The house I grew up in had a view, if not much else. It was a nearly square two story house with an attic and a cellar. Three steep staircases connected the floors. The cellar floor was the natural bedrock on which the house rested. In wet weather, a steady trickle of water flowed across it. A few planks placed on the most traveled routes let you walk with only a little risk of wet feet. There were two dim windows in the cellar for light, and of course no switches to turn on because there was no electricity.

On the first floor, there was a kitchen with a coal stove for cooking, a living room with a coal stove for heating, a parlor without any stove, and a “work room”. The kitchen had a dry sink on which the water buckets rested, with room for the wash basin. A kitchen table held the dishpan for washing dishes, and often served as the lunch table, although as the family grew larger, we had to eat in the living room at a large table. The parlor had a reed pump organ and, later, a “victrola”. The victrola was spring driven, and had to be wound. The spring ratchet was worn out so that to hear a record, you had to stand beside the machine and crank it every minute or so to keep it running. We learned very early that the speed of the record changes the pitch of the music.

In the work room was the cream separator. When the cows were producing, it was always an interesting time of day to watch the milk being separated. The milk was poured through a cheese cloth strainer into the tin covered metal bowl. Then the youngster whose job it was to turn the separator took the handle and wound it round and round until it built up enough speed to separate the lighter cream from the rest of the milk. The machine was really a manual centrifuge. In the handle was a small bell, the kind that has a dome shaped bell and underneath it but out of sight, a clapper pivoted on the center bolt. As you turned the handle, the bell dinged once each revolution until you built up enough speed to allow centrifugal force to hold the clapper against the rim. You had to keep it going that fast until all of the milk had drained from the bowl. There were two spouts, one above the other, and two pails, a small one and a large one. The small one caught the cream, the large one the skim milk. We almost never drank whole milk, saving the cream to sell or to make butter. My sister Leora would catch a cup of skim milk as it ran from the spout and drink it with relish. Still warm, of course, just brought in from the cow.

The upstairs had four small bedrooms arranged around a central hall, and what we called the clothes press. That would be called a walk-in closet in today’s house. At night the central hall had an oil lamp set in the middle and at one side, the “pot”. I learned about modesty and privacy after I was a teenager. It was not difficult to climb out of the windows onto the porch roofs, either front or back, for adventure and exploration.

In one of the bedrooms was a door going to the attic. There was no door on the stair from the first floor to the second, but the youngsters who slept in the room with the attic door usually made sure that it was shut at night. There was a floor on the central part of the attic, and a window at each end. Most of the time it was used for storage. The unfloored part was dark and mysterious, and had things in it like an old telephone, some old catalogs, and other rarely used things.

Speaking of catalogs, yes we did use them in the outhouse. The pages with tools and mundane things were best, because the paper was a relatively soft newsprint and would crumple easily, whereas the ladies dresses were printed on glossy pages that were stiff and folded into sharp corners. Other alternatives were cornhusks and plantain leaves. I never tried a corncob. They appear to be too scratchy. When the outhouse got too smelly, we put a scoop of slaked lime down the hole after each use. That was quite effective.

I said at the beginning that the house had a view. It was built on a step of what we called Orville’s hill. The hill was a round knob positioned on a relatively flat area, that then dropped a few feet more to the shelf on which the house stood, and finally down to the hollow through which the run flowed. The house faced west, but the run crossed the northern side before turning south to cross the western view. Beyond the run was a long expanse of field that finally sloped up to the forested ridge that formed the horizon. One of my favorite memories is watching a storm approach from the west; first blotting out the horizon and then advancing across the fields until the drumming rain deluged the house. Afternoon thunderstorms were especially spectacular, frequently followed by rainbows as the sun came through again.

Just below the house was a barbed wire fence and a pasture. Next to the fence was a pine tree. It was good for climbing if you didn’t mind the pitch on your hands and clothes.

But the nicest part was the cow-manicured lawn just inside the pasture. It was much better than the lawn next to the house because we did not have a very useable lawnmower. There was someone else’s cast-off that would chew the grass off after a fashion if you gave it a hard push, backed off a bit and than gave it another, over the whole lawn. The cows did a better job in the pasture, cropping the grass close and smooth. There were, however, certain hazards in the pasture. One day Lois and I were getting ready to play house in a particularly inviting section shortly after the cows had left. She rolled under the barbed wire to get into the pasture, right over a freshly deposited cow pile. I think we had to discard the dress, although they were few and precious. That dress had been made from a curtain that our mother had saved from an earlier house. Lois got an unscheduled bath, before Saturday night even.

The nearest public road was about a half mile away to the north. The nearest store and the school were a mile away. The church was about four miles by road, but we knew a few routes through the woods that made it more like three miles. We had lots of experience walking. But the house was an interesting place for growing up, with its hills, its view, its wells, the lane, and the two barns.

Paul B. Campbell