All three of my brothers were climbers.  There were no mountains, nor even any hills on our farm, so they had to climb whatever was handy.

 

The straw stack was one of their favorites.  You know. Pretend it’s a mountain.  Dad never fenced the cows and horses away from the straw stack, so it never took long before all the straw around the outside was either eaten or tramped down until it looked like a giant toadstool.  It wasn’t all that easy to climb onto the stack then, but they could do it.

 

They would climb in the barn, all around the rafters.  You should have seen them go hand over hand all the way across the barn, hanging from the hay loft track.  Sometimes they’d go all the way across playing “follow the leader”, other times they’d drop—one at a time or all at once—onto the hay below.  All of this was accompanied by lots of screaming and hollering and laughter.

 

Then there were trees and we had lots of them.  This story involves my brother Charles, when he was six years old, and a big cherry tree that stood only a few yards from the back door of our house.  It was a red cherry tree.  You know, with the sour cherries used for baking those scrumptious pies.

 

Well, it was spring, just as the cherries were beginning to ripen in the top of the tree. That’s the way it works.  If they are exposed to the direct sun rays, they ripen faster.

 

Anyway, Charles was way up in the top of the tree, picking and eating some of the tree’s “first fruits”, when Mom caught him.  She was coming out the back door, wiping her hands on her apron, when she spotted him up there—precariously perched on the highest limb that would hold him.  She literally shrieked at him.  “Charles!  Charles!  Get down out of that tree before you fall and break your arm!”

 

No, Charles wasn’t really a disobedient boy, just mischievous.  He knew Mom wasn’t about to climb the tree to make him get down, so he decided to play the moment for all it was worth.  He broke off a little limb with several reasonably ripe cherries on it and threw it down to her.  “I’m not going to fall, Mom.  Here, I’m throwing you some cherries.”

 

“No!  I don’t want any cherries.  I just want you down from there before you fall and break your arm!”

 

Still baiting Mom, he reached out as far as he could and called down, “See, Mom, I’m all right.  I won’t fall.”  But, Mother had prophesied correctly.  He did fall and he did break his arm.  The limb broke and down he came, clawing and grabbing at limbs all the way down.  It might not have hurt him at all, but his arm was kind of twisted under him when he hit the ground, kerplunk.

 

All of the screams and cries from both Charles and Mom attracted the attention of Uncle Bela Woodworth who was horseback riding only a couple of hundred yards away.  He was across the road in one of the back fields of the Black Walnut Farm.  I am told that Uncle Bela’s big black horse leaped the fence as they charged across the field and into the yard to see what had happened.

 

It was obvious that Charles’ arm was broken.  Dad wasn’t at home, so it was agreed that Uncle Bela would take Charles to LaGrange on his horse, and that’s what he did.  Mom bandaged his arm and made a crude sling and away they went.  Uncle Bela took him to “Old” Dr. Schrock’s office and he set Charles’ arm

 

News travels fast in a small town, and it didn’t take long for Dad to find out what had happened.  He came to the doctor’s office and then took Charles home in the car.  Dad wasn’t happy.  He lectured Charles all the way home about the dangers of climbing.  But, that’s not the end of the story.

 

As spring ended and summer wore on, the broken arm was knitting very nicely.  It had slowed Charles down.  A little.  Just before time for school to start in the fall, catastrophe struck again.  With his arm out of the sling, Charles was rolling an old Model T tire on top of the long chicken house.  It had a corrugated metal roof which gave off a nice rumbling sound to the rolling tire.

 

Through the back window, Mom saw him.  Practically flying, she rushed out the back door shouting, “Charles!  Charles!  Get off that roof before you fall and break your arm again!”  She startled him and sure enough, it took his mind off what he was doing just long enough that he and the tire went plunging off the end of the chicken house.  He landed on a horse drawn mower standing alongside.

 

Can you guess what happened?  No.  You’re wrong.  It was worse.  He not only re-broke his arm, but he also broke his good arm.  When Dad brought him home this time, he had both arms in a sling.

 

The silver lining in this dark cloud was that now Charles wouldn’t be able to start the first grade.  The worst indignity of it all was that, without the use of his arms, he couldn’t feed himself, so sisters Edie and Mary were assigned to see that he got fed.  He nearly starved before he’d open his mouth so they could feed him.  They’d say, “Open your beak, little birdie” and then laugh.  They were getting even for some of the pranks he had played on them.

 

Moral? Obey your mama!