A troublesome child

Jeannette Elizabeth

I was very good at pretending and the worst punishment I remember stemmed from that. We had a piano delivered in a huge crate and I decided to be a cow and put my head through the slats as I had seen Bessie in the barn at the farm. After screaming with my head stuck my mother finally had to call a neighbor and together they pried the boards loose.

The next week I was a lion at the zoo and squeezed my head between the bars of my iron bed. This antic took a great deal of expensive olive oil and a good hour to extract me. The following week Dad was making sauerkraut and the crocks were placed on the back porch. He filled each one as the cabbage matured but one was empty. 

When I had an urgent call to our one bathroom and found it in use I decided to pretend the empty crock was the outhouse at the farm. Unfortunately I slipped down and ended up with my knees locked under my chin. No amount of pulling by Mother and Aunt Olive gave results so Mother frustratedly said I could just stay there until Dad came home several hours later. When he at last did I was finally rescued by laying the crock on its side and one person pulling me and one pulling the crock, resulting in my now numb behind being revived by some very healthy blows.

At this point I decided to not pretend so much, especially after being sent to my room without dinner (after pretending I was an eagle and had to be retrieved from our neighbor's 100-year-old, three-story chestnut tree).

I shudder to think what would have happened if our parents had found out about us getting lost lost in an old mining tunnel which started falling apart, or having to climb down beneath the railroad tracks on the trestle when the train was coming and hanging on for dear life 100 feet above the ground.

I was always plotting running away from what I'm not sure. Perhaps to divert attention from my sister I tried it once when my sister was about a year old. I rolled up an Indian blanket (they were very popular in those days, usually wool and having bright Indian designs). Mother packed me a lunch and told Buster dog to go along to watch me. I left on my tricycle but didn't get far as mother had been making cookies and I was afraid sister would eat them all.

Another time I ran away because Dad warned I was going to get a switching (worse than a spanking). I went to a tree house in the nearby woods where I watched the house for hours as mother and neighbors searched for me. I thought this was working very well and waited until dark and sneaked into our playhouse Dad had built us. When Mother finally found me Dad had taken to his bed with a migraine and Mother was hysterical so after deciding they liked me after all I gave up on running away (that is until I was 16 but that's another story).