I.

"SOMEWHERE WAY BACK when," in the town of Groton, Conn., lived a mother with her nine girls. Ella, Mary, Maud, Lottie, Lillie, Bertha, Elsie, Angie, Louise. A happy group. On a small fruit farm. Each had her chores and plenty to do to keep busy.

As they got old enough they started school. It was necessary for them to walk a mile and half each way every day. When it rained or snowed someone carried them in a wagon.

As the fruit ripened they all had to go to the field and help pick. Rhubarb, strawberries, both red and black raspberries, currants a little later in the fall, blackberries. What a delightful summer! Also apples, pears, grapes. There was a little white grape that was so sweet. The vine grew over a big rock in the field and as they ripened at the beginning of school we always had a cluster to put in our lunch pail. No hot lunches then at school. When wash day came along it was hard. Pull up the water from the well and fill the boiler to heat it on the cook stove. As fast as the girls grew old enough they had to help. It was the scrub board when we were tall enough to reach the scrub board and the water.

There was a pair of horses, and the fields had to be cultivated to keep down the weeds. So one of the girls had to ride horseback to drive through the rows of corn and guide the horse. It was tiring after several hours, and the call to dinner was such a welcome. There was always a big hearty meal for the girl, and the horse got a treat of grain and was watered before going out again. Sometimes it was butter to make with a churn that had to be turned with a crank. Some liked butter milk, but usually it was saved only for cooking pancakes.

Besides the horses there were some cows to be driven to pasture every day in summer and brought to the barn at night. It took a lot of food for this family. So a lot was raised in the fields. How good it smelled when all the different vegetables were brought in the cellar! Potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips, beets. There were muskmelons, watermelons and others as the summer went along. Peaches, pears, apples for summer and winter. Also quinces for jams and jellies.

One day in summer the pigs had to be driven to the orchard for the summer. A pail of feed coaxed them along. It was the job then of carrying the pails of food to the orchard where the pigs would be put all summer. There was a trough for the skim milk. They would root up the orchard. Then came the first day of school. The mother tried to have two dresses new for those in school. How proud each one would be starting off with pretty new calico dresses and new dinner pails! They had to bring in wood at night for two stoves. A big wood box to fill, and dishes to do.

In winter there was skating and sliding after supper. The girls got so cold but still would want to go each time. The father had built a big long sled for the long hill near by. He loved to go out with the young folks to steer the sled. The mother never went. There were always some small children to care for. The sixteen years she was there then she hadn't even been down the road to the neighbors.

Young folks draw young folks, so after starting school they would come. After awhile the older ones had men come and then the marriage. Ella, the oldest, married a machinist from close by and moved away. Soon it was Mary, and she married a farmer and moved on to a milk farm and learned to milk so to help night and morning. Maud, the next, wanted something different, so had a home wedding. Her life was different. She moved to New York where her husband worked in a big fish market. All the girls were very capable. The mother taught them the ways of house keeping, cooking too. Ella had two girls and a son. But the daughter and son didn't live long. Mary had a big family, and she was kept pretty close to home with the milking. Maud had it easier, living in New York. Lottie went out to visit relatives in New York State and married a farmer out there. He later got in the drilling-wells business and moved out west. So the family of girls got separated. Lillie was home longer. One year the father hired a man that lived near by and the man got to drinking cider and he made lots of promises. So she married him. It was very hard for her, but they lived near their folks so got by.

II.

WHEN IT BEGAN to get dark we heard a swish of wings and then whip-a-will, whip-a-will, whip-a-will. This went on until late evening. Then again in early morning. In May there was a glad sound of the peep frogs or the singing frogs down in the meadow where it was real wet. If you had a chance to see them they would be all blown up until the song was done. Then out came the lightening bugs. The air would be full of them, lighting their light and then out again. The girls were interested in catching them and putting them in a jar and bringing them in the house. There was no electricity then to pull on the switch to light a room.

When it got quite dark, sometimes there would come a bang on the door and someone would rush to open it and there sitting on the steps would be a lovely May basket, usually homemade with a pasteboard box however big you thought you could fill with fruit: apples, peaches and pears. The pretty crepe paper was gathered around it and pasted on. We would squeal with delight and take it in the house. Then came the chase. The young folks would whistle in some trees and then another in another place. So we would put out after them. Another one would whistle from another spot to get you to put chase in another direction. Finally, after quite awhile, the chase would be over and all would be caught. We invited them in the house and treated them to the delicious fruit and candy. We would play a few games, usually out doors, like Drop the Handkerchief, Blindman's Bluff and other games. This went on all through May. One year we got a May basket nearly every week. It was pleasant during full moon days. In those days the young folks didn't earn much so never had much to spend. We were satisfied with lots less than today.

When the young men got to working by the day and could afford it, they come around with an automobile and took us to ride. What a pleasure it was!

The girls loved to play house. They would partition off some rooms under a tree and put boxes for furniture. Then we thought another tree would be better, so we would take our broken dishes and go to another tree. Childhood days. What a pleasure we had! We had to help in the home and keep busy on the farm.

III.

ONE DAY WHEN Ma was getting dinner she called, "Angie, go get me some chips or fine stuff to hurry this kettle to boiling." As I went to the door I said, "oh look!" There outside was a mother hen and her little brood of eight chicks. She would call them as she scratched for them and found something for them to eat. They would want to huddle under her wings and get warm. The mother kept good watch of them and it wasn't long before they were all feathered out. At sun down she began to try to get away from them. She flew up into a tree and her brood sat on the ground crying for her. Peep, peep. It bothered us girls to see them missing their mother, so we chased her out of the tree to stay with her family. Not too long, they were able to fly too and would follow her up the tree. They stayed together pretty close all during the day and at night. There were chicken hawks that liked chickens too, so when the mother hen saw one she would squawk and call her chicks. As they grew older and got bigger she could hardly cover them. We would throw them out some chick grain. My father raised chickens, so had plenty in the shed in a barrel.

As the evenings grew cooler we heard the katydids. They called katydid, katydidn't, she did, she didn't. We always said six weeks until frost when we heard the first katydids.

The idea of frost didn't seem too good, killing everything growing in the garden. Mother would go outside and pick herself some geranium slips and whatever things she wanted for the winter in the house. She loved flowers and had some sunny windows on the east and south. The windowsills were wide enough to hold the cans we had the slips in. We kept them out of the bright sun for a couple of weeks until we saw new growth coming out.

My father delighted to bring in a big watermelon or muskmelon and cut it for us. It was delicious, so sweet. He kept trying one melon after another and saying, "try this one." It was hard to say which was the best. They were all good. These were some that weren`t saleable but delicious to eat at home. We were called upon to help in haying time, go into the field and rake hay and fork it into bundles to pitch onto the load to carry it to the barn. We rode on top of the load too. The driver was about covered with hay. It was such a hot job, especially for the ones in the barns. Everyone was glad when this job was done for the year. Sometimes a thundershower would come up and we all hurried to get the load in even if we had to leave it in the barn until better weather to unload it into the hay mow. Pa was glad of a season with plenty of rain. It meant a good year of hay. "Rain in May, a barn full of hay. Rain in June, worth a silver spoon. Rain in July, not worth a fly." So early rain in the season pleased the farmer.

Pa loved to go fishing on Sunday. So after the law was off he would spend a lot of his Sundays at the trout brook. This gave him a change from the regular routine of work hoeing and planting. He usually came bringing home a few trout which he always cleaned and had Ma fry for him in butter. He worked up a big trade in fruit and vegetables. The people came to the house. They ordered a lot of chickens, broilers for frying. So we had a chance to help him in this way, picking chickens and sometimes cutting them in half ready for broiling. It was a very busy time but he loved it. Every one loved Pa. He was gentle and considerate. He told us girls that when he was courting Ma he went up to her house in Lambtown. She loved flowers too, so he picked a sprig of heliotrope (very sweet) from her garden and put it on her dress.

My mother died young and the girls filled in and kept the house for Pa. We didn't know too much about cooking, so it was the same things until Maud came back home and they built a new house down on the corner just below the home. While they were building she helped Pa at home. Bertha was there then and kept the rest of us in school. Louise died with Influenza. She wasn't very strong. People died everywhere when that plague was around. So the family got divided. Some tried to visit every Sunday and had supper with Pa. Ella and her family. Lillie came with her children too, when she had a way. Her husband was pleasant and jolly but the habit ruined his life for his family. Bertha and I married brothers that were carpenters and lived quite near home. Her husband built several new homes and she lived in each for a number of years. She had two lovely daughters and they never married. Both our husbands died the same year. We both had homes, and still do, not far apart. Bertha's girls are living with her and keep their home. My children all are married and have homes of their own. I am alone except when one of the children comes to visit me. The old homestead is sold and don't get to go there. The road has changed and many new houses are built up and it is a state road now.

I spent the winter in California at my daughter's home. It is near time now to be returning home again. I wonder how I will find things. But have a son lives up the road and is pastor of the church where I go. Life has so many changes. We don't like some of them. All of the nine girls have died but two. That is Bertha and I, Angie.

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