ELROY
EDWARD SMITH JR.
Coram
Manuscript provided by
Sylia (Smith) Khaton
Daughter of Elroy Smith
Elroy Smith, photo from the collection of Sylvia Khaton.
Elroy E. Smith
was born in Coram, Long Island on July 21, 1911, the
second of seven children including Josephine, Helen,
Marjorie, George, Mary and Savilla. The little country settlement of
Coram in the Township of Brookhaven, County of Suffolk, State of New
York, is located at the junction of The Middle Country Road and the
Cross Island Road connecting Port Jefferson on the north shore and
Patchogue on the south shore; both roads having been somewhat changed by
modern construction and route numbering. The settlement was made up at
that time of rather sparsely located, small, self sustaining farms
except at the junction of the two main roads where there was a town pump
for the benefit of thirsty horses, an inn, a saloon, a blacksmith shop,
a general store and post office, a Methodist Church, and a one-room
school. Prominent residents consisted of descendents of early settlers,
mostly farmers, general tradesmen, small time businessmen, or
politicians.
The Elroy E.
Smith Sr. farm of about 12 acres was situated on the W.
end of Coram on the corner of The Middle Country Road and
Paul's Path. Nearest neighbors were grandpa and grandma
Elsebough close by to grandpa and grandma Smith, the
Caroli brothers, the Koscharas, the Lyons, the Fullwoods,
and great-uncle Tom Smith. Going to the center of the
"metropolis" you would pass uncle Kon Kaller's
home, the Brush residence, the Pfundstein home and
saloon, the Dake blacksmith shop, the Rovagna general
store, on around the triangle to the home of Grant Smith.
On the Patchogue branch was nothing but woods and a
sanatorium. Across from the Grant Smith home was an
abandoned house between the church and schoolhouse. On
the Yaphank branch were the Hawkins and Farands. On the
Mt. Sinai branch were the Vogels, the Stills, the Harold
Davis and a Polish family. Continuing along the E. end of
Coram on The Middle Country Road were homes of D. R.
Davis, Everett Davis, Winfield Davis, the Hahns, and the
Nilssons.
Long Island is
a long, fish-shaped, glacially deposited sand bar with an
out-washed southern plain having prominent bays and ocean
front, a gently undulating interior, and some precipitous
beachfront on the north or Long Island Sound side, strewn
with much water-worn gravel and boulders. So the farms
are sandy to yellow, sandy-loam; excellent for truck
gardening, potatoes, and cauliflower. Dad was a
small-time farmer turned dairyman. Our farm adjoined
Moony Pond and there was much swampy woods, abandoned
grassy fields, and timber surrounding us. This figured
very prominently in my first explorations. Although I had
no formal education in Nature, I could recognize flora
and fauna common to that locality by appearance. I have
since learned to know them by name. Among the trees were
the American chestnut, the white oak, the black oak, the
eastern juniper, the wild cherry, the chestnut oak, the
willow, the white birch, the black locust, the black
walnut, the sassafras, the scrub pine, the scrub oak, and
some less common to my experience. Common flowers
included the wild rose, violets, black-eyed susans,
daisies, dandelions, trailing arbutus, moccasin flowers,
bluets, goldenrod, and honeysuckle. Intermediate between
trees and flowers were brakes, bull briars,
huckleberries, dewberries, black raspberries, wild
grapes, beach plums, poison ivy, burdock, Queen Anne's
lace, sand burs, pear cactus, pokeweed, milkweed, cat
tails, soapweed, laurel, etc.
Moony Pond was
my special paradise of catfish, goldfish, painted
turtles, spotted turtles, dragonflies, green herons,
bittern, cranes, muskrats, ribbon snakes, sandpipers,
bullfrogs, leopard frogs, spring peepers, toads, box
turtles, kingfishers, and red-winged blackbirds. Other
familiar fauna were crows, robins, barn swallows, English
sparrows, whip-poor-wills, bluebirds, blue jays, cow
birds, starlings, field sparrows, song sparrows, red
headed woodpeckers, grey squirrels, woodchucks, red
foxes, skunks, golden chipmunks, possum, cottontail
rabbits, blue racers, hog nosed snakes, red bellied
snakes, water striders, water beetles, sow bugs,
earthworms, red ants, black ants, wasps, hornets, yellow
jackets, bumblebees, all sorts of curious beetles, and
many kinds of butterflies and moths. Such was my early
environment - a never ending seasonal array of Nature's
variety, and a community of people of all sorts of
nationalities and stations of social prominence.
Pre-School
What does a
small boy do on a farm with an older sister and no
playmates except on rare occasions? Memory does not
always serve and sometimes persists in recollection of
the painful or embarrassing. Mother has always said that
I was a good baby. That probably means that I followed a
good schedule and did not giver her much trouble. But
this did not last.
Whenever I
reached the "traveling" age I exercised an
insatiable curiosity and a propensity for taking things
apart. This served to get me into lots of trouble, as for
example, all machines and tools fell under my inquiring
gaze and ended up taken apart but not restored to their
original usefulness or to their rightful place. I took
apart a hand powered sheep shearing machine and lost the
parts among the hay in the mow. Most planes had their
irons removed; spare door locks became a mess of
unorganized parts; bits and braces served to drill holes
in the most unsuitable locations (like the time I bored
holes in the wooden milk cooler); a saw was for cutting
most anything; and a hammer and nails were good for
plenty of exercise.
On one occasion
I drove about a quarter pound of small nails in what I
thought was a pretty neat line across the windowsill.
This was not quite as bad as the same treatment I gave
the log that Pop used for a chopping block. Man! I'll bet
that axe took an awful beating. Busy, that was I, always
occupied and out from under my mother's feet. She would
get suspicious when things were too quiet.
Once, she
dropped in on me in the hen house where I had taken the
cracked oyster shells and some eggs and was mixing up a
rather unorthodox omelet. On another occasion I
discovered that her hair brush was soiled; it was
discolored for about an eighth of an inch on the ends of
the bristles, and what better way of correcting this than
to cut off the offensive ends. The job had gotten under
way just long enough to indicate that the cutting was
quite amateurish with respect to the original contour
when one of my sisters informed on me. There was a short,
Savilla Smith size tornado during which my posterior
received rather uncompromising strokes from that same
brush.
Young Elroy Smith with his friend Harriet
Photo
from the collection of Sylvia Khaton.
Sometimes for
me there seemed to be too many sisters ready and willing
to see that justice was served upon me. For example, the
time I did something wrong and did not wish to face the
music. So I planned to skip supper and sneak into the
bedroom off the porch roof after dark. There was much
calling and searching before and after the meal with no
response. Acting on well-founded suspicions of my
climbing ability, the girls thought of the porch roof.
"there he is Pop, we see him up there." But Pop
chuckled and pretended that he did not see anything. My
little brother let me in the bedroom window, and mother,
feeling that the weight of impending calamity hung rather
heavy on my conscience, gave me some food and sent me to
bed.
Family
frustration with my filing system for tools, gadgets,
nails, etc. usually ended up in a storm of protest from
Pop before the offended ears of my mother, well garnished
with some choice terminology not destined to find favor
with the Lord and culminated by a dire threat "to
buy a loc and by the great ----! # ? x % fix it so that
so and so little (censored) won't be able to get his
hands on anything." He never did though.
Just prior to
school enrollment, about the five year old stage,
Josephine and I began to broaden our sphere of influence.
For some reason or other she always wanted to run away
from home. So she was tied up to a tree convenient to
mother's watchful eye about like one of pop's cows set
out to graze on lush grass. Meanwhile, I became skilled
in climbing trees and made trips to the homes of both
grandparents, usually for sugar cookies. The only thing I
can recall about great grandpa John Elsebough is that he
was fond of me and especially of eliciting appropriate
answers to questions which he put to me from the comfort
of his porch rocker. If my replies were satisfactory he
would say approvingly, "that's the ticket for the
soup."
He soon died
and great grandma moved in with Pop's folks, the home
going to a family by the name of Yarrington. These
newcomers I recall for two episodes in my life. In the
first instance, we made a trip to Port Jefferson ship
yards to watch the launching of the first troop carrier
built there for use in WWI and on which Mr. Yarrington
had proudly worked. The crowd seemed huge to me. It was
noisy and confusing. I failed to see the christening from
the precarious perch on Mr. Yarrington's shoulders in
spite of his gesticulations. The boat slid down the ways.
I slid down to terra firma amid the disappointment of
those concerned with what I ought to have seen. We all
went home, to my inward satisfaction at being restored to
the security of familiar grounds. And the war went on
while I remained oblivious to the significance of it.
Later on Mr.
Yarrington's daughter got married and I was introduced to
the institution of the "Chivaree" from adult
conversation, about the "goings on" on the
wedding night and the sight of a queer looking fiddle in
their front yard. It was played by drawing a long, heavy
plank across the flexible, well-resined sides of a
packing box. Such music!…fit only for sound effects
in a jungle thriller. The fish silhouette on top of the
flagpole was also well-perforated, as I learned, from
some indiscriminate shooting not exactly designed to hit
that target.
Grandfather Smith was almost a second
father to me in those days. He would start his round of
chores with me and his tomcat "Booz" in tow.
First the granary where the cat pounced with such agility
and perfection as to snag two and three mice at one time
in paws and mouth when the feed barrel was tip tilted to
reveal their nesting or hiding places. Then the chickens
were fed; the eggs gathered; the stock fed; and perhaps
the cow milked. And of course, there were many strange
machines which we did not have at home. On a day when Pop
and I were there together, I was not long getting into
the barn to play with a hand-operated thresher. It was
such fun to get the huge fan going and to see the belts
move while other parts shuttled back and forth to send
grain one way and chaff another. In my enthusiasm this
day I got my little finger in between two gears that
pinched away a sizeable piece of flesh. Like my own boy
Philip, I ran screaming more at the sight of blood and
damage than with pain. In his usual gruff ("well,
what now") voice, Pop wanted to know what I had
done. In fear of reprisal I fibbed about smashing two
rocks together but he looked skeptical and told grandma
that I was out there messing around in the barn with the
machinery.
Pop was not so patient about explaining
things as grand pa (for example, grandpa and I were
walking 'cross lots" to the store one evening when
he took time to point out significant stars) but when I
stood around watching, Pop might take the occasion to
explain something. He gave me a good lesson in hitching
the horse so that I still remember the bridle and bit,
the collar, the hames, breast band, bellyband, traces,
reins, hip strap, breeching, and crupper. And all these
things were put on, taken off, and hung up in a certain
order. Mostly, I learned from Pop by close observation
and reasoning why a thing would be just so. He did not
always do the right thing; as when he beat an animal over
the ribs, garnishing the whole affair with the choicest
expletives. Being son and heir I copied faithfully until
I could see that cows do not give milk nor horses respond
to command except under favorable conditions. And all
that proceedeth out of the mouth of man should edify him;
tensions are better relieved in other ways.
The events on the farm were many and
varied. It was a life of almost complete
self-subsistence. Now I watched the hog killing, which at
first frightened me into the confines of a closet. Pop,
all six foot plus of him and 225 pounds of solid muscle,
did most things by brute force; being as some put it,
capable of picking up two ordinary men and banging their
heads together. He would chase a hog into a corner of the
pen, upend it by a leg, straddle it, and slit its throat.
We were fascinated by the butchering operations from the
building of the roaring fire around the huge iron kettle
for boiling water, to the actual scalding of a hog gaffed
in the hind legs and sloshed up and down in a barrel of
hot water, tilted at the end of a plank way, to the
scraping off of the hair, gutting, and hanging to cure.
We children were given the bladder to inflate with a
piece of macaroni and use for a football.
Grandpa smoked hams and bacon according
to the best custom. The fat side pork was salted down to
be used all winter in various forms. Some fat went into
the production of laundry soap. The heart, liver, and
spare ribs were used right soon, while the remainder
ended up in what I still think was the finest sausage
available according to an old family recipe.
Milking time was an occasion for us to
stand around pestering the hired hands. Some were
cooperative and talented in such arts as imitating train
whistles or whistling through their teeth.
"Helping" with feeding chores was fun for five
or six-year-olds. Some of the time Josephine and I had
cousin Earl Kaller over for playtime. Once we were
amusing ourselves by running up and down the cellar door.
Earl ran up forward and then backed down like a
locomotive going downhill, all the while yelling,
"watch me", until he upended into a washtub
full of sour milk destined for the hogs.
Also about this time Pop embarked upon an
expansion program intended to make him a dairyman
supreme. The west end of the old barn was removed to
attach a new structure for the herd of cows. This exposed
several nests of hen eggs that had long since been given
up by the hopeful tenants. A quick appraisal led to the
conclusion that the reliability of these eggs for cooking
purposes was questionable. So, we three had a glorious
time testing our marksmanship against what was left of
the barn wall. By the time the eggs were gone, we were
thoroughly splattered with the delicate aroma of hydrogen
sulphide. When Earl got home his horrified mother burned
all his clothes and hustled him into the bathtub.
Josephine and I were placed in a deep excavation with
unscalable log walls built to store a supply of ice
harvested in the winter from Moony Pond. She was removed
first for cleaning because she had to help with the
preparation of supper. But I languished there among some
playthings for an extended time because I loudly and
abusively bewailed my fate as passers-by derided my
condition in tormenting terms. Not many more escapades
were to involve cousin Earl, because Uncle Kon soon moved
to Patchogue.
Some little kids were dropped on their
heads when they were young, so that one could account for
their queer behavior in later life. I was different; I
was 'bited by a bee"; not just once, but several
times. My initiation occurred when I watched a big,
beautiful bumblebee entering a large blossom. All I could
think of was to have that bee in hand where I could see
the detail much better. When I closed a small fist around
him "de tail" seemed to possess a rare wallop.
About the time the fourth Smith baby came along, I was
exploring the outer reaches of a big apple tree limb,
holding on to young shoots that grew upward. There was
much buzzing overhead and presently I was target for a
whole squadron of hornets. Amid much fearsome yelling and
thrashing of limbs that only provoked the demons all the
more, Mother's nurse came a-running and summoned Pop. He
stood tall enough beneath the limb to reach up and catch
one of the most enthusiastic high divers you ever saw!
Lucky I was not stung to death with mad hornets seeking
revenge for having their nest shaken up. This may account
for the great zeal I had for locating hornet's nests and
pelting them to pieces with sticks, stones, apples, or
other missiles.
Pop often took me along on wagon trips to
distant neighbors with whom he had business. One home
quite often frequented was that of Daniel Davis, whose
son Lester was a dairyman like my Pop. While they dealt
in milk and cow trading I was entertained by a
gramophone, listening fascinated to those early
recordings of song and comedy. It was as marvelous a
machine then as television is today. Another delight on
such visits was special food. Mrs. Davis, for example,
made the best doughnuts a small boy ever tasted.
Some wagon trips were made to Port
Jefferson or Patchogue, usually for the purpose of
selling produce to stores or house to house: corn,
tomatoes, beans, strawberries, watermelons, etc. The most
fun was to peddle watermelons in the Italian section.
Hordes of children followed up the street, entreating
mothers and fathers to buy "mellones". The
longest trip taken during the year was to the county seat
at Riverhead to visit the annual fair. This was a must
visit for all farmers to make any season a great success.
Pop exhibited produce and earned many blue ribbons. Once
the family went by train from Medford station when I was
too young to really enjoy it or recall very much. We did
arise before dawn to meet the train; a four mile drive.
We passed some of the famous Long Island duck farms along
the way. One could hardly forget the acres of white ducks
in streams and feeding areas. We arrived back home in the
dark of evening in time to go to bed again. So, for me,
here was a rude awakening from slumber at an unearthly
hour of the morning and a belated return to bed;
punctuated by an interlude of driving, first ride on a
locomotive that blew a cinder in my Mom's eye, strange
scenery passing by the train windows, all sorts of
carnival sights and smells at the fair, horse races,
vaudeville acts, ice cream cones, endless walking…it
was all too much for me!
The second trip to the fair was made by
horse and surrey all the way and back. On the way, Uncle
Kon Kaller and Aunt Myra passed us in their early model
Ford with the shiny brass radiator and the top folded
back. How nice, they thought, for Eddie to ride with then
IN A CAR! No sir! No amount of persuasion would suffice
to separate me from the surrey and ride in that
contraption. Now wasn't I a chump? Most kids today would
just as soon DRIVE a car without benefit of passing
through the bicycle stage.
Grade School
By the time of first grade there were about four of the
seven Smith children and more acoming. Playmates
increased in number, activities increased in variety, and
horizons were further removed. We began to have family
activities that were basic to character formation.
Foremost of these was regular attendance at Sunday
school. Saturday night baths were taken in a washtub,
sitting down for the wee ones and standing for the
larger. In winter it was behind the Round Oak wood stove
with a bed sheet offering about as much privacy from
teasing companions as a beach cabana in a windstorm. It
was a familiar sight to see the Koschara children from
Moony Pond Road wending their way to church in beautiful
white, starched Sunday best. We were slower and usually
followed them. Grandpa Smith was superintendent of Sunday
school, a very devout man and a pretty nice figure with
his white goatee (a device, I am told, he grew to cover a
scar left from a burn contracted in fighting a forest
fire). Prominent workers in the church were the daughters
of Grant Smith: Angeline and Emma who taught, or played
the foot pedaled reed organ with the old hymn book mice
nests in its innards; mother Still who also taught and
supervised plays or programs; and the older Koscharas and
others who did similar yeoman service in the name of the
Lord. We were called to Sunday morning church school
services by the old familiar bell that was rung by
pulling on a rope and that nearly shook the church to its
foundations. Evening services were mostly for adults,
coming from quite some distances in their rigs, which
would be parked in a long shed in inclement weather or in
winter. Sometimes sleds or carriages contained foot
warmers filled with hot coals to supplement warm
blankets. Pop and Mom did not get to church very often
partly because of the endless chores connected with the
farm and dairy, getting the kids ready, preparing a big
chicken and dumpling Sunday dinner, etc. Also, Pop
maintained that there were a bunch of "damned
hypocrites" with whom he would not associate. He
always showed up at Christmas services when mother Still
put us through our program of plays, pageants, or
recitations. Pop asserted that we might be apt to
"make fools of ourselves, knowing us as he
did", and I can recall times when we obliged him. He
was most proud of me when I recited "Jest 'Fore
Christmas", a poem which he had recited as a boy.
Being a Junior, I was called Edward to avoid confusion.
Some of the girls called me Eddie and Pop called me Ed.
So, the poem seemed appropriate in many ways:
Jest 'Fore Christmas
Mother calls me William, Father calls me Will,
Sister calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill.
Mighty glad I ain't a girl; druther be a boy
Without those curls and pantaloons 'ats worn by
Fauntleroy.
Love to chunck green apples and go swimmin' in the lake
Hate to take the castor oil they give for bellyache.
Most all the time the whole year round there ain't no
flies on me.
'Ceptin jest fore Christmas when I'm as good as I can be.
Got a yaller dog named Spot; sic him on the cat,
First thing she knows, she don't know where she's at.
Got a clipper sled and when us kids goes out to slide,
Along comes the grocer cart and we all hitch a ride.
But sometimes the grocer man is worrited and cross,
He reaches at us with his whip and larrups up his hoss.
I jest stand there and yell, "aw ye never teched
me!"
Ceptin jest fore Christmas, I'm as good as I can be.
Grandma, she says, when I grow up to be a
man
I'm gonna be a missionarer like her eldest brother Dan
As was 'et up by cannibals on some lonely Ceylon isle
Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.
But grandma ain't never been to no wild west show
Or read the life of Daniel Boone, or I guess she'd know
That Buffalo Bill and cowboys is good enough for me!
Ceptin jest fore Christmas, I'm as good as I can be.
The old cat sneaks down off that perch of
hers
And wonders what's become of those two pals of hers
Ol' Spot he hangs around so solemn like and still;
His eyes, they keep a-sayin' "what's the matter,
little Bill?"
But I am so perlite, and tend so earnestly to biz,
That mother says to father, "how improved our
William is."
Father, being a boy hisself once, suspicions me
When jest fore Christmas I'm as good as I can be.
So its wash your face, and comb your hair
And don't wear out your shoes
And don't bust out your pantaloons
And mind your P's and Q's
(one couplet here I do not recall - Ed)
Say "yes'm" to the ladies and
"yessir" to the men.
And when there's company, don't pass yer plate fer pie
again.
But thinking of all the things you'd like around that
TREE
Jest fore Christmas, be as good as you can be.
(Author unknown)
Holidays and Summer
Christmas was becoming an occasion of great joy in our
family. All capable hikers went forth into the woods
north of our home to find a shapely cedar. It fell to my
lot to cut it and to make a suitable stand for it.
Trimmed branches served for decorations and material for
handmade wreaths. We also found a plant called ground
pine that was excellent for wreaths. Popped corn was used
in the same manner as long strands of tinsel by putting
it on string. A family custom of exchanging gifts insured
a wide variety of same until the offspring became too
numerous to make it financially feasible for all the
uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc. to act the part of a
good Santa. The church program followed whatever was done
in celebration at school and included gift exchanges
around a towering tree laden with oranges and boxes of
candy. Christmas morning witnessed some of the earliest
risers for any day of the year, thumping down the long
stairway in big bounds or sliding down the banister to be
"first". Most gifts were very practical, either
something to wear or a toy such as sleds, skates, wagons,
etc. Stockings held nuts and fruit and small gimcracks.
This was it! This was the occasion for indulging the
small fry; the rest of the year was apt to be a long
drought with no birthday parties, special overnight
guests, or big treats.
In the summertime the barefoot season began. How can one
forget the feel of hot sand, the fun of running in the
rain and splashing in the puddles, the sand burs or sharp
stubble, the soft grass, or the occasional stubbed toe?
All berries and fruit growing on the farm, growing wild,
or found unattended on abandoned premises was fair game
for on-the-spot consumption or gathering. "Mom, we
found huckleberries, millions of them. Give us some
containers so we can pick some for canning." Mother
always looked upon the estimates with skepticism. But we
would start out with far too many pots and pans for small
fry to have the patience to fill, let along quantity
available. Still, there accumulated considerable stocks
of jams and jellies made from blackberries,
huckleberries, beach plums, wild cherries, and grapes.
Our apple trees were never pruned or sprayed. Like Topsy,
they just "growed". The only variety I know for
sure was the crab apple. Others were either good for pies
or not and very likely to be inhabited. The girls often
played dolls and house in the shade of the apple trees.
Cows were allowed to graze in the orchard and all over
the lawn in lieu of mowing. This was superior even to
modern riding mowers except the residue might be confused
with third base on the home ball diamond and slid into or
otherwise trespassed upon with unseemly results.
Fourth of July was always the occasion for shooting off
caps with hammer or stone all day long. Rarely could we
afford the luxury of an automatic devise. We also had fun
with small firecrackers that misfired as often as not,
becoming sizzlers when broken open and the powder
ignited. At that time there were no laws controlling
fireworks but there should have been for our own good.
Sometimes we had larger firecrackers that we used to blow
tin cans sky high. The real treat came when Pop returned
from the general store well after bedtime with the big
surprise. We all tumbled out of bed and sat on the front
porch while Pop set off pinwheels, Roman candles, sky
rockets, flares, sparklers, and special ones. We were
lucky to be allowed to hold a Roman candle or a sparkler.
If the money situation allowed there was ice cream all
around at the end. Next day it became big game to find
misfired items or locate the expired and grounded
rockets.
In the Fall the big activity at home was gathering black
walnuts. For a week the stained hand became the badge of
successful shucking of a good supply of nuts laid by in
the attic to be cracked on the bottom of one of mother's
irons, and eaten behind the wood stove, or to be used in
a walnut cake or cup cakes. Yummy! The big event of the
Fall was the Ladies Aid Fair, second in importance only
to the County Fair. The good ladies of the church
prepared a one-dollar chicken dinner that was out of this
world for quantity and quality; a fact easily attested to
by the crowds coming from miles around. There were booths
well stocked with the non-conversational end product of
many a quilting party. Many the lucky purchaser of a high
quality quilt, apron, doily, handkerchief, etc! For the
children there were grab bags, game booths, and ice cream
and candy sales. This was a big occasion for meeting
those seldom seen and for keeping the church on a sound
financial footing. Praise the Lord and pass another
chicken leg!
My first two playmates of profound, lifetime influence
were Robert Lyon and William Nilsson. They were about two
years older than I and for preference played together.
But if one or the other was not available I was sought
after to fill in. And on many occasions it was all three
to face the world. World, watch out! Pop called us
"birds" or "hellions". "Well
what are you birds up to now?" Mr. Lyon referred to
me as "Tomcod" or "Shitepoke", the
first nomenclature sounding somewhat affectionate, the
latter derisive. I have since learned that they denote a
small fish and a little green heron respectively. Our
territory extended for a radius of a mile from the town
pump. Nothing escaped our prying or trespassing. We knew
where all the fruit trees were and when the fruit was
ripe. We knew when the goldfish of Moony Pond were in the
shallows: the watermelons ready for stealing; unpleasant
chores were impending, etc. These were "signs"
or symbols of activity that made long summers an almost
endless delight.
We swam in the pond without bathing suits or conceded a
maximum of underwear bottoms to chance onlookers. The
swim was most refreshing on hot summer days, while the
lying on the shores in the grass beneath the shade of a
willow, served to transport us in spirit to unworldly
bliss. Those were times of talk and contemplation or
dreams of things scarcely within realization. Sometimes
we fished, just for the fun of hooking them. It was done
with a straight pin neatly curved into a hook with a
string for line and a small willow sapling for a pole. To
catch fish on hooks without barbs was quite a trick.
Doughballs were used as bait. When the twig bobber
indicated a good tugging bite a fast reflex action on the
part of the fisherman served to send the fish flying in a
great arc overhead to shore or even into the bushes.
Catfish were allowed to die because they had stingers.
These were bony spines, one extending dorsally and two
ventrically. Once in a while the derelict catfish
treatment backfired on us, for the stiff carcass with
erect spine could be very painful on bare feet. Goldfish
were exclaimed over for their size and coloration and
thrown back in the pond. Some goldfish were so pale as to
be like minnows. These we called silverfish.
The devil seems to have figured prominently in my life by
tempting me at times when my conscience should have won
out. These temptations were often in the form of a person
of persuasive powers. Pop grew lots of melons and kept
his eye on the ones that promised to be winners at the
annual Fair. He was nursing a nice big Kleckly's Sweet
watermelon towards that goal when it happened. My
playmate for the day was a New York City summer guest at
the home of the Catholic priest at the manse on the
Selden Coram boundary. He came down the hill to play with
me much out of great curiosity for the farm. "Lets
pick it and eat it," he suggested. After much
discussion pro and con the thing was accomplished, with
grave doubts on my part as to the success of the method.
Sure enough, we had no sooner ensconced ourselves in the
nearby woods than Pop made the discovery. We heard his
stentorian voice booming from nearby where he had
apprehended Bob and Bill and was accusing them. My friend
and I bolted from good cover to sparse along the fencerow
leading to home. The two accused, needing a quick
reprieve and having sharp eyes for moving objects, saw
our retreat and pointed us out to Pop. We tried a
fabricated story but soon had to admit the affair. No
serious consequences accrued from it. But a guilty
conscience is often worse than a spanking. I was always
ashamed of this episode. A certain amount of watermelon
stealing was always expected by farmers. It was the
particular melon we took that mattered in this case.
Postscript
My father wrote this story for his children when he was
gravely ill and knew he would not have much more time.
Maybe by recalling his own wonderful childhood memories,
he hoped we would recall our good times with him. As I
began to look over it again as an adult I realized how
much his childhood influenced the way he raised his own
children. We went on many a camping or fishing trip as a
family. We always had a garden and eating watermelons
fresh from our own patch was a summer delight. But most
of all, he left us a sense of the wonder of the natural
world and an appreciation for all the people in it. In
this way life in Coram, New York touched three children
decades later in Galesburg, Illinois.
Provided by,
Sylvia (Smith) Khaton
January, 2001
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