LATER TEEN AGE AND EARLY TWENTIES - Part 2 -GIRLS, WILD HORSES AND PRANKS

Alfred is continuing with stories about dating, wild horses, and Halloween pranks:

"For awhile my attention was centered around Sommerville [Summerville] Church, where I dated and went with Esta Parker for about a year.  I can remember her mother especially for the tall, multi-colored cakes she would bring in to the parlor every Sunday night.  Esta was a fine girl but she and her parents gave strong hints on marriage and I wasn’t ready for that; neither financially or the mood and I felt that I still had wild oats to sow, so we quit going together.  I didn’t want to stand in the way of some eligible young man who might want to marry her.  One incident I well remember was an accident we had; we had been to a church service and her sister Stella was in the buggy with us.  This horse of mine was still a colt and had ideas of his own.  We came to a cross roads and all the traffic was going east but we had to turn south.  Going at a brisk trot I pulled so hard on the rein that the bit broke in the horses mouth.  I had the horse about half way going south when the bit broke and the horse jumped off a bridge which was at the cross roads taking buggy, girls and me along for about a 12 foot plunge.  The horse landed in a heap, the buggy on top of the horse.  No one was hurt not even the horse.  They began asking me what I was going to do and I said “I’ll hitch him up and try again.”  I always used two bits on a driving horse – one to fasten the reins to, the other a check rein to hold the horses head up; so I still had the check rein, fastened the guide reins to it and was ready to go.  The girls were a little reluctant to ride, but they climbed in and we took off, with Stella making the remark that we would all have been killed if we hadn’t been coming home from church.

 Evidently I had unknown competition for Esta, for one night I rode a horse to her home because of the deep snow.  When I was ready to go home the horse was gone; someone had cut the halter strap.  On another occasion I rode a horse because of bad roads.  When I left all seemed to be well but when I got to the Number 8 School House (1/2 mile north of Vicksburg road on State road now) a gang of boys evidently, started to beat on pans and shoot revelers scaring the horse and he took off on a dead run.  When I tried to pull him down, the bridle slipped down his neck; some one had cut the bridle straps nearly in two so that only a shred held it on.  Well I had no control of the horse, had to leave him run and try and stay on.  Soon we came to the Pete Stockram corner, I grabbed hold of the horses mane, got all my weight on the inside stirrup and hung on.  I doubt if anybody went around that corner faster than I did that night.

 A few more things come to mind that has a connection with Sommerville – One night I went to church with a good friend of mine, Sheldon Goodman  He had a very spirited horse that had a habit of tossing his head high in the air.  This particular night we too wanted to turn south where I had my freak accident.  While Sheldon was pulling on the “Gee” rein the horse made a wild toss of his head and jerked the reins from Sheldon’s hand and started on a dead run east.  About half a mile down the road was a square turn and we knew that we couldn’t make it without an impact.  Sheldon wasn’t as big as I was so I got one foot on the cross bar of the shaft, sort of braced the other leg against the dash board, had a good hold on Sheldon while he climbed out with one hand on the horses hips and reached for the loose rein in the loop of the “Turret Strap.”  He got the rein and we got back in the buggy and with both of us yanking with all we had we slowed the horse down and although we went around the corner on 2 wheels we didn’t get up set in this run-away.

 Another time was Halloween, Ed Kramer and I went out for pure devilment.  We got all the farm implements out and blocked the road at Woodford Neals.  Sommerville church patrons didn’t think much of the idea and we kept hid while the clearing of the road went on.  Among other pranks we got all the farming tools of Henry Bovenschen and stacked them in the road.  This was easy for Uncle Henry never put his tools in a shed, just let them out in the barn yard.  This prank backfired on me however, for the next day was Sunday, Grace McKee invited a bunch of young people from Sommerville for dinner.  Of course we had to go to church services first.  I hitched up my horse & buggy and for some reason I took the road that went by Uncle Henry Bovenschen and there was all the tools still piled in the road.  Only one thing to do, undo what I had helped do the night befor only by myself, with my  Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes on, celluloid collar and all.  Yes I was late for church. 

Another Halloween experience, when Ed, his brother Fred and I were out, we came to John Berns Sr. farm.  He had a barn close to the road, never had gates closed and we spied his buggy, we wheeled it out on the road, down the hill through Buck Creek Bottom up the hill form Uncle Jake Strietelmeiers farm.  It was a bright moon light night and we saw Uncle Jake in the front yard.  We put on extra speed and took the buggy to the cross roads north of him and left it.  At church the following Sunday Uncle Jake, who stuttered, was telling the devout “Et et et 3 mean boys got John Berns buggy and run like hell past my house.”  And talking about conversations at church I will always remember this one – Emmet Stevens a poor young boy was trying to get in the Bee business.  He found 2 Bee Trees on the W^m Brediweg farm the fore part of the summer.  He asked Bill for permission to cut them but Bill wanted to wait until Fall thinking there would be more honey in them.  Finally Bill consented to cut one of them.  There was very little honey in the tree.  Now this happened during the open season for squirrel hunting.  Bill wouldn’t allow hunting on his farm, not even the neighbors, but Uncle Dietz and Charlie Fritz slipped in the wood with maxim silencers on their rifles and Charlie found the other Bee tree that Emmet had found previously.  Well one night, Uncle Dietz, Uncle John Cesar and me planned on cutting the tree, so we got our cross-cut saw, ax and 3 milk pails and proceeded to cut the tree after midnight.  All went well, we felled the tree, cut out the portion where the bees were, split the log and I never saw so much honey in bee tree.  We soon had the pails full and a lot left.  We took the honey & tools home, cleaned out a wash tub and went back.  We got at least half a tub full of honey and a lot was running on the ground that we naturally didn’t get.  This was not all fun, for bees don’t fly at night they crawl and we got stung aplenty by bees crawling up our pants legs.  Bill discovered that the tree had been cut and on the following Sunday at Church he was telling all about it and was positive that Emmet Stevens had cut it.  Mr. Bredweg died not knowing his false accusation.

After the break-up with Esta I had just occasional dates, taking girls home from church or social gatherings but one I can’t forget was a double-date affair.  We were threshing on the Herman Schloot farm and Theodore Riley Jr. (now deceased) was going with some girl in the Nine Mile community and she had a friend visiting her.  Riley wanted me to take this girl and we would all go to the Old Hippodrome Theatre an outside show located about where Correll now are.  I told Riley I was broke, but he insisted and said he would do all the paying.  Well I went, striped shirt, celluloid collar, high enough to hold my ears up and a bright red tie.  We go to the show, Riley briskly walked up to the ticket booth, began to fidget and heard him repeat several times, “Dog gone, I thought I had twenty cents when I left home.”  Well I finally stepped up and paid for the ticket and after the show took them to Goldbergs Ice Cream Parlor for a five cent ice cream sundae.  I was out forty cents.  

Wow! 40 cents for a show and ice cream for four. Esta Parker did marry shortly after dating Alfred. In April 1916 she married Ernest Dady and they moved to Indianapolis and opened a grocery store. The other thing that struck me in this section was how dangerous riding or driving horses was.