More memories of old school days 60 and 70 years ago come to me. I remember how Clara Loughmiller Franz, a favorite cousin, and I used to walk two miles to school every day for ten or twelve years over the same road. Nobody knows what our conversation was over the years but know what we talked about would fill a big book. Also remember the time I gave Edna a surprise April Fool's joke and she just quick hit me in the nose - just a little love tap, I guess, but it really hurt.
     To mention a few of our school mates would be the Nicholases, Bahrets, Clements, Marts, Albins, Coffees, Huffmans, Vennebergs, McKinseys, Kroths, Bottoms, Manuels, Osborns, Loughmillers, Morfords, Peasleys, and many others.
     Years passed and my brothers and sisters married, families scattered and raised families of their own. George and John moved to Arapaho, Oklahoma, where they homesteaded land and raised their families. We younger boys would go down to visit them and enjoy being in the "wild west" and hunting and fishing on the Washita River.. While visiting at brothers, George and John, I met a nice Oklahoma maiden - Marion White was her name - and we would take our ponies and drive the cattle to water. I took her to church at the schoolhouse nearby. This was my first experience of having a girl friend. But what was the use? There were lots of lady friends in Kansas too.
     As time went on I was most duty bound to stay and help my parents. In 1906, when I was 22, mother passed away. Father and I hatched off and on with the help of two or three housekeepers, one of which was a grand old lady from England who had specialized in cooking and had taught cooking in the schools of London and Paris. Her specialties were puddings and pies. Liver puddings and "bubble-and-squeak" pudding (scraps and every- thing) father and I were not too fond of. But she says, "If You don't eat it this time, you'll have to eat it the next time." But the pork pies were simply delicious. Usually on Sunday nights, after coming home from visiting my lady friend, I would find and sample the pork pie she had left from Sunday dinner.
     Then Rose Clements, a niece, after her teaching term was over usually In May, would come and keep house for us and we would have the best times. One little incident when Rose was keeping house for father and me, she liked greens in the spring of the year. I would bring her in some sour dock. She would say, "Harley, I like greens but I'm not going to eat all of that dock you have out there." Well, Rose, there Is still plenty of dock.
     Fred Watts, an admirer of Rose, would come and spend Sunday evenings with her and, of course, always have a box of finest chocolates which sweetened things a bit. A few years later they were married and lived on English Ridge and raised a nice family.
     We had good neighbors in the early days at Avoca - the Loughmillers, Segrists, Hagers, Achenbacks, Vanderwalds, McMullens, Zeigenbeins, Peasleys, Ernests, Salisburys, Frank Kroths, and Nicholases, and a lot more, and of course, a lot of good neighbors on English Ridge and at Buck's Grove.


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