USA > Iowa > Marion County > Down on the ridge : reminiscences of the old days in Coalport and down on the ridge, Marion County > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
43
PIONEER PREACHERS
It may be true that the bright morning star shall burn out in the sky, that men may follow the seasons into the limbo of forgetfulness, that some sad day in the coming to-morrows the names of these pioneer preachers and de- voted, praying men and women down there in the old homeland shall be erased from human memory, but their gospel of brotherly helping, spiritual building and kindly influence shall live beyond the wreck of this world and the dismal crash of human creeds. Though their voices in prayer and song and sermon shall wake the echoes no more in the old schoolhouse, nor around the happy fire- sides where friends and brothers and Christian spirits mingled and loved and died, though their sermons and songs and prayers should die away in the stillness of ever- lasting night, though their life story should lie amid the ashes of their shattered hopes, yet to-night it seems to me I can feel the soft and gentle touch of their helpful hands as they return from that bright land above to comfort and to bless. Ah! the very thought of their presence brings a balm to our wounded hearts. God speaks to those of us who lived down there and tenderly reminds us that the influence of these goodly people whom we have this night brought back from the aisles of memory shall live as long as the earth has sorrows and tears, as long as this wide world has joy and gladness and sorrow, beautiful flowers and singing birds.
CHAPTER V
SOMETHING ABOUT THE OLD BOYS WHO WERE YOUNG MEN FIFTY YEARS AGO
I want to talk to you a little while to-night of the boys near my own age, or. perhaps, a little older, who mingled in the joyous throng down on the Ridge in the days long ago. To tell of the struggles of all these boys who grew to manhood's estate and went out into the world to fight life's battle single-handed and alone ; to tell how they, every day, stood upon the " firing line " of life ; how some of them climbed over the breast works of the enemy to at last fall, but with their faces to the foe ; to tell how they grew up and went out from the old homeland; to tell how the rushing years have hurled them over the moun- tain peak of life ; to tell how hard the struggle has been to some, and how rapidly the hand of misfortune has written the story of joy and sorrow and affliction in the sad old book of fate, would require volumes of space.
Of the older boys who came more closely into my young life I would remember " Sena " Everett, my own cousin, John S. Everett Jr., Monroe Martin, Pratt Coffman, "Lum " Coffman and Cass Smith. Sena's many visits to our home were always hailed with delight. He had a happy faculty of adapting himself to company both old and young. He was happy ; care rested lightly on his young brow. He loved the templed hills, the streams and the
45
ABOUT THE OLD BOYS
forests. I remember, though now more than forty-six years ago, when only a boy, he placed his name on the soldier's roll and awaited the summons to the southland, where beneath heaven's unfading blue the mellow south- ern sun shone upon winding streams red with the blood of those who fought in the blue and gray and fell under the stars and stripes and the stars and bars. When the order came to move southward he came to our home to say goodbye, and as he went away, over the hill on the old path so familiar to him, he tossed a stone carelessly at a passing bird, and dressed in his suit of blue he passed out of my sight forever ; and to this day no one knows where he sleeps under the southern grass and the dew, for, fol- lowing a long, hard march under the southern sun, he laid his young life upon the altar of his country near Vicksburg's bloody field.
John S. Everett Jr. was a studious boy. He was one of the most inveterate readers among the young men of his age. So deeply would he become engaged in a book that during the corn-plowing season his noon hour often lasted until two or three o'clock, and he was sometimes found under the shade of a tree out in the field pouring over the pages of history or biography, while old .. Fan," the faithful mare, nodded and stamped and fought the big horseflies. "Little John," as he was familiarly called, was a live character in the debating societies of that neighborhood, and was a valiant foe when met on the hustings. He, too, while yet in his "teens" enlisted in the service of his country and went south with his cousin, Sena, and others of the neighborhood, leaving his widowed mother and three sisters alone upon the little farm his father had carved from the bosom of nature in the early days. With the straggling remnant of these young fellows who went into the southland he returned at the close of the war, and soon afterward he entered the office of H. G. Curtis, of Pella, where he read law and was afterward
46
DOWN ON THE RIDGE
admitted to the bar. Following his admission he was married and began the practice of law in Mt. Ayr, Ring- gold County. There he also served the people in other positions of trust until his death, which occurred several years ago.
Another coming very closely into my boy life was Monroe Martin. He was of course older than I, but he never grew big enough or old enough to turn down the little boys. He used to help with my little, simple lessons which seemed so hard to me, and sometimes carried me over a deep mud hole on the way to school. The winter snows have fallen and covered the ugly places of this old earth many and many a time since, but I can, this very night, looking back over the great stretch of years, see him as he used to look, so fair and straight and tall and clean, and on his face that little, playful smile that seemed to never wear away. Previous to his enlistment in the army he was examining a small revolver belonging to a friend, one of those guns that is "never loaded, " when he accidently discharged it, resulting in a painful flesh wound. I was very much alarmed when they passed our place with him on the way to the home of his parents. Soon afterward ] ran all the way to his home to ascertain how badly he was hurt, and wondered if he would ever get well. But he soon recovered and went away with his regiment, and I never saw him again. Another bright, promising young man sacrificed upon the altar of factional strife. I can now understand why so many hearts down there were torn with grief, and why the weeping willow cast its branches across the threshold of so many places in that old homeland.
Pratt Coffman, though older than my class, was prac- tically a boy with us. He was one of the "betwixt " and "betweens." Those a little older than he had gone into the army, and so it was merely a "ground-hog case " with
47
ABOUT THE OLD BOYS
Pratt; he had to mix with us younger fellows or go it alone, and that wasnot his nature. It was not only a custom among us boys during the school term but a delightful privilege to go home with each other and stay all night. Pratt urged me to spend the night at his home on that old historic spot near the east branch of Competine Creek, to which I shall refer in a future paper. My parents having agreed to my going home with Pratt, I gladly accepted his kind invitation. I had to sleep in what we children called a "big bed." Either Pratt helped me to perform the "stunt" or in a restless moment I rolled out of bed. I had been used to sleeping in a trundle bed. However, I had a great story to tell the children at home the next evening. Pratt was tall and rather lean and big, and he had a heart just as long and big. He was a stationary engineer, was married to an Indiana girl, came back to Iowa and lived a short time in Des Moines and then returned to Hoosierdom, where he now lives.
Columbus Coffman, or "Lum," as he was known then, but in modern times "Daddy, " was another one of the go- betweens, so it fell to him to either associate with us younger fellows or play with the big girls; that being out of the question, so far as the girls were concerned, he ran with us. Lum and Zack, whose good traits I shall speak of some other night while we sit around the evening lamp, surely knew something of the deep pathos of boy life without the kindly sheltering, restraining love and influ- ence of a mother. To those poor boys a home without a mother was being lived and experienced day by day while the faithful father cooked and washed and mended and worked and toiled for them. Poor old Uncle Zack! His road seemed rough and hard, and his burdens many and heavy, but he fought a good fight and when four score years had marked their joys and tragedies upon his trestle-board of life he laid himself down in eternal sleep amid the wav- ing fields of Monona County.
48
DOWN ON THE RIDGE
In the year 1872 probably, Lum, who had a short time before married Miss Panthy Cladwell, one of the Ridge singers and best girls, went to Monona County where, down in the Soldier Valley, then forty miles from no- where, he purchased land and made for himself and fam- ily a home. He pioneered there. I do not know, but I have often wondered if their going to Eugene, Oregon, a few years ago, to make a home in a strange land and among strange faces, grew out of the afflictions that rent the hearts of these good people so sorely, down in the Soldier Valley.
Another of the older set was Cass Smith. If I should leave off the Christian name you would all know whom I mean. Cass was the son of a potter, and in due time followed the trade himself. It was a caution to see him make a jug. I imagine he found few, if any one, who could turn out as many pieces of ware as he could. Before he took up the potter trade he, among other odd jobs, baled shingles at the Welch factory, and he was the swiftest peddler of shingles I ever ran up against. He and I had the championship in that line of work down there. For the sake of peace I will agree that he and I won a draw in the race. Cass was industrious, always had the "mon, " was neat as a pin, and if there was a girl in that community belonging to about three generations that Cass had not " gone with " I should like to see the color of her hair. He roamed around in so many "pastures green " that it seemed he was hard to please and would probably revel in bachelor hall for the rest of his life, but long after he had grown bald and forty he married, and lives in Grundy Center, this state.
In a little while when the spirit moves me, and the muses come and kindle in my soul the warm, bright blaze of the cherished past, I want to call around my little table the real boys who with me. chased the bright-wing-
49
ABOUT THE OLD BOYS
ed butterfly, and with them talk over the old days, when the pendulum in the clock of time seemed to us so slow, so low, as we waited and watched, while we builded cas- tles in the air, down on the Ridge.
CHAPTER VI
BOY LIFE. THE DAYS WHEN THE BLOOM WAS ON THE PEACH.
I want to talk to you a little while to-night about the real boys of more than forty years ago. I would call around me for a brief period Frank and Charley Crouch, Tell and Zach., Gus and Mont, Lark and Joe and Dick, and while we are thus assembled and all the world is shut out, and the stars in their twinkling glee are making merry in the arching sky, and the new moon, like a huge powder- horn all polished and clean, hangs in the western sky, while the noise of the rushing multitude in their mad race for gold is hushed, all I crave, just for to-night, is that each be once more his own true self, free from the mask that all men wear, while we unfold and rehearse the plays put upon the boards away back yonder when life with us was new.
I am sure it will do you and me good, now that the blinds are securely drawn and the gazing world shut out, to go back to memory-land and bring out from the buried past those little incidents, little dreams, little tragedies and little bright spots that reached out their beckoning hands to us all along the way, lending cheer and sunshine to our young lives, and that now come to us as beautiful golden settings in the way back yonder of our life journey.
-
PRATT. S. AND R. T COFFMAN AND L. M. MARTIN.
%
51
RIDGE BOY LIFE
Don't you know the pictures of boyhood painted on memory's canvas are the most beautiful in this old world's gallery ? Sometimes there is a tinge of sadness in their coloring, but they are sacred to us and we love them.
Say, boys, don't you see that little schoolhouse just on the brow of the hill? the road near by ? here and there great stretches of hazel brush and scrubby oaks with now and then a wild cherry tree off which we used to lunch ? the slippery elms up in Aunt Mary's grove we, when the sap was up, skinned from the ground to the very top, and the long, white, fresh ribbons we made a full meal on, and the short, thick pieces we dried and played they were tobacco ?
I know you lads will remember how we used to go, two by two, up to Aunt Mary's well for water. and how we drank from the old moss-covered bucket which hung in the well, suspended from a long pole sweep, and how, with a stick run through the bail of the bucket, we returned with the object of our mission. Time was use- less to us. We stopped on our way both going and coming to make strict search in every hazel bush for a stray bird's nest, stopping the while to make with our naked toes the appearance of a snake track in the dust where an imaginary snake had wiggled across the road. When the schoolhouse was finally reached one of us would pass the water to the thirsty throng, remembering the big girls first, and, after all, be kept in after school for being nearly a half day going after water.
Now, I am not going to tell anything bad about any one of you boys, but I am going to tell you how because one time I put ink on my forehead, cheeks and chin, a punishment was inflicted to me then most severe, but would not be so now. The teacher put an old splint sunbonnet on me and set me down between two big girls, where for a full hour or two nothing was more fascinating to me than a small
52
DOWN ON THE RIDGE .
knot-hole in the schoolhouse floor ; and then you devilish boys called me "sissy boy " for a week.
It will be remembered how we played "blackman," and how we used to employ relay races in our efforts to catch Gus Everett, who had wind and endurance like a fox- hound ; and even after Gus was finally captured it took the whole bunch to turn him over so as to give him the required . number of taps on the back. We played "rollie-hole " and "leapfrog " and "blindman," and then we would gather up a bunch of the little girls and play "ring-around-rosy " and "frog in the meadow, " and then it was a game of "mum- ble-peg, " and to wind up we would "crack the whip," big boys at the head and the little tads on the tale end. You know what happened.
We used to slip away and meet at some agreed spot and go to the river for a swim, and when our lust for water had been satisfied we quietly crawled out on the sand-bar and dried our hair in the sun. Uncle Tom Smith in his seeing days said he knew those McCown and Coff- man boys a mile away by their red, sun-blistered backs. How can we ever forget the old, green, scum-covered swimming holes down on Competine, and the time we found a bunch of girls enjoying one of those resorts, all naked as new-born babies fresh from storkland? They were playing baptizing. One of them was an expert in the play, and "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," down she sent them under the scum and up they popped, each with an old, mud leech fastened to her back.
The days and weeks leaped into months and months into years, and as we boys grew older we unconsciously drifted into larger and different sports. During the winter season we would get our last spring calves together in yokes and break them to draw wood, and it just beat all what monstrous loads we imagined we were hauling as
53
RIDGE BOY LIFE
we distributed them here and there among the "war- widows" and in our own wood piles. Oh! the wild, joyous fun we had breaking those calves to the bow and yoke !
Now we began to turn our attention to the girls. The older boys being in the army, we fellows had our own way at our little parties and "taffy-pullings, " and it was nothing to see one of these youngsters prancing around with a girl nearly old enough to be his mother. We thought we were heavy, and of course the girls were lonesome.
Then the dance craze struck the Ridge, and away we went. Of course the dancing in our community was merely of a local character and just among ourselves. If the gathering, which was always informal, at which no boys wore "claw-hammer" coats nor girls dressed a la decollette, happened to be in a fairly pious place we whistled for the dance ; but if not a pious place, the fiddle was tuned up and the "nigger hoe-down, " as the father of one of us called it, was installed, and it was "on with the dance and let joy be unconfined " until a late hour.
After all, there was not much real dancing done on the Ridge. But those of us who were real anxious to dance could be accommodated over on " Whitebreast Prairie," or up in the woods, or south in the "English " neigh- borhood. I remember one of you boys with me, went to a dance down there one time at which there were only about eight women, all of whom were married, grass or sod widows (mostly grass), and old maids, seventy- five per cent. of whom smoked "long green " in clay pipes. They smoked between dances and carefully laid their pipes away when asked to join in a dance, and at the con- clusion of each change and sometimes while swinging them "on the corner" they would retreat to some se- cluded spot in the room to expectorate ; and very often
54
DOWN ON THE RIDGE
accentuated by the little clay pipe and "long green," quantity cut a large figure in these evacuations.
I remember one time Pratt and I were at a dance in the same vicinity, and also Mel Fry, who lived in an adjoin- ing neighborhood. From some imaginary cause the bunch down there were about toenter into a conspiracy to retire us three from active circulation, but, seeing we were des- perate characters, even though in the minority, after due consideration concluded to allow us to roam in this forest a little while longer. Well, this little incident and one other pretty much like it settled the dance business with me, so far as I was concerned.
I now want to leave this testimony with you, my kind reader, that there is nothing good nor uplifting nor helpful, nothing that satisfies the soul nor polishes the mind nor makes the world better, in the dance. It never made a woman nobler or better. It never bound up a broken heart or wiped away a single tear. It never soothed a troubled breast or satisfied the longing of the human heart. The dance has never been a blessing to a human soul. It is the foe of happy homes and the foul destroyer of virtue. We danced in the face of open protest from those who sought to guide our feet in the right path. We enjoyed the dance, or thought we did. Joe and Lark and I thought we were reveling in delight every time Dick or Mont led out and balanced to their partners. Mont in these seances favored one foot and made the other do all the work, while Dick, though one of the very best of fellows, while in these stunts went at it like a Leghorn hen searching for worms for her young and ten- der brood. But as to the rest of us we were regular Chesterfields when in the giddy mazes of the dance.
To those in the adolescent age many things come and go that neither make nor mar their future lives. Most, if not all, of that goodly little company of boys and girls
H. M HEGWOOD.
55
RIDGE BOY LIFE
down there passed through the fiery furnace of tempta- tion with no smell upon their garments. Every one of them has been a valiant worker in the old world's work. I cherish the memory of every one of that splendid group who were the boys and girls then.
Now, boys, the hour is not too late, and perhaps I shall never talk to you all together again. I am thinking of all our comrades of those distant days-the boys and girls with whom we rambled and played on the new-mown hay or on the stack of clean, bright straw. We remem- ber the little girls we used to think so lovely and pretty or the boy who seemed so manly and brave, and now we wonder what has become of those youthful playmates, and where are the dreams we dreamed in those old days of happiness, which never came to us.
Of Frank and Charlie Crouch, only Charlie lives. Frank married Sallie Everett, one of the singers of the Ridge. Two boys, Harry and Emmet, cemented this home into one solid mass until one day, after a successful, winning battle in the world, while yet in the very harness, the working tools of life fell from Frank's palsied hands and he went into the over yonder land. Charlie lives in Knoxville. His children have never brought a gray hair to his head, and will never bring him in sorrow to his grave. He is a jolly man, serves God, and is a good citizen. Physically he is a monster. He moves among men like a huge ocean liner among a lot of little tug boats.
Tell left the Ridge rather early in his young man- hood and entered a printing office where he learned the printer's trade, since which time I have seen little of him. It will be remembered that he returned to the Ridge sometime after his going away, bringing with him his pretty young bride. She was a sweet, little
56
DOWN ON THE RIDGE
woman, daintily dressed in a not flashy but pretty green color. Only a few years at least did this boy enjoy his new home with its sweet binding ties, coming as it were from the sky land. She, like a rose plucked from the stem, perished and went out into the unknown. This boy's home gods were thrown down, and with only their remembrance burned deep into his sore heart he drifted here and there, and only a little while ago died in the Home for Printers at Colorado Springs.
Zach was the real chum of my young manhood down on the Ridge. He, a few years before, took supreme delight in calling me " Mr. McCoon, " in pure derision, while I sat peacefully on a cane pile, intently waiting for the "stirring off " time when the lickings would begin. He licked me when I made for him, and on repeating the name was attacked and unmercifully skinned by me. He one time dragged his dirty big toe through the dust in the road and dared me to toe the line. I did it, and skinned him again. He of all the rest down there has been my true and tried friend through all the years. In our courting combats up and down the land he knew all my battles and 1 knew his. He came and in perfect trust poured out his heart to me, while with the same abiding faith I told him of my victories and defeats in that war- fare in which most young men rush bravely up to the firing line, win or lose, sink or swim, survive or perish.
Zach early in the '70's went to Monona County and now owns a good farm right up against the town of Ute. He married Miss Ella Cummins, of that neighborhood, a most excellent woman, belonging to one of the best families of the county. For more than thirty years he and I have carried on a regular correspondence. Once in a great while our paths cross, but the tomahawk is deep in the earth's cold bosom buried ; no more its thirsty edge shall taste the life-inspiring current, nor in dread conflict
ZACK COFFMAN.
1
-
L
57
RIDGE BOY LIFE
cleave the proud citadel where reason sits enthroned ; no more will his hands tear my eyes, nor my finger nails claw out his, but henceforth shall our mission be one of peace and good-will to all upon the earth.
Gus! How well I remember that chubby, fat cousin of mine, more than fifty-one years ago! The old Des Moines River was out of its banks most of the summer of 1857, and the consequence was my father's family had to live among the " scholars," or roost on top of Mt. Ararat, which stood just over against the potter shop. I stayed at Uncle John's as long as I could at one time. Gusand I were like ducks for water and mud. We made dams in the branch below the house and raised merry Cain. Some- times we were water and mud from head to foot. Then Uncle John would threaten to lick both of us, when I would make a break for Uncle William Crouch's, just over the way. Then Frank and Charlie and I would go to the creek and have a round-up and sometimes get into a scrap, usually Charlie and I against poor Frank; then away I would hike to my grandmother's, down in the Ramey neighborhood. There she would get out her old "canthook " and yank out a tooth if one should ache, telling me all the while it wouldn't hurt, or set me to pulling weeds in the garden, and away I would go to Uncle John's again.
Gus loved fun. He loved to dance and sing and have a good time. Of all the singers down on the Ridge Gus stood at the head of the list. It is said that "music hath charms to soothe the savage beast." If so, and I know it is true, when Larry and Gus and "Panty " and Sallie sang hearts were softened that language could never have touched, never would have responded with an answering echo.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.