CHAPTER 18
O
BOY CONTINUED (1951-1957)
6/24/51 Re Bob's birthday...I gave
him an oilcloth for the kitchen table, Billy gave him an incinerator shovel
(his idea) and Charley gave him black shoe polish (also his idea). I suggested an adjustable date stamp to Timmy
and he and his father were both intrigued with it. Charley went to his first wedding, said he
liked the refreshments and throwing the rice best.
9/7/51 [RMD] Maybe Carol and I can
get better organized this fall with two boys in school in the morning. Charley has been under the spell of a rather
spoiled only‑child neighbor boy who is in the same class. His mother drove him to school all last year,
and Carol was hard‑pressed for a suitable reply when the mother asked her
if the boy could walk to school with Charley this year. We get fit to be tied at the way Charley lets
the boy, Forrest, treat him (like the Communists at
9/12/51 [CBD] David has been a holy
terror of late. His worst coup was
turning the water on full blast in the bathroom while stopping up the drain
until water came through the living room ceiling like a rain storm, making
puddles on furniture and rug (in the same five minutes he upset the ink in his
father's study). Fortunately the living
room ceiling is paneled and no permanent damage was done. I wish I liked canning better. We've been given quite a bit of fruit and I
feel I can't afford NOT to put it up.
Makes me edgy with the children.
One morning when I had the stove covered with hot canning utensils Billy
came in and kept cavorting around until an accident happened. I was so mad I just shouted at him. Billy looked at me with an indescribable look
of indignation and tearfulness and said very intensely, "you're not being
a mama..."
David just adores both his dolly and
his train‑‑the dolly is
generally his night‑time companion and the train his daytime
pleasure. He counts up to 7 or 8 and his
favorite expressions are "Come on
(Charley, Timmy, Daddy or whover)" and "Gimme(jam, candy, cone, pie
or whatever)" hunching his shoulders and nodding approval as soon as his
wants are satisfied. Sometimes he says
thank you too.
11/25/51 Overheard Timmy explaining to somebody
"My grandma used to teach school, but she doesn't any more. She's just a college girl now." The boys came in very excitedly, "Did
you know there's a new squirrel and his name is Elmer?" (There are two squirrels whose antics they
follow named Piney and Sammy, named by our neighbor Ruth Van Dyke) So I said, "Oh what a lovely name‑‑did
Ruth think of it..?" Timmy looked
at me rather scornfully and said firmly, "Oh no, THEY thinked of it‑‑you
know Sammy and Piney..." David is
in the stage of repeating sentences thoughtfully after you finish speaking and
making funny sentences all his own. He
liked the sound of Happy Thanksgiving and went around the house muttering
"Happy fanksgiving" for a while.
Yesterday he sidled up to some guest and repeated "I can
fistle" several times making a creditable stab at whistling. He still talks about Bobby, only now he
usually says "Bobba on twain go far away downtown." (Bobby had been
to visit that summer). I've taken him to
Sunday School the last three weeks and he has made out fine. He is so stubborn and funny; when he wants me
to do something like playing the piano, he just about pulls my dress off while
he yanks and jabbers at me to comply with his desires. He has graduated to a stool at the table next
to me though he is still VERY messy‑‑and knowing how sticky his
neck, hands, ears, and hair are is too
much. Charley sits on the other side of
him and is becoming a regular old‑maid on the subject.
12/10/51 Timmy is lapping up kindergarten while
Charley enjoys reading in lst Grade and is getting more and more from his music
lessons thanks to Bobby's good start last summer. Billy continues to be his nice independent
self and is still the best "finder" in the family whether it's his
father's screw‑driver, one of Tim's lost mittens or my lost cookbook.
12/17/51 Christmas pieces to be
learned for Sunday School‑‑ Billy has to say "Too young to
preach, too young to teach; But I can make a little speech‑‑Merry
Christmas..." Just hope the boys
won't justify Mr. Lord's remark after last year's Christmas pageant. (Timmy & Charley did a duet only Charley
stuck his finger in his mouth copying a current friend; Timmy yanked it out,
sang lustily and dug Charley in the ribs as he said "come on, sing",
etc.and between them they brought down the house. Afterwards when all the parents were milling
around telling people how wonderful their children were, Mr. Lord came up to
Bob and said in his President‑of‑the‑Board‑of‑Trustees
manner as he shook his head, "Your boys were...TERRIBLE.") Very true and very funny. Charley is very good at stringing popcorn. David, Billy and Timmy rate A on eating,
spilling and stepping on it..
1/20/52 [Bob was away for a week of
"Evangelism"]
We had a real scare this morning
(Sunday). At 9:15 Billy came into the
house saying Charley was stuck in the snow.
I hoisted on my boots and started out the back door to find him. Billy was about 20 steps ahead of me when‑‑just
as I got to the back door a fearful thunderous crash shook the house as all the
snow over the kitchen roof plummeted to the ground. I knew it had taken the power lines with it,
but my immediate impulse was to find Billy and Charley and just know they
hadn't been hurt. I yelled at them to
stay just where they were until I saw where the lines were‑‑snipped
as neatly as though by a pair of shears on top of the mound of snow. Told Charley not to move while I phoned Mr.
Gray to get someone from Copco before the Sunday School children would arrive
with a hot wire lying exposed. It all
got fixed in about an hour‑‑a board ripped off the house and
another board near the peak of the roof‑‑The snow on the north roof
has frozen‑slid to where it looks like a precarious glacier...
3/2/52 I often ask the boys what
kind of hot cereal they want. Charley
and Timmy announced early Sunday morning they wanted Cream of Wheat. Then they sailed off downstairs. A few moments later they were back breathless
and the dialog was as follows:
Timmy: Billy's ARGUING about the
cereal.
Carol: Yes? What kind of cereal does
he want?
Charley: Cream of Wheat.
Carol: Well, isn't that what you
wanted?
Timmy: Well he's ARGUING. I said
"What kind of cereal do you want?" and he said Cream of Wheat, and I
said don't you want Wheatena, and he said Yes Wheatena so now we're arguing.
Charley is doing pretty well in
music. Timmy plays almost everything
that Charley plays but plays it by ear instead of from the notes...he watches
Charley...but then goes off in fields of his own. Like he'll decide to play Jesus Loves Me,
Raccoon Got a Ring‑round Tail, or Holy Holy Holy, and he can pick the
melody right out.
3/8/52 Had a bad experience Thursday
morning‑‑I was shovelling snow just as Billy came along trying to
drag his wagon through the stuff. He stepped
forward as I swung, and I gave him a nasty cut on the forehead with the snow‑shovel. It seemed like an incredibly stupid thing for
me to do even if it was partly his fault.
I carried him into the house and hollered for Bob and mopped up the
blood. Bob got the car out and we took
him to the doctor who fixed it expertly‑‑no stitches‑‑just
one of these tricky things that holds the wound closed so it can heal
smoothly. It had stopped bleeding before
we took him so I was mainly worried about his appearance‑‑didn't
want him to bear the marks on his forehead for life. I could always explain the scar on MY
forehead as the result of childhood games; but I couldn't bear to have my dear
Billy tell people in his teens "Oh that's just where my mother hit
me." Bob told the Doctor the only
thing that bothered him was what I'd do to HIM if I got mad. The doctor said just to put some penicillin
ointment on the shovel edge next time‑‑it wasn't very funny at the
time though. Billy's such a careful
little rabbit that he won't let water get near the wound and the lower half of
his face is beginning to look a slightly different shade from the upper
half. When he was lying on the cot
looking very bloody and hurt, he turned to me in such a serious way and said
"I got a worser cut than any of Charley, Timmy or David ever did, didn't
I?" There was that sense of
desperate yearning for "specialness: that I felt as a child, and which has
come to be associated in my mind with "3rd‑child‑itis".
3/31/52 Our breakfast grace took a dismal turn the
other day. David had been getting a bit
wiggly during grace so I suggested we all hold hands. (David now sits on the stool at my left). Well everybody was quick to cooperate except
Davey. He held onto MY hand but when
Charley tried to hold his other hand he yanked as vehemently as possible. However we seemed to have restored a
semblance of peace as we got to the final words..."...impart Thy love and
peace to every heart. Amen." Well, just as we hit the Amen, Charley let go
and David hurtled through space knocking over my full glass of orange juice and
part of my coffee into my lap as well as crashing his small self on the
floor. Well, I must say the prayer was
not answered for a while. David was
roaring of course, and I, having just emerged from the bathtub, was
particularly mad at have sticky orange juice dripping down my legs.
...Charley is so uneven about learning
things. I just begin to think he has no
interest...when all of a sudden he blossoms forth...His first grade teacher has
been quite impatient with him at times, and yet she said over the phone to me
today (she called me because she's used a couple of the Neidlinger songs with
the kids and when Charley told her I had the book, she wanted to borrow it) that
she "was enjoying Charley so much."
She (Nellie Masson) indicated that he learns remarkably fast and well
and is doing some writing that she couldn't let the rest of the class do.
4/14/52...Billy asking if we were
going to have the shower for Pat Zwanziger in the bathtub. I'm sure a thousand children have said the
same thing, but Timmy and Charley were so delighted to get the joke that they
told the whole neighborhood and had a fine time.
5/8/52 ...Latest Billy story. Motherdee sent him a crisp dollar bill for
his birthday. Billy was agog. Trundled it around in a dilapitated old purse
of mine for a while and then got it changed into silver which made it seem like
even greater wealth. Then, the next day
he sallied off to the nearby store with Timmy and purchased the following‑‑two
popsicles for Billy and Timmy and one large $.25 loaf of potato bread. The first I knew of this purchase was when I
discovered him at the kitchen table busily making sandwiches for him and Timmy
to go off on a picnic. When he finished
he was all for putting his private loaf in his own drawer. I asked politely if Bob and I could have a
piece for our lunch and he said we could "if you'll be sure not to eat it
all up..." Later I found it neatly
wrapped up in a paper bag and tucked in the corner of the swing. Fishing season opened with a bang last
weekend. They have stocked Alder Creek,
the brook that runs so swiftly back of the Cravens, and the boys have had a
great time trying to catch something.
Finally Timmy caught a trout..but Becky proceeded to wash it and lost
it. Took David to the doctor because of
a swelling above the groin. He has a
hernia which will have to be operated on probably. 6/22/52 ...Charley's dollar‑‑he
had saved his dollar ever since his birthday with exasperating lapses when he
would strew it around. Bob gets
disgusted at such carelessness and so do I.
Bob thinks he just shouldn't have money if he doesn't take care of it
and I tend to think "well if he loses it that's his tough luck." Anyway we were at Aunt Coe's in
I suddenly got a notion and slipped
a dollar out of my purse under a logical bush.
I can't describe the criminal satisfaction of watching Bob poke along
that row for the umpteenth time, getting nearer and nearer until he found
it. The moral issues involved still
puzzle me‑‑Everyone cheered up immediately. I couldn't have GIVEN Charley a dollar, nor
could I have pretended to find it, nor could Bob. Everyone was honest except me, and everyone
was happy including me. In the car I
spelled out to Bob what I'd done in a very veiled form because Charley is such
a whiz at unravelling our spelling.
First Bob felt deceived but later thought it was funny. It was a wonderful shopping trip buying the
sleeping bags for the boys and we spent twice as much money as if everyone had
been cross and stayed home.
6/52 Davidisms: Dessert=buzzurt;
mustache=muspastash; macaroni=racamoni; faucet=fraucet; "Man with the
polka dot tie" (from Scuffy & the Tugboat)= Man with the cocoanut tie.
6/22/52 Camping‑‑two
nights at the Clarke Ranch near Laytonville along a pretty creek with towering
trees and wildflower strewn hillsides.
The next day we drove to
7/18/52 Well here I sit at the
9/24/52 David is still the clown of
the family. Came in from his nap the
other afternoon still staggering from sleepiness and with his father's most
dilapitated hat slung on his head at a rakish angle and a cap pistol brandished
with one fist, snarling out of the corner of his mouth "I gonna shoot you
guys..."
10/5/52 Another heavenly afternoon
at Panther Meadows‑‑more pretty waterfalls and a pair of handsome
red‑shafted flickers that winged past us.
Beautiful Communion Service this morning...the only thing that marred
the service for me was that Timmy was not in church. He had come bursting in after Sunday School
to the Adult Class I was teaching, so I sent him to his room. Charley protested going to church and by the
time I'd bamboozled him and settled David and Bill in the nursery I FORGOT all
about Timmy. Kept wondering where he had
gone to and when it finally dawned on me in mid‑service it was too
late. I felt less pity later when I
found that old resourceful Tim had waited a while and then hollered to know if
he could get up. When he realized I had
gone to Church he just excused himself from further punishment and went out to
play...
11/16/52 First report cards. Timmy's had a note saying "Tim is a
'runaway' reader. He can't wait for us,
but forges ahead. It's certainly a
pleasure to teach him; his mind is so keen, and his interest so easily
awakened." Charley got a number of
"outstandings", a few "averages" and one "needs
improvement" on "Makes good use of his time."
12/3/52 After church we all piled into the
Deweys'pick‑up truck to get our own Christmas tree. The children looked like Christmas gnomes
with their bright wool caps and their fat bundled‑up bodies hopping and
cavorting through the snow. It snowed
steadily and every stump and hummock looked beautiful‑‑ brought
home a handsome silver‑tipped fir.
David's stubborn streak‑‑the
other morning he climbed into bed with me and in a feeble effort to keep from
waking up completely I tried to tell him mother's story about the little brown
box. I started off by saying the family
was so poor they had nothing to eat.
"Oh yes they did," says David.
"No, they didn't," says I, "they were so poor they didn't
have a single thing to eat."
"Oh yes they did, their daddy could buy them something." Me: No
he had no money. David: Well they had graham crackers. Me (firmly): No they were VERY hungry,
etc. Well after several more arguments
the story continued. Next day David told
the story back to me (he seemed perfectly willing to have them starve to death
in his version); the only real variation was that everywhere I had mentioned
"the little elf", he said "the little elephant" which gave
a funny twist.
12/27/52 Christmas seemed specially perfect‑‑a
big $8.75 erector set for Charley; new shoes for Charley and Timmy and socks
all around and a nice wood train for Billy and David. Timmy got some wood‑carving tools. One sweet thing the children invented was
tinsel birds‑nests on the tree branches...
David has been singing "Twas
the Night Before Christmas: and Dink discovered he sings it "And more
rabbits than eagles his coursers they came..."
1/4/53 Charley and Tim enjoyed getting back to
school today. Charley had said for
several days that he didn't want to go back to school and when quizzed revealed
that he had left STUFF in his desk when he got the mumps and his teacher Mrs.
Beaughan gets very mad if you don't clean your desk out. He was persuaded to go and face the music and
came home quite gleefully to report she hadn't even noticed‑‑his
Sunday School teachers says he is delightful and responsive and she enjoys him
more than anyone in the class...David announced firmly, "We're going to
see Bobby next summer..."
I hedged a little for fear of
disappointment and said, "David, we HOPE we can go see Bobby...we can't be
SURE." David, in typical never‑mind‑what‑you‑think
style repeated firmly, "Yes we are going to Bobby's and when I see Bobby
I'll say Hi, Bobby." Twice today
when David has asked for more of something that was all gone and I have told
him so, he has demanded to see the inside of the pot to prove it. The first time I showed it to him
amusedly. The second time I said,
"David don't you believe me?"
"No, I want to see it."
Further discussion until Charley went and looked in the empty skillet
and said it was empty and said, "Do you believe me, David?"
"Yes, I believe you" says he.
FINE THING!
4/20/53 ..Fearful bout with
measles. Timmy, Charley and Billy are
all lying upstairs looking like blotches more than like children. Timmy gave us a real scare with a violent nosebleed
that started the night of my birthday and ended the next night when the doctor
came and acted much too worried. He said
"he has lost much much too much blood" and unless the measures he was
taking were completely effective he would have to go to the hospital. He had been vomiting blood and we were and
still are worried. He has been taking
vitamin K and the doctor packed his nose.
What fooled us was that when we first phoned the doctor at l2:20 a.m.
Friday night he assured us it was typical.
I was awake most of Friday night watching him, but thought the bleeding
had stopped and all day Saturday it was the same. He'd start to bleed whenever he coughed, but
not from his mouth‑‑and it just looked as though the cough had
broken the scab. Apparently he had been
bleeding internally all that time and it wasn't until he started to vomit that
we were really alarmed. He has been a
very sick little boy and the doctor says as soon as he is able he must have
liver, iron, etc. to build back the loss.
The doctor has been back every day and given him penicillin shots (they
do no good for measles but he would be particularly susceptible to complications
in his weakened condition). Meanwhile
Charley's temperature was well over 105 last night and Billy's l04.6 this
noon. This morning when David climbed
into bed with me I said "Did you know Billy has the measles too?" and
he said, "Yeah, 3 sick guys and 3 well guys..." The three well guys have been holding the
fort pretty well...My birthday seems like weeks ago‑‑ the boys were
so dear‑‑as I tucked Billy into bed I said "Thank you for
giving me such a lovely birthday..."
Billy said cheerfully, "Daddy helped us..."
5/16/53 Latest David story: He climbed into our bed the other morning and
Billy hollered "Were you wet?"
"Yes" says David (I hadn't taken him the night before) so I
looked hastily to discover him curled up stark naked beside me. He looked very puckish and announced,
"I'm all naked, I'm just being African."
9/11/53 [We drove East that summer with the trailer,
stayed with Molly in
9/18/53 The boys and their birthday money. ($4 for
David's 4th birthday) David was a
riot. Swaggered around downtown
announcing to all and sundry, "I'm rich, I'm richer than daddy." You know, with one side of his mouth curled
down and speaking in a deep bass with repetition for emphasis. Rhae Herron turned to me, knowing I had just
purchased six new pairs of shoes for the boys and said, "I bet he is,
too." He bought a marvellous
wrecking car with things you unscrew, change a tire, etc. and I forget what
else. At present he has about 47 cents
left. Timmy went around on HIS birthday
telling everybody, "I MIGHT get 7 dollars.
My grandma MIGHT send me 7 dollars; I don't know, because she might not
have it...etc. Anyway his letter arrived
the next day, which was really good, because he had plenty of excitement for
that day. I was tickled to see how much
of it he spent on the other boys. I
didn't encourage it‑‑in fact he dashed off and bought a $2.85
sheath knife before Dink and I had a chance to be of any influence. Then he was determined to buy Charley one and
we set our foot down. He set aside a
dollar for the bank and spent another dollar on Bill & Charley and bought a
repeating rifle and it's mostly all gone.
The birthday party was simple‑‑I invited the 8 children Tim
suggested, 7 of whom came, plus our 4 made lll.
(It was really eleven just seemed like lll) Anyway we played an assortment of wild games
and I was amused that their favorite seemed to be an old‑fashioned potato
race. Among the gifts was an
"atomic ray gun"...the atomic age has come to Dunsmuir with a
vengeance.
11/3/53 Just finished giving the boys haircuts. [I used to give them "change" after
they pretended to pay me]. David arrived
after I had given Billy change in the form of a stick of gum. David announced "What do I get for
change..." Says I, what do you
want? David, firmly, "Well, I would
like somep'n that's two of them."
12/8/53 The children are full of secrets. Took them to see Santa Claus at the 7 p.m.
Saturday opening of the stores. We
arrived just as Santa did and the crowd quickly caught up with us, packed
solid, and I soon realized David was missing.
I wasn't worried (advantages of a small town) but I didn't want him to
be frightened and felt sort of helpless trying to steer three others and find
David too. Meanwhile David had been
found by a policeman who phoned Dink.
Dink came right down and found me eventually. David was naturally dissolved in convulsive
tears but quickly began to dwell on the brighter and really IMPORTANT angle of
having ridden in a REAL police car. Dink
asked him how the policeman knew his name and David assured him that he had
told him his name, "only I didn't tell him the Knox part." After all that I waited with David to see
Santa (a very good one). A weary wait
but David was full of conversation with all in sight and when he got to Santa
he didn't betray any bashfulness at all, but said firmly, "My brother
Charley wrote you a letter to tell what we want for Christmas." This was the letter:
Dear Santa Clase
I would like a Bace Ball‑
mite for Christmas.
Timmy Bike for Christmas.
Billy would like a play Bow
and arow.
David would like a dumptruck.
Note(stapled on at the end):
"Please donot give Timmy a Bike give him a dart gun."
David loves to beg me to buy some
applesauce; trots to the store and brings home as many cans as the money will
buy, opens and serves it for whatever meal it happens to be after licking out
the top of the can with a wicked gleam in his eye. I have been getting some apples from the
country to make my own applesauce lately and he feels more than a little
frustrated and does not hesitate to tell me so.
Yesterday he begged ardently to buy some and when I said no, I was going
to MAKE some, he said fiercely, "I HATE the applesuce that YOU
make." He always seems hard to
quote because it is partly his expression and the way he turns one corner of
his mouth down. Dink has a family
expression for a sulker "could hang a bucket on your lip"‑‑Timmy
could when he sulks, but David's would always slide off one side. 1/22/54
David slowly recovering from arm burn...Timmy has been having a light case of
chicken pox.
2/8/54 All the children recovering
from chicken pox.
3/1/54 From
3/19/54 David is fine again. I took off the last of his bandages yesterday
and had the fun of giving him a complete bath.
I had started to take off the bandages the day before, but he hollered
loudly, and as I did not want to get him into an unhappy state just before we
went out I decided to wait a day.
Yesterday he got into a roaring, hollering state over having his will
crossed on a different issue, and I decided that it was a splendid time to take
the bandages off. I knew it wouldn't
really hurt, but the elastic bandages pull a little at the skin like adhesive
does. So I yanked them all off and could
scarcely hear any difference in the decibels.
Later I recounted this at supper making him see how funny it was, and he
chuckled at himself and admitted he was a big fake. Dr. Reynolds said that skin grafts never take
any better...except for two discolored patches of skin he is as good as
new. The patch on his leg is perfectly
square and somewhat larger than the patch on his arm. Dr. R. said, "Don't ask me what Dr. Nash
did with the extra skin..." I am
convinced he makes lampshades...
3/27/83 Just finished reading LITTLE
LORD FAUNTLEROY to the boys; they have also enjoyed THE SECRET GARDEN and THE
LOST PRINCE lately‑‑fascinating to me how they eat up these tales
that seem "quaint" to most modern adults...
5/5/54 My birthday really began on April 14th when
David came rushing in from his nap all full of excitement and shining eyes
saying, "Guess what? Daddy bought
you a new step stool for your birthday, but don't tell him because it's a great
big surprise and he'll be awful mad at me."
Another recent Davidism: Last Friday night the kids were getting their
fishing gear spread out all over the living room in anticipation of the opening
of fishing season the next day. Charley
had used the birthday money Maja sent to buy a rod and reel, etc. for both
himself and Timmy. I hustled the kids
off to take a bath. Ten minutes later I
found David cavorting around the room, absolutely naked with drips of water
still clinging behind his ears, waving a fishing rod in the air and shouting at
the top of his lungs a song he learned in Sunday school the words of which are
"I will make you fishers of men, fishers of me, fishers of men, etc.
6/24/54 (RMD) Great excitement
yesterday when "Good Night", Bobby's latest books arrived...the
children will want to hear it a "million quoxtillion times", which is
an enormous number invented by our boys.
7/16/54 (CBD) Camping at Union Creek
on the Rogue River, en‑ route to
8/15/54 David kept saying fiercely "I hate you,
momma, I just hate you" I sort of
hugged him and laughingly said, "Oh David, I just love you." Nothing daunted David said even more
fiercely, "Well I hate you just as
much as you love me."
12/7/54 David in kindergarten. David has gone up to take a nap and I am
expecting Tim and Bill home from school any minute. David was particularly obstreperous at
breakfast the other morning and finally I said to him (in a voice borrowed from
a loved adult of my childhood), "David you are either sick or you're being
naughty." At which David replied
rather smugly "I'm being naughty."
Lulu Thornton (David's teacher) phoned from school to tell me she
thought David was a regular Einstein.
That was her exact word. She had
put the number of girls on the board and the number of boys and David remarked,
"Oh, nine and fourteen, that's 23."
Then scarcely believing her ears she asked him a similar combination on
the afternoon class and he got that right too.
The principal later called Dink and mentioned that he thought David was
doing 3rd grade arithmetic‑‑the only way I have been aware of it is
that David would come to me and say "I know how much 30 and 30 is. And I would say how much and he would say
60. Then I'd say how did you know and
he'd say well 20 and 20 is 40 and ten more and ten more makes 60. Or he'd do the same thing with 60 and
60. What has impressed me has been his
ability, without any prompting, to figure things out. Billy is enjoying the first grade and
learning to read. He HATES to go to
birthday parties, mainly because he doesn't like ice‑cream and cake as a
rule. Sunday I clean forgot a birthday
party he was supposed to attend, until he was an hour late. I called up and after many tears got him off. I wouldn't have attempted it if it were not
Alice Anderson's child.
Timmy is a cheerful, gregarious
character with plenty of poise and inimitable airs of his own. He is the kind of cub scout who stands up
VERY straight in his uniform. Gets along
well in school and seems to breeze through both his school work and other
activities without too much trouble.
1/14/55 [I had been doing substitute teaching for a
year and a half and now had an opportunity to teach fulltime.] ...I have a wonderful woman lined up to do
housework and mother's helper functions which will relieve pressure at home‑‑Marian
or "Aunt Marian" seems like a dream so far. She has only come three times but she takes
hold very nicely, uses initiative and so nice with the kids. I am to have her 4 afternoons a week from one
to five and Dink will keep his eye out on Monday afternoons.
2/20/55 ...Marian is a real gem and
already has the children wrapped around her little finger. She lets them help her make cookies or stops
to sew up David's teddy bear and yet manages to get the wash and ironing done
too. Bought roller skates for Bill and
Charley yesterday‑‑Tim had received a 2nd hand pair for
Christmas. None of the boys has had them
before and this is the first time the ground has been free enough from snow for
Tim to give them a try. As a result the
boys are all a bit stiff around the ankles from spending most of the last day
and a half on their skates. They are
really enjoying the electric train too.
4/16/55 The other night I was saying prayers with the
boys. They had all just climbed out of
the bathtub and were curled up in Charley and Timmy's room. I was trying to be as soothing as possible to
create a prayerful and sleepy atmosphere.
When I came to what we were thankful for, I said, "And we thank
thee, Lord, that we don't have to be dirty or hungry." At which David remarked in his large clear
voice, "Well, I'M hungry." At
which we ALL became extremely unsomnolent and unprayerful. Speaking of David, when I was shopping in
6/8/55 David and Charley were having
a hassle in church. Finally David leaned
over to me and whispered "How do you spell screwball?: I didn't catch on at first so I asked him to
repeat it. Finally I realized that he
wanted to write "Charley is a screwball" on the church bulletin. He already had the first part printed so I wrote
down "NICE BOY". He whispered,
"Is that screwball?" I said
nothing but he seemed satisfied and handed it over to Charley glaring
triumphantly. Charley, who is really
very gullible, was transfixed with tenderness and put his arm around David's
shoulder. David was so surprised that
they had a regular love feast on the spot.
6/27/55 Charley, Tim and Bill have taken their bikes
to go swimming. Here comes David looking
like piglet just having rolled in the mud.
David still seems like a close relative of Winnie the Pooh. Yesterday he brought a cross which he had
made out of 2 sticks of wood. He said it
was 2 things, the South Pole and a cross.
Then he took it on an expotition to find Pooh which we were almost
finished reading...
8/22/55 Charley and Timmy passed
their Intermediate Red Cross Swimming Test.
Tim looks like a little water rat, diving, paddling and swishing about
while Charley concentrates more on form and spends lots of time with his
diver's mask and snorkel. Bill can swim
about halfway across the pool and David a few strokes under water.
10/13/55 Charley has gone ahead by
leaps and bounds on his clarinet, and Timmy has shown remarkable progress in
the few weeks he has been playing the flute.
10/30/55 David came home from school
one day after having seedless grapes in his lunch and said firmly, "Mom,
ALWAYS give me grapes in my lunch."
When I asked why, he said, "Gee, there's a boy next to my desk and
he eats them every day‑‑I can get rid of grapes easy, so ALWAYS
give me grapes..."
12/5/55 Just came in from school
walking part way with Charley and Tim who went reluctantly to Junior
Choir...David remarked the other evening, "I sure hope I don't
flunk." Just to bait him I said,
"Why, did your teacher say you might?" "Oh no," says David, quite shocked,
"I'm a PERFECTLY good student."
Then after a thoughtful pause, "Oh sometimes I make a little
mistake, but I just cross it out and start over, but I'm a PERFECTLY good
student." Later on I dropped into
the living room to catch a TV ad he was watching on depilatories. NEET was the product being extolled as a
remedy for unsightly hair on face, legs or hands. A very chawming lady was holding forth on the
subject and when she had finished David said very earnestly, "I wish I
could take the hair off of my arms..."
Last night Billy decided to write a
letter to Grandma without any prompting.
He put in the sentence, "I am having fun in two grade"
(meaning 2nd grade), then turned to David and asked with utmost seriousness,
"David, are you having fun in first grade?" When David replied in the affirmative, he
went on with the letter including the proper information.
12/22/55 Just before the beginning
of our lovely evening Christmas musical program, as I was sitting flanked by
two boys on each side, David leaned over and whispered loudly "Where does
it tell on the program how LONG it is?"
We have a cunning new puppy, part springer spaniel and part McNab
shepherd and the kids adore it. Timmy
came in the other morning and said, "You know mother where it says in the
Bible, Do unto others as you would that they should do to you?"...I said
"Yes?" expectantly.
"Well, I licked the dog..."
The other night when I was making
the rounds for prayers, I got through with David and just as I finished he
looked up cheerfully and said, "That was 54 words, mother." A very spiritual child! Another day I overheard David talking to
himself as he fondled the puppy (named Skipper). David:
Skipper likes Billy and me (small pause)
He loves everybody in the family, but ESPECIALLY me."
1/31/56 Sunday we went over to
Snowman's Hill where all the ski‑maniacs hang out. It was too deep to enjoy sledding but there
was one runway that had been packed down enough so the boys had some fun, and I
went down with Billy once and landed in a snowbank.
5/13/56 Sunday. Dink preached a fine sermon, and after the
coffee hour we changed quickly into picnic clothes. The sparkling river and the dogwood all in
bloom...after we got home we took a nap while the kids went for a hike‑‑they
take long hikes up in the woods back of our house and I get worried until they
get home, but once they are home again I forget all the bears and rattlesnakes
and waterfalls and holes and cliffs and accidents, and feel delightfully
grateful that they can live in this kind of country. Charley received his Webelos in Cubs...wants
to go to scout camp this summer.
10/5/56 The boys are each growing in
their own way. Charley likes his teacher
this year which is a big relief from last year when he had Mrs. Kern (Timmy's
present teacher and my colleague in the 5th grade last year). Mrs. K. is humorless, tough and dogmatic; and
there were many days when Charley felt more than somewhat picked on. Timmy was imitating her at breakfast one
morning and both Dink and I had to keep firm control not to laugh uproariously
at the caricature. Tim is an eager
beaver on the flute...Bill is a natural for cubs, he is popular and a handy
friend: this morning for example, he dressed
himself, made his bed, cleaned up his room, and then by the time I got dressed
he had breakfast made including coffee, hot maltomeal and orange juice and the
table all set. David is just learning to
ride his new bike (a hand‑me‑down from a neighbor). Fred (
Another recent David episode was
concerned with his birthday money. He
saved $5 for over a month shopping in the catalog and downtown with great
fervor but equal Scotch thrift. He had
begged me to lend him enough additional cash to buy an $8.75 desk set (a
fountain pen in a stand with a calendar).
I told him that I couldn't even afford something like that for
Daddy. Well, finally he returned from
town triumphant with a $4.25 desk set.
Dink was horrified when I told him what it cost, but we agreed that if
he had spent it on a gun‑and‑holster set it would have been
considered "normal".
Well, the worst part was that the
proprietor of the shop threw in a bottle of blue ink (permanent) free. When I say "threw" I speak
advisedly. We had ink on the pillow‑case,
ink on the bureau scarf, ink going down the stairs like a nosebleed, only
blue; Marion greeted me the next
afternoon with the grimmest set I've ever seen to her jaw and said, "I
told David if he spills ink ONCE more, I'm going to take the ink
home." Dink removed half of the
bottle while David howled. I found him
busily using up Dink's 3x5 cards (which he writes his sermons on) and I told
him that he couldn't use them because they were too expensive. I said he could buy some from Daddy if he
wanted to, for l0 cents (his allowance due the next day). "Oh no," says David, "I
couldn't do that, I'm saving my allowance to buy more ink..."
11/10/56 Charley remarked, "Did
you read in the paper last night where this man killed his wife and children‑‑he
just HAD TO kill them..."
"Well," says I "nobody HAS to kill anybody...the papers
just print these few sordid stories and they just involve psychopathic
people." Then I went on in true
lecture style to say that a few people were born deficient or had brain damage,
and a very few people are mentally sick... At which point Timmy broke in
helpfully and sincerely, saying, "Yes, and then there are SOME people who
just HAVE to kill somebody..." And so off to school.
Report cards: David, with an otherwise exemplary report
card rated an"Average" on oral usage.
Average is taken to be "C".
At breakfast one of the boys turned to him and said, "Gee, David
you got C in Oral usage." I
explained to David what that meant...then another of the boys said, "Did
you REALLY get a C?" "Yeah‑uh,"
says David at which we all had a convulsed laugh. David is one of the best at laughing at
himself and often succeeds in breaking the rest of us into laughter....He
continues to be a mathematician. My 4th
graders can't get over how much more he knows of his times tables than they
do. You say "David how much is 7x8
and he says 56, and you say how did you figure that, and he says, "simple,
8x8 is 64 and 8 less is 56. Or in answer
to 8x9, he answered 72 and when I asked him how he knew, he said, "Simple,
8 and 8 is l6 and 16 and 16 is 32 and 32 and 32 is 64 and 8 more is
72.". Of course this makes my 4th
graders dizzy (David often comes over to my room before school and that is how
they get to quizzing him).
12/56 We have the offer of a cocker spaniel puppy
for Christmas. The father is the
Wrights' dog, and it will be a Christmas surprise.
1/12/57 ..The children are part of
two 3‑man football teams consisting of Tim, David & Becky Cravens vs.
Chas, Bill & Kirk Cravens. One team
is called the Dunsmuir Lions and the other is called the Dunsmuir Mice. The four boys have formed a club called the
BEAVER CLUB. It is hysterical to listen
to their palaver. They have
"ranks" which I think David won't have worked up to by the time he
reaches high school. And they are so
serious about it that Dink and I have to work hard to keep our faces
straight. They are the only dues‑paying
members but they have several other members (non‑paying) from the
neighborhood who are threatened with dire punishment if they miss meetings,
etc. They feel very superior to two
other clubs which have as their activities "going to the Saturday
show" and "telling dirty jokes".
The Beaver Club on the other hand is a very high‑minded
organization specializing in hikes, ranks, meeting and dues‑
spending. They had a fine time
purchasing a 2nd‑hand canteen for 49 cents from army surplus for their
hikes, and they finagled 10 army caps (reduced to 9 cents and later to a
nickel) from the same source.
4/3/57 Charley gives clarinet
lessons to a beginner across the street for 50 cents...Tim and Charles each
take clarinet and flute lessons respectively from 2 high school girls for the
same fee.
5/19/57 I was primping before
leaving for Public Schools' night. David
was washing his hands in the bowl while I leaned over him to look in the mirror
and dab at my hair having just applied some cologne. David looked up at me with a twinkle in his
eye and said matter‑of‑factly, "You know one thing about you,
mother, you smell better than you look..."
I was helping give a baby shower for
Alice Jane Eachus;
Charley: What shower?
Me: For Alice Jane...
Chas, Tim & David: Why?
Me: Didn't you know she's going to
have a baby? (the boys were all
surprised and delighted.)
David: Gee, is it going to be a
female or a male?
Me: Well, David, that's one of the
exciting things, you never know until the baby is born...
David (matter‑of‑factly
practicing his new knowledge, but with an airy authoritativeness): Yes, it's quite a while when the baby is real
little that you just don't know whether it's a boy or a girl.
*****************************************
[And
then, in June, 1957, we moved to Hanford‑‑not so many letters to
quote as suddenly the "little boys" became "big kids". And then, in November 1960, the birth of PAUL
ORTON DeWOLF! But that will need another
chapter.]