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A PREACHLR TRIES FARMING; OR, WHY I DON'T LIKE SORGHUM OR ONIONS
By George (Dad) Streeter
My father was a Methodist preacher and at one time was assigned
to take charge of a small church at Indianola, Nebraska, when that
ooantry was being settled, our family arriving only one or two years
later than the first pioneers, or about 1873.
There mere mostly very poor people who cams to try to make a
living farming in that dry arid country, and father saw at the start
that his followers would not be able to pay the preacher enough for
him and family to live on, so he took to farming as a side line, and
located a homestead a mile south of the general store and post office
of Indianola. Here he built a two -room house made of sod out in
ribbons three inches thick by twelve in width. The floor was the
bare ground with the grass shaved off and tamped to make it firm to
walk on. The doors were of boards cleated together and hung with
leather hinges.
It was a happy day for all when father and I moved the 000k stove
from the covered wagon into our new home. We didn't have any table
but my pa was quits a genius; he went right to work and made one. Be
drove four stakes in the groand..4.all the proper height --and layed the
front end gate of the wagon box on top of the stakes and when mother
spread the cloth on, you wouldn't know but itAt it was a beautiful
table.
There were about five acres of land that had been plowed before
by some settler who had abandoned the place before we came. Father
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hitched the oxen to the plow and stirred up this patch of earth. He
planted part of it to garden vegetables for family use, and the balance
to onions and sorghum owe, about one half to sushi The onions and
sorghum were to sell to buy other necessities.
Then I drove the axon an the breaking plow and turned over about
two acres of sod land. This was planted to corn. Father would travel
down every third furrow with an az and at every stop, strike the ex
through the sod and I went along with a bucket of coin and dropped
four kernels in each hole made by the axe and stomped it shut with
my heel, until the field was all planted.
The season was favorable and we raised a wonderful crop of every-
thing. My brother and I did the most of the work. Father tended to
his pastoral duties, and worked with us at his spare time. We built
a cellar in the beak yard with a dirt roof in which to store our win-
ter supply of vegetables, also a building in which to store the onions.
We were all well and happy, plenty of vegetables stored in the collar,
corn for the oxen and cow, which were already fat, from gorging on
the buffalo grass. Corn meal for mush and johnny oaks, which we ground
as needed with a mortar and pestle. The (tow gave a bucket of milk at
a time, so we had plenty of milk to drink, °ream for our mush and
butter for our Johnny cake.
Mother was an expert at making butter. We also had two dosen
hens that were brought along to a orate tied on the back of the wagon.
They seemed to be trying to see which couLd lay the most eggs.
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There was a greet pile of buffalo *hips at one side of the house
that us kids had gathered and piled there for winter fuel. We seemed
to be enjoying the height of prosperity when ales, several thing*
happened tomer our happiness.
One day father opened the onion house to see how they were beep.
ing„ and found they had heated and were starting to rot. ?ether
didn't say any ouss words, just "wen, well, that's too bad.*
He said soesething had to be done quiok if we saved any of the
onions. So we all went to work with a will, and in about a week we
had the job done, and we had saved about one hair of thee:, but there
were rotten onions scattered far end near. The dhiokens peeked at
thine and it made their eggs taste like rotten anions, and the oow
ate them and spoiled the milk and butter. So we didn't have omen
for our mush or butter for our Johnny oaks. And father didn't say
any cuss words Just, "well, well, that's too bad."
So he says we'll harvest our mass get it into *argot, then we
oan have molasses on our Johnny oake and that won't be so bad. He
set my brother and I stripping the leaves off the sane with stioks
while he loaded same onions on the wagon and started out to find a
market for than, and bet some barrels to put the molasses in. The
stars keeper at Indianola didn't want any onions so father deoided
to go down the river to Arapahoe. Be traded his load for 12 long
boards and two small barrels.
When father got home ay brother and I had the sane all stripped
and the seed tassels out from the tops, and father helped out the
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stalks whieh had to be kept from touohing the ground and piled them
an some leaves or seed tassels to keep them clean. Then we loaded
them on the wagon and started for a sorghum mill which was ane days
drive over prairie where there was no road.
About noon we came to a dead camas. The oxen stepped, smelled
it, started to bellow and paw dirt, than bolted, and, one being a
little faster runner than the other, they ran in a eirole, and the
cane being very slippery, it all lost off the wagon before father
could get the oxen stopped. Father didn't say a miss word, just
says, "well, well, isn't that too bad." He brought the team and
wagon to about the center of the scattered cans, unyoked the oxen
and turned them loose to grams, while we went to work loading our
cane. This took until dark when we made a dry camp for the night.
We arrived at the mill at noon the next day. We maids a bargain with
the man who awned the mill to make the molasses for half if father
would drive our oxen on the sweep to grind the cane and we boys would
feed the stalks between the rollers. The owner of the mill was to do
the boiling of the juioe. We finished the next day and the following
morning loaded our two little barrels of molasses, and started for
home. We hadn't traveled far, when I noticed the bottom of the
wagon box was nearly covered with molasses. Both barrels had sprung
leak. Father didn't cuss, he just said, "well, well, that sure is
too bad." Then he urged the oxen to the top of their speed (which
was about three miles per hour) in an effort to get home before all
the sorghum leaked out, and when we arrived we emptied one barrel
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into the other and had just enough to fill one barrel which we set
over a washtub to catch the drip. kother put a wash boiler of water
over the fire to heat, soaked the empty barrel with hot rater until
it was tight again, than poured in the molasses from the other barrel
together with what had leaked into the tub. Father had a spigot but
no auger to bore a hole for it near the bottom of the barrel. So he
put a rag around it and drove it in the bung hole, then all hands
rolle,, it down into the vegetable cellar and set it in one corner by
the door where it would be handy to get at, sad father says, "Now we
will be sure of that much of our sorghum." But he was wrong again,
for in coming out after placing the barrel, the door was left open
and my baby sister found her 'my down there and turned the spigot
handle and before any of us knew it, all the sorghum in that part of
the barrel above the bung hole had run out on the cellar floor and
under the pile of vegetables stored there. They had to be taken out
and the molasses scrubbed off and laid in the sun to dry and the
cellar had to be dug about two or three inches deeper to get rid of
the molasses that had soaked into the dirt floor.
how everything was ready, and we put the vegetables back in the
cellar but daddy didn't want to rmn any more chanees of loosing the
rest of the sorghum, so he got a large demijohn that he used to haul
water from the river for home use, that he didn't use for that pur-
pose any longer, as we had recently dug a well. Be said *We'll
fill that and set it in the corner of the bedroom where it will be
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eaey to watch." There was just enough to fill it, and it was set
in the corner by father and mother's bed and father said "It suroly
will be safe there, and we still have enough loft for winter use."
But alas, daddy was wrong again, for one night not long after, thore
was an explosion like tho firing of a gun or the bursting of a bomb.
Of course everybody jumped out of bed, to land half way to their
ankles in sorghum molasses. The demijohn was in thousand or more
pi000s and molasses was all over everything in the houso„ *von dripp-
ing from the ceiling. Our cloths's, bedding and hair was smeared and
poor father's board was matted with it. But father didn't say any
cuss words, he simply said, teen, well, this surely is too bad."
Wie didn't go back to bed that nicht, and we want to house cleaning,
which lasted for several days before we got rid of the last of the
molasses. Father said "well I am glad that is all over, and that is
the last of the molasses." But dear old dad was wrong again, for
some of the horrible stuff had gone through the creaks in the floor,
and soon began to mould and smell, so we had to move things out of
the room, take the floor up, dig the dirt out that the molasses had
soaked into, scrub all the boards and replace them before the molasses
deal was finally finished.
Mother deeided if we did not eat the e gs on account of the
rotten anion flavor, we would have to eat tho hens, so she cooked a
nice fat one, and made corn dumplings with it, but nobody could
stomach the rotten onion taste that it had. So there was the milk,
butter, eggs, and chicken dinners "gone with the wind." Father said
we'll have to have something beside vegetables to sat, so he decided
to buteher the cow. She had gone dry anyway (probably beoause of
eating so many onions) and was nice and fat and would make prime beef
and enough to last all winter.
441 children all shed a few tears when Old Brooh was killed, for
she was a family pet, but we had to have something to eat. That was
the day before Thanksgiving, and the next day mother planned a real
Thanksgiving feast a large roast of meat with potatoes and carrots
laid around it. Something we had not had for years. But there was a
peculiar odor that filled the house while it was 'Booking. Mother said
she might have spilled something on the stove which in burning, mused
the stench.
The table was set and the roast brought an and haw delioious it
looked, and father, after giving thanks for the prosperous year and
the many blessings that we had enjoyed, carved the roast, plaoing
a liberal helping of meat, carrots and spuds on each plate. Mother
took a bite and looked at father; he took a taste and looked at us
kids. I took a mouthful and my stomaoh heaved, and horrors of horrors,
there was that familiar taste of rotten anions. So our dinner was
entirely spoiled and all we had to eat was Johnny cake straight with
nothing to put on it or go with it. Still father did not say any cuss
words and though sorely tried, was still able to say "well, well, that
surely is too bad."
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Well we took the remains of Old Brach and buried them out in
the field, and my little sisters laid flowers on her grave. Father
deoided then and there to quit farming, and although this all *ippon*"
over 60 years ago, to this day I just can't say that I'm very orasy
about sorghum or anions.