Show 4 IR rh HOMER L ICI C ROY THE E STORY THUS PAR FAR amos croy settled on a farm arm at marksville marysville Marys ville misouri where re he married and a son no ho emer aier was born homers earliest decol certion lert lon was of a cyclone which blew down fad od barn and wrecked the orchard ct chiy bihy h ihy meant church company for or dinner nei and steer weight guessing De Dehorn horning lne ot of the calves and the curing ot of hams were two of the jobs that homer had to help with it became his job to wean the calves he originated the idea ot of placing a rubber tube in the milk pall pail and had them suck on that instead of 0 his finger by this means they were weaned con ider sider ably quicker than by finger he sent the idea to the local firm arm paper which printed it in full CHAPTER VII when the water was boiling the scalding barrel set at the proper angle in the bobsled and everything was ready pa would go to the house and come out with his rifle and brass powder flask with the measuring dey 11 1 expect better go in ta Q chouse house for a while homer was glad to for I 1 bear to see what was going to happen inside the house there was a tenseness a lowering of voices one of the women who had come to help my mother would look out the window and say in the hog lot now they would try to talk neighborhood news but it would be in subdued voices and be silences then my mother would begin to whet a knife on a crock suddenly sharp h a r P and clear on the winter air wo would U id come a shot then the sound of a man running and I 1 would know he had a knife in his hand and it would seem to me I 1 just live through the next few moments there would be another shot and another three hogs now then there would be a feeling of relief for we all knew this was the last the women would begin to talk again but a little too fast I 1 would open the door the smell of powder would still be on the air the men would come dragging one of the hogs by the forelegs fore legs to the sled and in a few moments the animal would be in the scalding water and the men would go huehl all together so as to get the right timing for the animal to slosh up and down in the barrel pa would take some of the hair between his thumb and finger and give it a pull one more time boys at last the animals would be dressed ir essed and hanging on the gamy els the worst part of butchering rv yi Z uld be over for it seem so bad now as it had when the hogs were alive and the men were advancing in the lot the faintness I 1 had felt would be gone and id be thinking about the good eating that was coming and sod everybody else lots of talk now about eating As the meat was being cut the women would strip the casings turn them inside out scrape them and put them to soak in salt water sausage making was best of all mostly lean meat trimmed from the hams and shoulders and some from the tenderloin when it was ready the grinder would be brought and everybody would gather around as if it was the opening of a circus my other was the one who fed the t theat eat into the grinder and I 1 was the 4 asne ne who had to turn the damned abing on a chair beside her would ae oe the salt and pepper in bowls but the sage was in the bag it was cured in my mother was proud of her ability to mix the seasonings just right she knew the amount of sage cage to put in if too much went in it gave the sausage an old taste when there was a dab in the bottom of the tub she would take up a handful and say to mattie knabb fry it there would be a great sniffing and tasting of the test cake then ma would say 1 I think it needs more pepper and would reach into the pepper bowl and I 1 would have to start grinding again I 1 would turn first with one hand then with the other wishing to god there such a thing in the world as sausage at last I 1 would be through not really through tor for there was the stuffer by this time I 1 would hate the sight of sausage and swear id never taste it again as long as I 1 lived the grinder would then be taken out and the stuffer brought in and the spout fixed so the casings would go over it the lid would be clamped down and the pressure screw set and I 1 would have to lay hold of that handle out the sausage would come making the casing twist and writhe just like I 1 was doing at last the day would be over and the neighbors each with a piece of fresh meat would be starting home the house which had been so full of excitement would seem lonely everywhere would be the peculiar unpleasant smell of fresh meat the casings would be stacked in the pantry so they freeze and I 1 would forget about them then some morning about two weeks later as I 1 would be coming back from helping with the chores there would be a perfectly captivating smell hanging on the air the smell of frying sausage there would be ma when I 1 opened the door bending over the stove she would take the lid off the skillet turn the cakes over with a fork then put the lid back on again the smell would get more and more enthralling th and id get hungrier and hungrier at last breakfast would be ready there in the center of the table would be the redolent brown cakes wed all take one me pretty fast and ma would look at pa and say how do you like it amos pa would eat a moment then say finel fine you got just about the right amount of seasoning then hed look at me in that sly way of his and say homer do you think be able to masticate a bit of itol it after this first inspection ma would pass the buckwheat cakes and I 1 would cut a slice of honey spread it over the cakes and let ii it run down the sides on top of this smoking mound I 1 would put my sausage then haul my knife across and mix sausage and buckwheat and honey all up together I 1 tell you it was good but that all at noon that day when I 1 opened up my dinner bucket at school there would be a package with grease spots showing through the brown paper a delicious cold sausage cake it be as brown and it have the lovely smell it had at breakfast but it was still good it always would be good nothing could keep it from being good I 1 wish I 1 had some now right this moment newt kennedy was our neighborhood correspondent tor for the weekly and tor for the items he sent in he received the paper tree free of charge newt was a trifle weak on grammar but he was strong on what people liked to read and always in everything he wrote was this undercurrent of humor which I 1 loved and which influenced me so much he signed himself the one horse farmer which of course made everybody laugh for no one could run a farm with one horse this was another way of saying the bottom of the heap of course newt but it was good tun fun to pretend he was newt merely send in who was sick and who was visiting and that tramps had broken in the schoolhouse again but sent in comments and humorous philosophy each week when we got the paper the first thing I 1 turned to was the one horse farmer he was the biggest and strongest man in our section and about the best natured A great brawny giant with a mop of hair like an unfinished ed haystack he wore an overcoat fastened around his middle with a belt he had felt boots and over 4 the one horse farmer shoes and a cap with flaps that pulled down over his ears he was the perfect working out of the fruits of fame he was asked to preside at the debates in the schoolhouse and when a sale was cried he was the one who was chosen as clerk this was because now and then he would close one eye and look up at the sky and say something funny an auctioneer considered himself lucky to get newt as clerk that would mean a big crowd and he care in the least if newt suddenly interrupted him and made a funny remark about a go devil it broke up the sale of course but that was all right the auctioneer would soon have them hem going again he did something of value to the township for he conceived the idea we ought to have plays and set about getting them up in the same joyous boyish way he went into anything that had fun in it these were put on in the wilcox school which was bigger than the knabb school there was no door in the end of the room which was to be the stage but that was all right a window was used the women made a curtain and the boys and girls began to study their lines when the time came that wonderful opening night newt all dressed up in his good clothes stepped out in front of the draw curtain and said the opening number would be a tableau en entitled titled the setting sun the curtain whizzed along the galvanized clothes line and there sitting on a box was one of the neighborhood boys it took us some moments to see through it but when we did we thought it was about the funniest thing wed ever heard of well those plays were a tremendous success judged by our standards and brought us immense satisfaction newt could be plenty serious he would sit up with the sick and in some strange way was amazingly tender with them this rough giant of a man when one of our neighbors died newt was the first person to put a shovel over his shoulder and start toward the cemetery the second time my name was ever in print newt kennedy p put ut it there I 1 tried to earn money for myself by having a line of traps in the slough and one day I 1 found a long strange perfectly white creature as big around as a buggy whip handle in a steel trap the neighbors came in to see it when the one horse farmer came out that week this item was in it homer croy has captured a white weasel I 1 was delighted I 1 was thrill thrilled edl it had never occurred to me that I 1 would be in the one horse farmer but there I 1 was tor for all the world to see I 1 thought over and over why he had used the word captured instead of trapped for I 1 was coming more and more to love words and to be a little awed by the thrilling things one could do with them As tor for the weasel it must have been an albino I 1 took it down to mr jenkins who bought for a fur house in st louis and sold it my father was a cattle farmer mr knabb was a hog farmer newt kennedy was a mule man for even in our neighborhood we specialized there were many other mule men but none like newt kennedy who got fun even out of mules most farmers when they wanted to break a mule gingerly hitched him up with an old mare who could be got into a trot only by determined effort and let the mule lunge and kick and prance beside the faithful old mare but not newt newt got his fun out of the very thing that others dreaded he liked to break mules more than that he looked forward to mule breaking time as children do to circus time fall was mule breaking time during the hiatus between harvest and corn picking the mule colts had been on grass all summer kicking up their heels and watching the horses and other mules plodding off to work run along beside as near as the fence would allow and whinny and taunt the dull plod ders at least it seemed that way but these gay mules know that newt kennedy would soon be on their trail newt would go bouncing along in a wagon or on a hay frame looking them over with a joyous eye it be long till he would have a nose twitch on them usually when a farmer wanted to break a mule he would take him to the back pasture so he could swing on a line and make him run in a circle but nothing so common as this would do for newt kennedy when it began to chill up in the autumn he would say to me homer are you going to be doln anything thursday morning I 1 never was it if newt wanted me it was understood I 1 was to say nothing to anyone tor for newts mule methods were frowned on they might like him fifty one weeks a year but mule breaking week they had no use at all for him I 1 would go out the back way so as to appear to be about my work a suspicious item and cut across the fields to newts I 1 could see the mules even before I 1 got there for they would be running around in the barn lot the wildest things oh four legs and the trickiest and the smartest too for a mule Is miles ahead of a horse in horse sense it really ought to be called mule sense 1 I thought maybe like to help h elp me break he would say and we would go to the horse lot where the mules were racing around and around with their heads as high as giraffes newt would stand there his arms on the fence looking them over as a fisherman might look over a trout he was going to have his way with the thing was to get a rope around the neck of one of them newt would approach with a rope held behind him and suddenly send it looping through the air like a cowboy if the rope landed it was hen hell newt and I 1 would have to sink our heels in the ground and hang on for dear life of course the mule go out of the lot so we would stand in the middle like a ringmaster at a circus and let the mule run round and round after a time wed get him into a chute that newt had for the purpose and leave him as newt said to think it over and then go back for another mule this one usually would be in harness and considered partly broken newt would not have dreamed of putting an old plug ugly plow horse in to break a mule with newt wanted to get fun out of his work after a time wed have the partly broken second mule in and snubbed then wed go back to the first mule and newt would pretend he loved that mule hed stroke his nose and talk to him in honeyed words but newt had something behind his back the twitch this thi was a stick as long as a persons arm with a loop of rope at the end newt would get the loop over the mules upper lip and twist it tight and pass the stick to me the mules head would go down and his heels up but usually I 1 could hold him in spite of all the ideas he had on the subject newt would creep up with a collar and slip it over his neck bit by bit he would get the harness on the mule and then the harness on the second mule then would come the tremendous job of getting the mules to a wagon tongue only newt could do that sometimes with soothing words sometimes with threats that if he had understood them would have made the mules blood turn to ice water in some superhuman way newt would get both those mules on a wagon and then I 1 would be sent to open the gate to the public road no back pasture for newt some of the neighbors even broke mules on plowed ground hitched to a drag but not newt kennedy he wanted to extract every possible morsel ot of tun fun from it fun that ma maile de the neighbors think he was crazy TO 0 BE CONTINUED fit |