We didn’t have enough coal to heat the house for winter, a neighbor had opened a vein of coal on his farm, he told father he could have some coal if he would help with the digging. Father took Dora and I along the day he went to the mine. Father went in about one hundred and fifty feet to the coal, there as father dug the coal, Dora and I shoveled it into a cart. When the cart was full we pushed the cart outside. Then we shoveled the coal into the wagon, we did this until the wagon got full, then we took it home and shoveled the coal into the coalhouse. Then we went back to the mine for more. We spent two weeks shoveling coal, before we had had enough.
I hadn’t been to school those two weeks, so when I went back I got a big surprise. The state of West Virginia had done away with all the old school books and issued new ones, but we still had to buy them. I went to the store to see the new books, the cheapest one was the reader, it was a dollar fifty. I couldn’t believe the price of some, the history book was eight dollars, the geography was nine dollars. I knew I would never get any books, school was as good as over for me. The teacher told me I could borrow hers, but she needed them, it didn’t work out, I ended up with no books at all. Mother and father didn’t seem to care that I didn’t have any books, that were only going to be used for two years anyway. I still went to school, but only cause I had to. The teacher tried to help, but finally she gave up, I began tapering off going to school.
Mother and father found more work for me to do. Dora and I now were doing about all the work. Father kept the fire going, he sat beside the fire and read his books, while mother made quilts. We cleaned the barn and took care of the livestock, we mended fences.
Hunting season came and Dora set the rabbit traps, the store was paying twenty five cents per rabbit. She was catching one and two rabbits a day, she needed more traps, so she had me crawl up the loft in the barn, where father had some seasoned lumber stored, I picked up the right size boards and dropped them down to her. We knew that if father had caught us taking the lumber we would be in trouble, so we took it in the back of the cow pasture, far enough away that he wouldn’t hear us hammering. By the time we were finished, we had over a hundred traps. Dora and I got up early and checked the traps, I would go one way, she would go the other, we didn’t need a map, we remembered where every trap was. The fox traps were two feet long eight inches square like a box, like this:
We made the trigger out of sticks, notched the right place, it resembled the figure four. If the lid was down, we knew something was in the trap. I would then stand the box on end, keeping my arm around the box, I would push the lid open just enough to peek in, it was NOT always a rabbit in the box, so I had to be careful. We often caught squirrels, possum, skunk, birds, we even caught a few coons, altho a coon would gnaw his way out. If it was a rabbit, I would reach in and get him by the back legs, pull him out, then holding him up I would hit him on the neck right back of the ears with the side of my hand; thus breaking his neck, it was done so quick he didn’t know what happened. Then I would take a pen knife and split it’s belly open and remove it’s internals. We done real good that winter, but I think it was because we had, had a big frost in May killing all the fruit blossoms. There was no apples, which was a rabbits favorite food. We had to buy apples which we used to bait the box traps. We were only allowed to trap rabbits during hunting season, one month in November, but we managed to make enough money to buy a new coat. There wasn’t enough money to buy a regular coat so we bought rain coats, both alike they were blue with flannel lining. They weren’t warm. We had to wear a sweater underneath, it had a wide belt which I tightened tighter than was necessary to keep warmer. We had hats that Mother had made from an old sweater and lined with flannel. They were so ugly, we would wear it till we got to where we were going then we would take it off.
December came and so did deer hunting season, for two week, four guys from Clarksburg, W.Va came to Preston County to hunt deer, they stopped at our house to inquire about a place to board. Since Ethel was working and staying with Ruth, and Glenn was married and had his own place, Father told them they could stay with us. Mother had Dora and I move the spare bed into our room for the guys to sleep on. She had an extra tick so Dora and I took it to the barn and filled it with clean straw, then we put it upstairs where the spare bed had been.
That is where Dora and I slept during the time the hunters stayed with us, one of the hunters was a musician, each night he would teach Dora about music. Grandpap Maust had died the past summer, and he had left his violin to Dora, I didn’t like the hunters staying at our house, it made a lot of extra work. It was always my job to keep the coal bucket, the wood box and the water buckets filled, with the hunters there, I was never able to keep the water buckets filled, there was more dishes to wash, the floor had to be scrubbed everyday, one guy had to have a bucket of hot water taken up to his room every night and morning. I was glad when the two weeks were up and the hunter went home, I was happy for Mother, she had made some much needed money.
I hoped she would buy me some decent boots, the ones I had were four buckle men’s boots and were three sizes too big. I was all excited the day Mother and Father hitched the horse to the buggy, to go to Kingwood, twenty miles away to do some shopping. Dora and I did the extra work before going, I went to school, so they could get an early start. It was dark when Mother and Father got home, Dora and I ran out of the house and helped unload the buggy then we took the horse and buggy to the barn. Dock the horse was glad to be home, we rubbed him down and gave him extra oats, then we hurried back to the house to see what Mother and Father had bought. Father met me at the door, he was all excited he got hold of my arm, and said, “ come see what we bought for you, we got you a new pair shoes instead of boots these shoes are waterproof you won’t need any boots with them;” when I saw the shoes I nearly passed out, I kept swallowing so I wouldn’t scream, I was so choked up, the only thing I could do was cry as I stood there and looked at the shoes. Mother and Father thought I was overcome with joy. I was sick on my stomach, as I sat down on a chair to try the shoes on, I couldn’t believe Mother and Father could do this to me. “The shoes,” were men’s high top shoes, they were four sizes to big for me, when I put them on they came above the knee, the shoe strings were two yards long, my legs were so skinny, that when I had the shoes strung up I still had eighteen inches of string, I couldn’t cut the string because it had a metal tip on the end, without that metal tip I would never get the string through the eye, which went clear to the top of the shoe. One shoe had a pocket on its side with a four inch pocket knife inside. Father took the knife saying, “you don’t need the knife you can put your pencils in the pocket,” I really cried then, because I only had one pencil and it was only two inches long.
The only time I got a pencil was when I bought it myself. It was always the kind, one for a penny, with hard lead and no eraser. The only way I was able to buy anything was by going from one store to the other to save tax money. I often went to the store for Mother, on horseback, West Virginia had a three cent sale tax on everything. Twenty five cents to fifty cents was one cent tax, from fifty to one dollar two cent tax, over a dollar three cents. So by going from one store to the other and buying one thing at a time, I saved the tax money.
Well getting back to the shoes, I got up the next morning and put the SHOES on, it took me twenty minutes to string them up. I skipped breakfast, and grabbed the milk bucket and ran clumsily to the barn. Dora had milked one cow and started on the next, when she saw me she burst out laughing. I knew the kids at school would laugh also. I took the milk to the house, then cleaned the cow manure off the shoes. I picked up my lunch, sneaked my old shoes under my coat and ran out the door. I was already late for school so a little more wouldn’t hurt, so I sat down on the ground and took the shoes off, then I hid them in some tall grass. Quickly I put my old shoes on and ran down the road, skipping and jumping over mud puddles. I felt so free and light without that heavy weight on my feet. I never did wear those shoes to school, I would wear them to the barn only. We always had to take our shoes off before going into the house, to keep Mother’s kitchen floor clean, so she never noticed that I didn’t wear the shoes to school.
We had an eighty year old neighbor Mrs. [Sarah] Farquer who had a son named Max [Maxwell]. Max was fifty plus, very tall, gray hair, green eyes, he never got married, he never went anywhere, just stayed home on the farm and did the farming. I liked Max and his Mother, and would visit them often. Max did a lot of reading, he would sit and tell me stories of kings and queens and far off places. They always got a lot of magazines. When they were through with them they would give them to me, sometimes I would have more than I could carry.
One day I told Max about the shoes, he didn’t laugh, like everyone else. He just looked at me a long time, then he said, “Why? Why did they buy such shoes for a young girl?’ He didn’t say, for a “little” girl, I liked him better for not referring to me as a little girl. I was eleven years old, five feet seven inches tall, I didn’t look like a kid, and I never got a chance to play like one. I didn’t like it when someone called me a little girl. Max lit his pipe. He looked at me and smiled, then turning to his Mother he said, “Mother the lady needs some shoes, think she might find some in the granary?” She turned to me smiling as she said, “My daughter’s old shoes are up in the loft in the granary, go look, you can have what you want.” I thanked them, said Goodbye and ran for their granary. I opened the door and climbed the ladder to the loft, there was a window on each end so the loft was well lighted. What I saw made my eyes bug out, there were more shoes there than a shoe store had. All the shoes had heels of two inches or more, I started trying the shoes on, some were too little, but I found some that fit, except they were tight. I found a pair that had a tee strap and three inch heels, with a thinner stocking they would fit great, I thought I had died and went to heaven, I found another pair, they were pumps with four inch heels. I was so excited until I stopped to think, I knew Mother would NOT allow me to wear the shoes with heels like that. Finally I decided what to do, I took six pair shoes, the ones with the straps and pumps, I hid, just as I knew. When I showed Mother the four pair of shoes she said I couldn’t wear them, they were too old for me, when I said , “I would cut the heels off,” she said I could wear them. I took the shoes to Father’s workshop, with Dora’s help, we cut the heels off and bent the steel arch straight. Dora had a short wide foot, so none of the shoes fit her. I wore those shoes with pride, and felt sorry for Dora that she didn’t, so we went back to the granary several times, but Dora never found any to fit her.
Ethel came home that spring, she had a guy, George Ritchey, with her, she announced they had just got married. Father liked George and wanted to have a party for them, but George said, “NO”. Father went to the barn to pout, Ethel and George left.
Spring came early, I had to stay home from school and help Dora haul the manure out and scatter it over the fields. Some people came to see Father about building a barn, he was spending all his time making the blue paint and figuring how much lumber would be needed. Everyone was working hard. Glenn got a job with Summit Lumber Company and moved to Fox Hollow, Pa. Dora got a job working for Dewey Livengood, he lived on a farm, his wife was having a baby. Mother and I were doing the milking, we were bucket feeding a heifer calf that she wanted to keep. Our next door neighbor broke his arm so I was milking his two cows. He ask me if I would plant his potatoes. So I stayed home from school and planted his potatoes, he gave me a rooster. Mother didn’t want my rooster around her hens, so when I came home from church on Sunday my rooster was in a pot cooking. I had hoped to sell the rooster, as it was, we had company for Sunday dinner and all I got was the feet. I was lonesome without Dora, one Saturday, Mother let me go visit Dora, it was to be the last night of school at Cherry Grove. The kids where Dora worked went to that school. Dora was just as happy to see me as I was her, she talked and talked, and when it was time to get ready to go to school, she curled my hair with a curling iron. I had brung the black pump shoes, Dora had ordered her a pair of high heel shoes out of a catalog. We looked like twins, with our high heel shoes and blue raincoats. We walked a short distance to the school house. The school was crowded, there weren’t enough seats for everyone. Dora and I made our way over to the window, after a while a boy got up and gave us a seat, Dora sat on the seat. I sat on the desk, the boy and some other boys and girls stood behind us, and every once in a while someone would pull my hair, and when I turned around they would laugh, after a while I got angry and went to the other side of the room, where some guy kept staring at me, I asked him, “Do you see something green?” he laughed and said, “Not anymore I don’t.” I didn’t know what he meant so I said, “Well don’t let it bother you.” I was sorry I had been so contemptuous, but I didn’t like people looking at me, on the way home, I told Dora what he said, she said, “you have grown up, they are acting like young rams.” I didn’t like it, I knew all about animals, and I couldn’t understand why people would want to act like them.
The following Sunday, when church was over, I told Uncle Ray I wouldn’t be going home until after evening services, that I was going to visit friends. Mother had said she would do the evening milking, I was free for the evening.
Dewey Floyd Livengood 1898-1985, Uncle Ray Guthrie 1895-1976, Sarah Farquer, Maxwell Farquer, Ethel Guthrie Ritchey 1914-2008, Ruth Guthrie Seese 1912-2007, Clara Bell “Carie” Maust Guthrie 1889-1965, James Guthrie 1879-1965, Glenn Ralph Guthrie 1910-1986, Dora Guthrie McNair 1916-1982, George Ritchey 1911-1970, Grandpap William Freeman Maust 1864-1929.