Elva Hurst - Summer on the Farm

These true stories recall my happy childhood days growing up in a large, loving Mennonite family. We lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in a community made up of many Amish and other Mennonite families who shared the big and small events of our lives.

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Cover by Aesthetic Soup, Shakoppe, Minnesota

SUMMER ON THE FARM

Copyright 2014 by Elva Hurst; Illustrations by Elva Hurst

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hurst, Elva, 1968-

Summer on the farm / Elva Hurst.

pages cm (Farm life series)

Summary: Eleven-year-old Elva has a very busy summer splashing in the creek, enjoying two family weddings, going to a fair, joining in hymn sings with other Mennonite youth, and helping prepare for school to begin anew.

ISBN 978-0-7369-6090-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-6091-5 (eBook)

[1. Farm lifeFiction. 2. SummerFiction. 3. Family lifeFiction. 4. MennonitesFiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.H95687Sum 2014

[Fic]dc23

2013047728

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Contents

Thank you to my siblings for all the help recalling summertime memories.

I settled into summertime with its rhythm of daily chores. In the morning and evening, I helped Dad milk our fifty dairy cows. During the day I helped Mom with the meals and other housekeeping chores. Occasionally the whole family helped with the fieldwork.

As the warm temperatures rose, so did my hopes for the first swim of the summer season. The stream that flowed through our farm was called Middle Creek. Dad said it had lots of springs flowing into it, so the water stayed cold longer than other creeks in the area.

The day we helped Mom harvest the green beans from the garden was hot. As sister Ruth and Mom picked bucket after bucket of beans, sister Eva Mae and I snipped off the ends. Mom then steamed the vegetables in hot water, and after they cooled, my youngest brother, Aaron Ray, helped pack them in bags for the freezer. Eva Mae suggested we test the water for swimming after finishing the beans. With a plan like that, our job suddenly seemed to go faster.

I glanced out the window just in time to see the neighbor boys riding their bikes past our place. With towels and inflated inner tubes draped over their shoulders, it was obvious they were going swimming too. How could they have known about our intentions? Once again they had interfered with our plans!

That family lived to the south of our farm and across the creek. They were a large family. Seven of the eight children were boys. We got alongmost of the time.

Just recently my brothers and sisters and I had cleared a path through the play woods in our neighborhood in hopes of secretly building a hut. The neighbor boys found the new path, and with a can of blue spray paint, they painted the words NO GIRLS ALLOWED on the rock by the entrance.

Spitefully we sprayed NO BOYS ALLOWED over their message in another color. All week the tension built as we battled back and forth and sprayed messages on the rock. It wasnt long before the rock was removed, and we felt a little guilty. All seemed fine when on Sunday afternoon, the neighbor boys kindly invited us to play a game of baseball in their big front yard.

We played inning after inning and cheered each other on. Afterward their mom treated us with cookies and cold lemonade. As we ate, we talked about the good game we had played, and there was no mention about the play-woods war.

Since we were not allowed to swim with the boys, we would have to wait until they finished. There they go again, messing up our plans, I moaned.

My sister grinned and said, Dont worry. This way they will scare away the snakes and snapping turtles for us.

Good idea, I said. I felt better as I turned to finish the last bucket of beans. During kitchen cleanup, we noticed the boys returning from their swim. So soon? I wondered. Perhaps the water was still too cold for swimming, but we decided to try it for ourselves.

Soon Ruth, Eva Mae, and I ducked under the pasture fence and followed the cow path along the creek to the far end of the pasture where there was an area in the creek deep enough for swimming. We called this area the swimming hole. Eagerly I scampered down the bank to the waters edge and tested the water with my toes. Oh! I cried, surprised by the chill and quickly pulling my toes out of the water.

Next to the swimming hole was a huge sycamore tree with a large hollow trunklarge enough for us to go insideand thick curving branches reaching out above the water. Our swinging rope dangled from one of those big branches.

After stepping inside the trunk to hang up my towel, I looked around the area. The neighbor boys had begun repairing the small dam at the mouth of the swimming hole. We decided to continue their cleanup efforts. Spring floods and wandering cows had disturbed the dam, so we hunted for rocks on the creek bank and added them to the dam, leaving a small opening to create a swifter current. We then floated on our backs and let the current carry us downstream. Knee deep in water, we hunted for more large rocks on the creek bottom until we were wet and shivering.

Ruthie looked at me and said, Your lips are blue!

I looked back at her and replied, Yours are blue too! We wrapped ourselves in our large bath towels and headed barefoot back to the house.

Late that afternoon my two oldest sisters, Vera and Alta, had returned from their days work at the sewing factory in town. They were very close in age, only fourteen months apart, and they shared the same car to drive to and from their jobs.

After changing into dry clothes, I felt cooled and very refreshed by the swim and a bit hungry, so I stepped into the kitchen for a little snack. Vera and Alta were there having a very intense discussion with Mom and Dad. I quickly retreated and leaned on the door frame to listen. It seemed both of their boyfriends had proposed marriage around the same time. Since it was tradition for weddings to be held at the home of the bride, they were fussing and fuming about who would marry first. My Dad had concerns about a wedding being held during the summertime, an especially hot and busy time of the year. He sat straddling a kitchen chair with his arms crossed over the backrest.

How about a double wedding? Mom suggested.

No, Dad said. That wouldnt work. There is not enough room in this house for so many guests.

Finally they agreed that both of my sisters would marrybut several weeks apart.

I returned to my bedroom to absorb the news. My sisters were getting married, and we were having two weddings in one summer!