Up Time

Before he came into our lives it was just my sister,Muff, and I.O of course, there was mother and daddy but that is a given where family is concerned--at least it used to be back when this memory happened.
I do not remember a whole lot of my childhood, being the first born, I do remember the day Muff first walked from mother to daddy--I can see the icebox, so called because blocks of ice kept food, very short term, from spoiling. I believe there must have been a cook stove too but I can not picture it. I can picture her steps and the delight of our parent from then on, she was a busy girl!!

I remember Tom. a wee tiny boy--mother said we could only kiss his little feet. I thought of his name as Jodi after the boy in The Yearling but daddy admired a relative of his, whose name was Thomas so he wore that name all his life--39 years---.

Our Daddy owned a grade 'A' dairy farm and both he and my mother would go to the barn early to tend the milking--Muff and I were in school--Tom would wake and walk to the barn where our big black dog would get in his way--Tom lifted that tail and bit the dog in a tender spot--an experience not easily forgotten by the dog or family members.He was always a busy boy and found fun with the various farm animals--he once tied the dog on one end of a rope and threw the rope over the fence and tied a cat on the other end--a bit of a runkus from the critter's sent someone to the rescue.

Every weekend we would visit mother's parents who still used an outhouse--once after we had left to go home,my grandfather heard the plaintive mewing of a kitten--the sound came from the outhouse--Tom thought it was cold and threw it down the hole in the outhouse.


(check on the details concerning daddy's hospitalization with polio)