Janette Oke (6 page)

Little Joyce certainly helped to keep things lively as she grew, putting on her own little shows and coaxing others to join her. Laughter was common in the home, and it seemed to ease tired shoulders and wipe away furrowed brows.

One of Janette's favorite pastimes was making play “farms” and “roads” in the hardened dirt near the back door. The path was so well worn that the grass for several feet around the area was completely gone. The chickens would scratch there, and the children used it for play.

All that Janette needed for her game was a few handfuls of her dad's nails from his shop, a hammer, and some string. Then she would begin pounding nails into the ground a few inches apart, trying to keep them in a nice even line. String was stretched and wrapped from nail to nail until it had formed fence lines. Whole farms with fields and pastures and farmyards would take shape. Then roads would be added, the whole structure sometimes becoming quite elaborate. Her immediate siblings sometimes joined her. The older ones in the family didn't seem to fuss about the construction sites as long as nails were pulled and returned and the hammer was put back in its proper place.

In the hours when she preferred solitude, Janette spent time walking the farm alone and making up songs or stories. She secretly longed for a doll carriage that would give her an excuse for the private walks, but there was none—not even a wagon to pull.

At times she sang some of her ditties to Margie while they were swinging together, but as hard as she tried she could never convince Margie that they were real songs. Margie would just dare Janette to sing the song again, and since it was never possible, Margie remained unimpressed.

At other times Janette spent quiet moments sitting with Betty, watching her work. Her oldest sister, who had then entered her teens, did some of the most beautiful and painstaking needlework. She often spent hours on a single piece. Janette considered Betty to be very grown-up, and the patience of her big sister amazed her.

Janette loved to crawl up beside Betty to watch—but she would also coax, “Let me pull the needle. Let me pull the needle.”

Once the needle had been carefully placed where it should be, Betty would hold the cloth while Janette pulled the needle through the soft material, watching carefully as the tail of thread followed until the stitch was snugly in place. Then they would take another stitch together, and another. It was tedious for Betty, but she was patient and seemed to understand the thrill for her younger sister.

Betty also had a small treasure box of trinkets that she sometimes showed to Janette, who loved to finger the special things—item by item. Then they would carefully tuck them away until the next time.

Archie and Vi Ruggles, Janette's grandparents, did not visit often, but on those special occasions they always brought extra goodies with them and supper was sure to be a real treat. On one such visit, Janette was anxious to rush out with the others to meet their grandparents' car, but she had a rather noticeable problem—a big hole in her bloomers. Instead of joining the rest of the family, she hid in Fred and Amy's bedroom.

There was some laughter when it was discovered where she was, and then Grandpa Ruggles offered to fix her up. Cautiously she sent her bloomers out to him and then waited impatiently for them to be returned. Janette could hear a good deal of laughing while she waited, but she decided she must have a wonderful grandpa if he was willing to mend the bloomers of his granddaughter.

At last the garment was returned, and Janette could hardly wait to put them on and join the other family members. She reached eagerly for the bloomers and was about to maneuver her way back into them when she took a look at the mending job. What a disappointment!

Grandpa had mended the hole with paper, and even the small child knew that would not work. The most difficult thing to understand, though, was the laughter. Janette knew it was coming at her expense, and her cheeks were hot with tears and embarrassment.

She sobbed and sobbed and refused to come out of the bedroom, crawling under the bed to hide from the laughter, feeling so ashamed. Grandpa Ruggles apologized, but ripples of laughter still escaped from some of the adults and it was difficult for the young child to forgive the act.

But Janette continued to love her Grandpa Ruggles regardless, and the two soon discovered a common interest. Grandpa was a writer. He wrote occasionally for a local paper, and he often wrote poetry. Janette was not very old when they began to exchange little bits of verse, and she still has one that he wrote to her.

Way up north where the mosquitoes thrive
Lives a little girl who is much alive.
She is well covered with mosquito bites,
Those little bugs that come out nights.
This little girl I'll not forget
For she is my sweet Janette.

At last the opportunity came to remodel some of the rooms in the house to better suit the needs of the family. Betty, though still a young teen, was the one who wielded the hammer. It seemed that the patience and thoroughness she exhibited while doing crafts carried over into a propensity for construction—an unusual trait for a teenage girl. She competently moved and rearranged walls, taking out one bedroom and dividing the extra space created between the kitchen and a remaining bedroom.

This room became the master bedroom, and after the walls were securely in place, the task of decorating it was undertaken. Wallpaper was selected, and the day for tackling the job arrived.

Janette stood against the kitchen wall, near enough to watch the proceedings and far enough not to be underfoot and sent away. The strange, gooey paste bubbled on the stove for quite some time and then was cooled. Soon the older siblings began to move in and out of the bedroom, measuring and cutting paper, then bringing it out to the kitchen table where they scooped up the paste in their hands and smeared it across the back of the paper. Then the whole mess had to be carefully maneuvered back into the bedroom.

It was all that Janette could do to keep from peeking into the room. Just as she would creep ever so quietly over to the door and catch a glimpse of the transformation taking place inside, someone would bump into her in the rush to retrieve whatever piece of equipment was needed. Several times she was chased away from the scene, but always she returned, fascinated by how new and different the room looked. When it was finally finished, dressed in color from the floor up and across the ceiling, it was obvious that those involved felt proud of what they had accomplished. Amy, Betty, Jean, and June stood back to admire the finished project. Janette could only stand and stare at the transformation.

Chapter Seven

School

It seemed to Janette that the time for her to begin school would never arrive. She had watched each fall as her older brother and sisters bundled into coats, collected lunch pails, and then hurried one another out the door in their rush to reach the schoolhouse before the dingling of the teacher's handbell.

At last came her turn to begin grade one, and she shyly but proudly entered the Harmonien school and a new era in her life. Little Margie was left to stand guard at the back door, waiting for them all to return home again.

The one-room country school was situated away from the passing road and reached by a winding lane that traveled over a small creek and up a rather steep little hill. In the springtime the creek often flooded the road, giving the pupils plenty of excuses for fun. Since the road could not then be traveled by foot, the ones who had not ridden a horse would be ferried across by those on horseback, going back and forth. This activity could be stretched out for quite a time, with lots of splashing and merriment.

In the winter every recess and noon hour was spent skimming down the school hill on sleds, skis, toboggans, or anything else that could be made to slide. Sometimes the games on the hill would get rather rough when the bigger kids took to playing their own form of cops and robbers. They would waylay a downward plunging sled, spinning it around and sending the occupant hurtling off into the snow.

Usually they were easier on the smaller children, but once Janette was hurt enough to cause tears to flow. It was her first year at school, and one of the “big” boys—perhaps in third or fourth grade—came to comfort her. He then offered to take her down on his sled in order to protect her—and instantly became her hero.

The road down the hill could be quite a rutted, muddy mess at the time of the spring thaw or if rains had been plentiful. The ruts would sometimes get so deep that the teams or cars coming up or going down would need to find an alternate route. There were few choices. It was too steep to go straight up and too narrow a track to swing very wide. The water washing down the hill often made deep furrows across the dirt road and the clay soil would turn to gumbo. If the road became too difficult to maneuver, only saddle horses and people on foot used the hill until things dried out again.

The Steeves children were largely unaffected by the road situation since they usually walked to school. The two and one-half miles in one direction could be fairly pleasant on a good day, but if it rained it was miserable. With no special rain gear they would arrive at school or return home soaked to the skin.

Since they were also without rubber boots, the worst muddy roads were conquered by simply slipping off their shoes and walking barefoot. Otherwise they did their best to clean their shoes in the damp grass and then let them dry by the kitchen stove before scraping them clean again.

In the winter the walk seemed longer. The frigid air bit against exposed skin on the face or where gartered stockings had slipped down to reveal bare legs. Colds and tonsillitis kept the children at home much of the time. The teacher spent a good portion of her busy day beside the old potbellied stove, drying out those who remained healthy enough to attend.

Janette was often the one left sick at home. Childhood illnesses seemed to catch her first, and she would pass them on to the other members of the family. During her early years she experienced whooping cough, mumps, measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever with an aftereffect of inflammatory rheumatism, recurring bouts of tonsillitis, and many, many colds.

The report cards she brought home were filled with days marked “absent,” sometimes absences outnumbering days present. But she did learn and was, in fact, the star of her grade. Of course it helped that her competition consisted of only one other boy. But the young teacher seemed to be quite proud of Janette's progress. In fact, in spite of missing so much, she finished grade one and took half of grade two her first year, then completed grade two and grade three in her second year.

Periodically, the school inspector would visit the school. When he came, he would stand at the back of the room, his tall, broad body encased in a dark suit, much more formal than the students were used to seeing. His head would be cocked slightly to one side, his hands clasped behind him, and his whole body teetering ever so slightly up on his toes, then down, up again, then down.

The inspector was neither harsh nor critical, but his presence was frightening just the same. His large frame and air of authority nearly made the children tremble; even the teacher seemed nervous whenever he showed up.

Thinking that Janette would be a fine example of her teaching ability, the young teacher asked her to stand and read aloud for the awesome man. Fear clouded Janette's thinking, and instead of “showing off” she stammered and stuttered through a miserable job of reading.

When his car was at last heard chugging away down the winding, rutted hill, everyone heaved a big sigh of relief—the teacher's sigh perhaps bigger than anyone's. Yet she could not refrain from speaking of her “disappointment” to her star pupil. Not only was Janette shamed by her embarrassing performance but also filled with remorse at letting her teacher down.

Chapter Eight

Farm Life

Fred was a busy man. He worked about the farm, usually with something in his hands, fixing harnesses, mending fences, cleaning grain, or sharpening tools. When he was doing field work, those same hands held a set of reins. For the first years on the Hoggarth place, the effects of the Depression were still being felt, and parts and gasoline to operate any farm machinery or vehicles could not be obtained. At this time, all the work was done with horses, several of them. And for the years that followed, Fred continued to utilize this source of “horsepower.” Janette remembers each one as special in its own way.

Sam and Sandy were a gray team that Fred used for many years—Sandy had a few more “freckles” on his rump than Sam. Not fast, they usually traveled in low gear, but they were reliable and steady. Fred also used them in the bush for skidding out logs where there was little room for the antics of a skittish horse.

When the family was young and Amy needed to drive someplace—to church, the country store and post office, or a neighbor's house—it was Sam and Sandy that were usually harnessed to the rubber-tired wagon.

Even the children could harness the pair because they were so patient with the fumbling of inexperienced hands. Since the horses were taller than the children were, it would take many stages of lifting, tugging, pulling, shifting, and practically climbing on their backs to get the harness over the top. Sam and Sandy stood quietly for as long as it took while the youngsters worked over them.

Although they could be ridden if needed, they were not considered riding horses. There were times, though, when they did act as taxi. After Janette had run down to the field to meet her daddy at the end of the day, he would sometimes boost her up to the back of one of the horses and let her ride home. It was a giddy feeling to be so high above the world and look down at the earth jerking along beneath her dangling feet. Her hands clenched the harness hames for all they were worth.

One day while logging, Sandy fell and tore his haunch on a tree stump. The theory was that while he rested, he fell asleep and went down. Horses rarely do such a thing but Sandy was getting rather old. After he recovered from the incident, he was watched more closely.

Sam was the unfortunate victim of a practical joke. Jack and Janette had decided to have some fun, each later blaming the other for coming up with the idea. But it was Janette who climbed into the manger while Jack covered her with a sprinkling of hay. Then Jack let the horses into the barn.

Of course, the first thing the horses always did was go directly to their stall and stick their noses into the manger to feed. Just as old Sam thrust his nose down for a mouthful, Janette jumped from the hay, flinging arms and yelling for all she was worth.

They had no idea that the poor old horse had so much life left in him. It was the fastest they had seen him move in years. Later, when bringing him back to his stall, Fred could not understand why his calm and steady old horse was resisting the rope and pulling backward, snorting and acting as if something were out to get him. Jack and Janette sent silent messages to each other, snickering behind their hands over their private joke.

Beauty was a pony for the little ones. Her shiny black coat was bumped against and tugged at by many a small child climbing what seemed to be a tremendous distance to the Shetland's back. There were many times when several children would pile on together, trying to fit as many bodies as possible from mane to tail before one began slipping and sliding over the other side, pulling the others along.

During the game, Beauty held perfectly still. Even when some of the braver children would crawl between her legs and under her belly or butt her stomach while pretending to be colts, she never moved.

Occasionally, however, when a child was riding her and wanted to be taken some direction the pony did not want to go, she would stubbornly turn toward home. There were times, with Janette tugging at her reins, when Beauty won this battle.

One of the games they devised to play with Beauty was delivering the mail. There was no rural mail delivery, and the children knew little about mail carriers, but they set about making their own postal system. Someone would ride Beauty under a tree and pick off several leaves. These would be sorted and delivered a few at a time to the other participants of the game who were posted at various stations around the farmyard. Each child was given a turn at being the carrier.

Jack, being the only boy among six growing sisters, led a different life on the farm than the others and had less time to enjoy the games. Though each of the children had responsibilities, he carried an extra heavy load, even learning at an early age to drive a five-horse team to help in the fields. Choring early each morning and late each night, there was not as much time for fun.

For a bit of income, Jack had been the school “fire maker” for a while. It meant that after his early morning chores were done, he would hurry the more than two miles, often running most of it, in order to start the fire in the big potbellied stove at school to take the chill off the room by the time the teacher and the rest of the pupils arrived.

This position also required that he haul enough wood to feed the stove for the day and then clean out the ashes as needed. It was a difficult task and the pay was only a few dollars each month. To supplement this, Jack also sold pelts. Rabbits could fetch a few cents; a good weasel, perhaps a dollar or two. He set his traps and snares close to the path to school and would stop to check them as he hurried past.

One slushy spring afternoon, when the ditches were full of snow and puddles, the children were on their way home from school. Acting on a strange impulse Janette impetuously yelled out, “There's a muskrat!”

She was surprised at the response by Jack. She knew he would be thinking of the fur and how much it would bring, but a muskrat was certainly uncommon in the area—though not preposterous.

Jack was immediately excited and started asking, “Where? Where?” and Janette found herself lying, “There! There! Oh, it just went under that ice.”

They chased the imaginary muskrat for about a quarter of a mile, all the way to the corner where the two roads crossed, and where Janette further said it went under the culvert. Jack posted Janette at one end and set himself on the other. When it was beginning to appear that they would stand their positions for the rest of the night, Janette decided it was time to confess that there had been no muskrat at all.

Jack failed to see the humor in the little incident. He scolded her thoroughly for lying, but she could not help chuckling now and then on the way home. On the occasions that Jack was later reminded of the little incident, it continued to bring mixed responses. Janette still laughed. Jack still growled.

There had been another brother, Kenneth, who would have been only two years younger than Jack. It had been especially difficult for Jack to accept the loss. He had been confused and hurt as a two-year-old when he lost his little brother, and for many years blamed the local minister, Reverend Dawson, who had come and taken the baby away from the farm home after Kenneth's passing. Then after waiting for two long years for another baby brother, he got Janette. But as they grew older they found that they could usually enjoy each other.

Some of the closeness was because Janette was the one who helped Jack with the farm duties. All the children had assigned chores, and Janette was responsible to fill pails of water from the deep, cold outside pump and carry enough wood to replenish the wood box in the entry.

There were no electric lights, and in the winter months it was nearly dark by the time they arrived home from school and still dark when they left in the morning. This meant that Jack needed someone to carry the lantern so he could see to work about the barn. Janette was the lantern-carrier.

It was usually a good arrangement, but on one night when the coyotes were howling nearby and Jack and Janette were away from the farmyard searching for cows near the haystack in an open field, Jack began to tell scary stories. By the time the cows had been spotted, Janette was in tears, certain she would be snatched up by long, yellow fangs and carried off into the forest to be eaten.

In spite of the pranks each pulled on the other, there were few actual fights between them, though occasionally miscommunication led to trouble. Once Jack was forking hay into the hayloft from a hayrack and his foot went through a hole in the floor of the rack, hurting his leg. He began to moan with pain.

Janette thought he was teasing. Since Jack rarely cried, it was easy to believe he was pulling another prank, so instead of helping him, she began to laugh. Janette's laughter only made him angry, as well as hurt, and he picked up a swatch of hay and slapped her across the face with it. Now it was her turn to feel pain—and she did cry. The quarrel was soon over, Jack out of his predicament, forgiveness granted, and the chores completed.

Butchering was another chore involved in farm life. Fred would not allow the younger children to watch the slaughtering of an animal, but they were needed to be a part of the action. They were assigned the task of runner, taking the parts of the animal in to Amy to care for after Fred had finished his part of the task.

The whole procedure was exciting. If it was a pig, there was scalding and scraping to be done. If it was a steer, skinning would follow. To the young child, it seemed so strange to gaze up at the creature suspended between earth and sky. The animal always seemed much, much bigger than it had when it walked the ground on all fours. But the butchering did not seem inhumane. It was a part of life. One did not kill for pleasure but for food for the family.

Fred hunted, as well, and during most winters wild game was a large part of the family diet. In fact, they ate far more wild meat than farm animals and, in the years when the family was accustomed to the distinct flavor, it tasted just fine.

The Steeves' house continued to be expanded and remodeled. What had been another first-floor bedroom was converted to a utility room, and kitchen cupboards were added in place of the lost pantry. Where there had at one time been three very small bedrooms on the main floor, there was now only one. This meant that the upstairs was to be shared by all seven children, with beds crowded into the space.

The kitchen gained space, which was important since it was the center of most of the activities in their home. Janette remembers it as the workroom. Meals were made, laundry done, baths taken. Almost everything happened in the kitchen.

The table was the place where the family ate, but it was required for much more. Babies were bathed there, then dried and dressed on warm towels spread beside the small basin. Canning was done while the table was covered with pans of vegetables or fruits in all stages of preparation and jars lined up to receive the produce. Letters were written, laundry folded, and quilts blocked. Homework was done, dresses laid out and cut, and meat prepared at butchering time. Chickens were dressed and fish cleaned. Crafts, either adult or children's, were assembled. Sunday school lessons were prepared, jigsaw puzzles were worked, and company was served. It was truly the heart of the bustling country home.