, by this time they would have moved somewhere else in the downstairs, and he would have to take off again. He had great persistence, however, and never tired of this game.
Bobby wasn't sure what he thought about this little creeping thing. Bobby wanted to be part of the big kids’ play. He also took advantage of the fact that Chardy couldn't keep up with them. He would take a toy away from Chard and run after the older kids. When Chardy was in his rocky chair, having his snack, if I didn't watch closely, Bobby would take Chard's snack and run off with it. Chardy never complained; he would just watch Bobby.
Well, one day, when he was just about a year old, Chardy learned to walk. There was no stopping him. He ran after those big kids and tried to join in their play. One day, not long after Chardy was walking steadily, Bobby took a toy away from him. Hah! With one swift push, Chardy had that toy back and Bobby was on the floor, screaming.
Bobby never was able to get the best of Chardy again. He tried, often, and it was a long time before he realized that all those months of watching had taught Chard a thing or two about defending himself. They stayed best of friends, as long as Bobby didn't try to take something away from Chardy. As they got older, they no longer wanted to play with the big kids. They had their own make believe games, and spent hours pushing trucks and cars around. ("Did you like having Bobby around, Grandma?" asked Maggie, a little worried. "I loved Bobby, and Janie, too, and they were fun to have as part of our family. But this story is about Chardy, remember" Grandma said.)
The summer the little boys were three, we had a huge pile of dirt delivered to the yard, not far from the porch. It was supposed to be spread into all the indentations in the lawn, but the kids discovered what a great play space it was, and it never did get moved. All five of them could play in that dirt pile without getting in each other's way. There were roads, and caves, and mountains made in that dirt. The older ones had their games, and the two little boys had theirs. The only thing that would get them out of that dirt pile was swimming and a hard rainstorm.
During the rain, the porch was the play space. There was always some construction going on there. Of course, the mud from the dirt pile would be tracked onto the porch, too, but I didn't worry too much about that. The kids had so much fun, and there was so little fighting, that it was worth a little dirt!
Something else happened that summer that changed our lives forever. A friend of mine came to visit for a week with her two children, Deedee, 5 years old, and Gary, 3 years old. Now, the little boys had a third playmate just their age. Bobby had turned three in November, Gary in January, and Chardy in May, so they were very close in age.
Bobby and Chardy had fun with Gary; there were very few problems during that week. The older kids had taken Deedee into their play without problems, also. As the end of their visit drew closer, Grandpa and I discovered that our friend had no place to live when her vacation was over. We offered her the third floor until she could find someplace. It quickly became clear that she wouldn't be able to find a place she could afford. Grandpa and I decided to turn the third floor into an apartment for her. She was thrilled, and I was very happy, too, as she was (and still is!) my best friend.
HOWEVER, things weren't so hunky dory for Bobby. With Gary living right in our house, he and Chardy became good buddies. And Bobby was very jealous. After all, Chardy had been HIS special friend for a long time. There were many problems. Bobby spent most of his time screeching at Chardy and Gary, and little time playing. Chard and Gary would look at Bobby as if to say, "What's the matter with you? Why can't we all play together?" But Bobby wanted Chardy to himself.
It became so difficult that Bobby's mother decided to stay home with her children for a while. After a few months, when Janie went to Kindergarten, their mom went back to work part time and Bobby came 3 days a week. He still didn't like Gary, and things weren't much better. But Chardy and Gary were very happy together. Having those two extra children in the house made for lively days (and nights, sometimes!). And when there were the seven of them, except that Bobby wouldn't play with Gary, it wasn't much more work. That dirt pile came in handy!
We would walk down to the ocean most summer mornings, with a picnic lunch. Each child made his own sandwich, usually peanut butter. I could always tell the little boys' sandwiches; they usually were round lumps. At the ocean, Chard and Gary, and Dannie, Lyra and Deedee, would play in the waves. Chard and Gary learned to "body surf" that summer they were three. Bobby and Janie were afraid of the ocean, and would run screaming when a wave came in. So they played happily at the edge of the water, digging and piling the wet sand.
It was always like that, whatever we did. Chard and Gary would dive right into whatever the activity was with Lyra, Dannie and Deedee. Janie and Bobby would stand aside, and watch, usually Bobby would be crying. It would take a while for them to find something else to do. It was especially hard for Bobby, who had always had Chardy to play with, and now he was more interested in new things with Gary.
Then, after everyone took a nap (including me, usually!), we would get our wet swimsuits on again and walk across the road to the cove. There, if it was low tide, the kids would cover themselves with the wet, black sand, then jump into the tiny stream that separated the sandbar from the shore. They played this game every time the tide was low. When it was high, and the sandbar was covered over with water, they would chase crabs, pretend to swim, splash each other, and generally have a riotous time.
They were wonderful days.
Grandma
I know you want to hear about New Hampshire, but I wanted to start the story earlier than that. So we go back to before your Dad was born, when Lyra was 2 years old.
We lived in an old three-story house in Rhode Island, about a half-mile from the ocean. The house was weathered shingles and clapboards, and had a big porch along the front of it. It sat high on a bank, and the land sloped sharply down to a saltwater pond behind the house.
This pond was a wildlife refuge, which means that no one was to harm the pond or the wildlife in any way. Before we moved there, someone from the state Fish and Game department had counted the species of fish and found that there were over two hundred living in that pond. Freshwater springs fed the pond, which was also governed by tides. This unique combination of fresh and saltwater created an ideal environment for fish, water plants, and therefore, many kinds of birds.
From the very beginning, this funky old house felt friendly and happy to me. I don't know what it is that makes some houses feel like the people who lived there before you were comfortable and content. Some houses just have personality and others don't. Well, this house was begging for a family to move in. And so we did, three months before your Uncle Dannie was born.
The first floor had a big, welcoming entry, with the stairs to the second floor rising out of it. To the right of this hallway was the living room, which you entered through French doors with little panes of glass in them. Behind the living room, through a wide archway, was the dining room. A six-foot window faced the pond from this room, bringing in the beauty of the seasons year round. It also, however, brought in the wind and the cold in the winter!
Next to the dining room was the kitchen, the only ugly room in the house. It was small, dark, and cramped, with an old porcelain sink on legs. Grandpa eventually built a cupboard around it so that it didn't look so bad. The one redeeming feature was that the sink was under a window that faced the pond. There was always something interesting and wonderful to watch when I did the dishes.
Well, this floor plan created a "roundy-round"; the children could run in circles from the hall to the living room, through the dining room and kitchen and back to the hall again. And they often did. Even the babies would laugh and giggle as they crept on all fours, as fast as they could go, round and round the house.
The second floor had our bedrooms. You went up the wide staircase from the entry hall, and to the left was a bathroom you could hold a dance in, it was so big. I loved that bathroom. The big window faced the same scene as did the dining room and kitchen windows. Each morning, I could see the sun come up from that window. It was a glorious view.
Next to the bathroom was the stairway going up to the third floor, with a door with little glass panes in it. Next to that, in the corner, was Aunt Lyra's bedroom. She had the best views from her room. One window faced the east and the pond; the other, which was a doorway, faced the ocean, a half-mile away. She had a little porch outside this door.
The next bedroom, facing Lyra's, was your Dad's and Uncle Dannie's. Their window look out over the ocean, and their little balcony faced west and was joined to the balcony outside Grandpa's and my room. Our bedroom also had a glass-in porch attached to it. There were always breezes coming in off the ocean during the warm nights. And no mosquitoes, so we could leave our porch doors open to the cool air. We slept with light blankets on all summer.
Of course, that meant that in the winter, even with the doors shut tight, the breezes, which had now grown to be big winds, would sneak in around the edges of every window and door, and we would have to sleep under a pile of blankets and quilts. No matter how hard the old furnace worked to heat up the radiators, the winter gales could chill you to the bone.
The first winter we lived there, before your Daddy was born and Uncle Dannie was just an infant, we had a true "Nor'easter". The wind blew and blew for four days. The old house swayed in the wind, creaking and cracking. It made me so nervous that I sat in the only corner that didn't seem to be swinging in the wind, on an old stool, with an afghan wrapped around me, shivering and wondering why in the world I had thought this was a friendly house!
I got used to these winds and learned quickly that the old house could withstand any storm the ocean cooked up. Before long, I just went about my business, bundled up in sweaters. The children never noticed the wind. They took it all in stride, playing in their bedrooms, or on the big sun porch that ran along the living room and dining room, no matter how bad the storms were.
The third floor was just bedrooms and a bathroom that didn't work. It was empty until Chardy was about three years old, when we had guests who came to visit for a week, and stayed for three years. But that's later in the story.
The first summer, when I was very pregnant with Dannie, we explored the neighborhood, Lyra and I, and discovered that kitty-corner across the road was an inlet in which it was safe to swim. When the tide was out, there was a wide sandbar of black sand. When the tide came in, there was about a foot and a half of water on it. This cove was off the breachway that led to the ocean. The breachway itself was very deep and had a swift current, but the sandbar, under water or not, was a safe place to play.
We began a routine that lasted through every summer until we moved, eight years later. We would walk down to the ocean in the morning, then, after a nap, we would go across to the cove and play on the sandbar. I could swim in the breachway while the kids played, and be only a few feet from them. It was the perfect swimming hole, and governed by tides, which made it much more interesting than the usual swimming hole in a pond.
Dannie was born after a very hot summer. September and he finally arrived, and one day we had a picnic with some houseguests. I was very tired, as moms often are when babies are newborn. That is my excuse, anyhow, for what happened. You see, I had put Dannie in the little screened bed on the front porch while I fixed the picnic. We lugged everything over to the cove, and set up for lunch. I sat down to rest, finally, and to have a bite of the picnic, and someone asked, "Where's the baby?" !! The baby? Oh no! I looked across the road at the house, and, sure enough, there was the little screened-in bed on the porch, WITH THE BABY STILL IN IT!
Well, he was fine, of course, but I felt like a terrible mother. How could I have forgotten my new baby? It took me a long time to get over that one.
Lyra enjoyed having a baby brother. She played with him a lot. I would put him on the floor on his receiving blanket, and she would sit next to him, talking away. One day, I was just in the kitchen, a couple feet away from them, when Dannie began to scream. I stepped back into the dining room to see Lyra begin to scream, also. I had no idea what could have happened, and Lyra couldn't stop crying long enough to tell me. I picked up the baby and noticed a red mark on his tummy. Finally, Lyra said, through her weepy hiccups, "I'm sorry! He smelled so good I bit him!"
That winter we didn't have too much snow. Lyra went out to play everyday, by herself, as there were no other children around. She had all these make believe games she played, talking to herself a mile a minute. One day I looked out to be sure she was OK, and I could see her feet sticking out from a big yew bush in the side yard. I watched for a minute, and suddenly she poked her head out, and two dogs, one on each side of her, poked their heads out, too. She said something to them; they all looked across the street, then pulled their heads back into the bush. I watched for quite a while, and this little scene was repeated over and over.
Lyra is the only little girl I know that had two loyal dogs for playmates. They came to wait on the porch for her everyday. When she saw them, she would hurry into her snow suit, boots, hat, and mittens (with a little help from me) and go outside to play. It was a funny sight to see this little girl with two dogs following her around.
That spring she got the measles and had to be bedridden on the couch for several days. The dogs came everyday and waited on the porch. Finally, when she was a little better, I let them in to see her. You have never seen such happy dogs, and such a happy little girl. As soon as she was better, she was back playing with her canine friends.
That's enough of the story for today.
Grandma
This is the beginning of a story I am writing for my youngest granddaughter. The first chapter is at the bottom, and I add each new chapter to the top of the page. So, if this is your first time here, scroll to the bottom!
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