By O.M. Miller
(undated)
My mother believed in the idea of bringing up the young with the fear of the rod. She always assuaged her feelings at being cruel with a firm belief that she suffered more than I did. This was hard to believe when one saw the vigor she put in her part of the punishment. She was a strong and vigorous woman. There were few men who had more strength and could marshall it so completely to administering this punishment. I always noticed that her legs did not show red stripes when she was through and that most of the time immediately following a severe punishment she would sing some old song that had the idea of marching on to war. Usually I would slip off to some quiet place and being to calculate about how long would I have to not do what seemed alright because of the fear of the stinging of the swish of the whip. On of these times, a rather severe one, I sought out one of my best hiding places, the roof of the old chicken house. This was an ideal place for it was near enough to the house to know whatever was going on there and to tell about what was the degree of command in my mother's voice, for after about ten minutes of vigorous song she would begin to wonder where I was and I think begin to think that possibly she had been a little too severe. She never admitted that she felt sorry for me but she would make something that she knew I liked. The singing would stop and "Melvedore" that was the name wished on me by my Grand Mother Blacketor. It seemed that one of her favorite cousins, An(n/dy) Babcock had a grandson who was a year or so old, by the name of Melvidore, he afterwards turned out to be the garbage collector in our town. I always knew that he would never get to be President with that name, so I decided to change it although no one but me knew anything about it.
To get to my favorite hiding place I had to crawl under jimson weeds for about a rod. These jimson weeds were about three feet tall and smelled pretty bad. Near the chicken house the jimson were like small trees. No one would ever pass through them not only because of the bad odor but also because of the burrs on them. These burrs were round balls covered with spines about a half inch long. By lying flat on the ground I could wiggle along the ground and escape all but the odor. When I had reached the chicken house it was an easy job to climb upon the roof as the back side of the roof was not over three feet high, while the front was about nine feet high. The roof was made of poplar boards about a food wide and an inch thick. This was a nice place to keep posted on all that was going on and not be seen.
Lying there in the warm sun and nothing to bother me I had plenty of time to allow my feelings to run the full gamut. I usually ended by thinking of running away off to the mountains and becoming a trapper. On this particular morning I had completed my future plans and was lying there with my sun bonnet pulled over my eyes. I forgot to tell you that my mother had preferred that I had been a girl, so she proceeded to make me wear sunbonnets, large overflowing collars on my waists and long curls. My hair was naturally curly, but to get the curls to stay about every two days I had to sit with the curls wrapped around rags. Then for a couple of days she could curl them around her fingers; but in every case I had to sit quiet for an hour in order that the curls get set. Naturally I had to stay around the house for out over the farm would have been hard on the curls. This prevented me becoming very well acquainted with my father; and caused me to be a little different from the other boys in the neighborhood. This strangeness further complicated matters, for instance when I got out of sight of my mother I often kicked over the traces, as this was one way of making the boys know that I wasn't a girl. Later on I shall give definite illustrations of further difficulties growing out of this close supervision when I was under eight years old and to some degree until I was about 12.
On a bright sunny day, I was on my favorite place on the roof of the chicken house. My legs were smarting after a whipping which was above the average. I had been turned loose after the rod had done its duty trying to make a man out of me. Again I had completed my plans to some day run away, and I had turned over on my back with the sun bonnet pulled over my eyes waiting for the dismal ballad about some one buried under a willow tree to end for then my mother would begin her expository (exploratory?) calling my distateful name "Melvadore" which would mean that she was about ready to make some move towards establishing friendly relations by first asking me to do some simple errand after which I would receive a tasty tidbit. This tidbit was supposed to pay for the errand but its real purpose was to heal the breach caused by the application of a branch from the lilac bush.
If I was hungry I would slip off the roof of the hen house, crawl through the jimson weeds and after pounding on the barn amble up to the house where she would ask where I had been to which I would reply "Oh just down in the barn" or some other place far away so that my not hearing would be plausible.
On this particular morning hunger had not appeared so I laid very still on the roof; after several long calls she subsided and again she had begun to sing "Nellie Gray" which indicated a kindler mental state had taken hold; and my legs did not sting so I decided to just lie there and rest, not that I was tired but I just wanted to rest. The world began to take on a more pleasant setting, when a horrible snort brought my curly hair straight on end for it was curled in those 5 curls under my sun bonnet. But it felt like it was standing on end any way. In a flash I was on my knees ready to jump off of the nearest place farthest from the noise for my eyes soon saw the head of a monstrous Durham bull close enough to me for his hot breath to reach my face. All my plans vanished and with a leap I landed over the fence seperating the barn yard where the bull was from the lane which led to the orchard. I never stopped to look back until I was safely in the tallest apple tree in the orchard into which the lane led.
The bull belonged to neighbor Del Cook and had wandered up the lane that led from the woods to the barnyard. The woods were 2 miles long and about 80 roods wide. It lay midway between two parallel roads about a mile apart. The farms along these two roads were cleared back about 120 rods from each road leaving the wooded land of every farm undivided between the cleared lands of each road. In the general woods the farmers stock was turned. Each farmer had a certain mark for his hogs and two slits in the left ear. Often the hogs would go up to the wrong farm, and when noticed by the farmer whose barnyard into which they came, would drive the strange hog back into the lane. On most times the lost hog would come home. This big bull had wandered up from the lane and into our barn yard and I don't know why he sneeked up to the chicken house, but he did and gave a big snort and my day dream was ended. <...> and after a scared run I climbed up the biggest apple tree and soon <...> happily eating sour apples and when the next Melvedore rang out I ran up to the house to enjoy the proferred tidbit.