Benjamin Makes His Mark

By Arline R. Gaugler

This story, Benjamin Makes His Mark, takes place when there are no telephones in the beginning of the story, at least for most of the country people, no central heating, no electric sweepers, and no electric refrigerators yet. They have a cabinet with a square box outlined in metal. This holds a block of ice.

They use wood and coal for cooking and baking. They have a parlor heater to heat the living room, and the kitchen stove heats the kitchen. Some people have a fireplace in both the living room and in the kitchen and some in a bedroom upstairs.

They grow most of their food and raise livestock for their milk, butter, and meat and raise chickens for eggs and for the meat. They also raise a few geese or turkeys and have their own clucks (breeding chickens).

Most of the clothing is sewed with a sewing machine you pedal for power, no electric sewing machines yet.

There is no transportation to school (one-room schoolhouses), no taxi, or bus. Some towns have a trolley. There are trains and no airplanes. Horses are used for the family transportation.

No bowling alleys, tennis courts, and golf courses; just baseball played in the fields by the children.

Some farms still use kerosene lamps and candles; they are not yet hooked up to electric.

Cleaning the outhouse (outside toilet) is a very difficult job but must be done once a yearand lime thrown in the pit below.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483600086

Arline R. Gaugler

Arline Gaugler began writing her first manuscript for a book in 1992 shortly after she retired from working at the age of sixty-four. In total, Arline has written twelve manuscripts, which have all remained unpublished until her self-published Benjamin Makes His Mark in late 2012. At the age of eighty-four, Arline Gaugler was finally able to see her dream of publishing her first book come to pass. Arline was born in Bally, Pennsylvania, in 1928 and lived with her parents, Eva Reigner Gaugler and Harry Warmuth Gaugler, for her entire life. Arline was never married and did not have any children. She began reading paperback novels after the death of her mother in 1992 and then decided she wanted to write books. Stories of the past that her parents and grandparents shared with her were precious to her, and they became the focus of her writing. Arline worked most of her life as a telephone operator before the time of automatic call switching. She connected callers by manually plugging in phone lines to complete the connection. She originally worked for the Conestoga Telephone Company in Sassamansville and later in their Boyertown office in rural Pennsylvania. When technology eliminated the need for manual switch operators, Arline finished her communications career as a private switchboard operator for C. S. Garber & Sons Inc. well drillers in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. Arline believes that anyone who has words stored in their hearts should share them with the world no matter what their age. It took Arline eighty-four years to make her mark.

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Copyright © 2013 by Arline R. Gaugler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 02/25/2013

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was written in 1992. For more than two decades, the manually typed pages were tucked away in a drawer in my bedroom. The pages were wrapped in aluminum foil for safekeeping and nearly forgotten. The hope of publishing my book had long since faded. It seemed like one of those dreams that just was not meant to be.

In 2012, a casual conversation with my good friend Randy Doaty about poetry and his passion for writing gave me reason to unearth my own manuscript for Benjamin Makes His Mark. Randy asked if he could read my work. I was honored but had little hope for anything more than a benevolent unpublished book review. Little did I know that I was on my way to authorship at the age of eighty-four.

With the help of Randy and some other helpful souls, my book was on its way to being published. The new self-publishing industry had opened a window of opportunity for me late in life. I am truly thankful to everyone who played a role in helping an old woman realize her dream to become an author. My only regret is that my parents never got to see my book in print. They would have been so proud.

I would like to offer special thanks to the following:

Randy Doaty—for encouraging me to get my manuscript out of the drawer, for dusting it off, and for taking the time to read my work. Randy became my volunteer literary agent and recruited the other kind souls who contributed their time and talents. I am eternally grateful to Randy for helping me fulfill my dream of publishing my own book.

Elizabeth Heckman—for agreeing to retype my entire manuscript into an electronic format. The manually typed manuscript needed to be converted into an MS Word document. She also assisted with her editing skills. This kind young woman was an integral part of making my dream come true as well. Thank you, Liz!

Julie Longacre—for providing a custom watercolor painting of the very farm that I envisioned in my mind as I was writing this manuscript. Julie is a famous local artist from Bally, Pennsylvania, who took time to listen as Randy shared my dream of publishing a book. Her custom painting adorns the cover of my book and will forever hold a place in my heart. Thank you, Julie!

Chapter 1

My story begins with a little boy in a family of six children, him being three years older than his oldest sister. As the story unfolds, Benjamin is twelve, Charlotte ten, Mary eight, Jane five, John three, and Luke is one year old. Benjamin’s mother, Sally Yoder Moyer, is now thirty-one; his father, Cyrus Moyer, is thirty-five. The children call her Mom and him Pop.

Mr. and Mrs. Moyer own a small farm with dairy cows, pigs, chickens, geese, and, of course, their horses, needed to pull the plow and so forth and for their transportation. Each year, they also raise two steers (beef) for butchering. The beef and pork supplies them with meat for the entire year. I will reveal later just how this meat is preserved.

It is a hard life, difficult to make it a moneymaking business, but it pays their taxes; life insurance; wood, coal, and kerosene for heating; their feed bills; clothes; and so forth. Most of the feed and grain is raised here on the farm, but it is never enough; this farm is too small for that. They have to go to the feed mill for some.

There is electricity on the farm now, but when the parents were younger, they had all kerosene lamps, lanterns, and candles. The parents speak Pennsylvania Dutch to each other, which is a little bit like High German. The children speak some of it but are told to speak English because of going to school. No Pennsylvania Dutch allowed there.

(It is spring.)

Benjamin looked out the window of his bedroom to see what the weather was like. Being twelve, it is up to him to see that his sisters get to school okay and dry. They have quite a distance to walk, and it seems to take longer when there is inclement weather. His day starts earlier than theirs does. He has to get out to the barn and help his pop milk the cows. His Mom feeds animals and poultry until it is time to prepare breakfast and to see to it that Charlotte, Mary, and Jane are indeed up and ready for school. Benjamin is the first one to eat since he has to wash and dress for school after he finally gets in from the barn. Mom usually waits to eat with Pop a little later. Once in a while, it works out that they all sit down to breakfast at one time, except, of course, for the little boys. John usually awakens one-year-old Luke, and then those two want to eat at once.

(Benjamin is thinking to himself.)

I really wonder if farming is such a good idea! We all work very hard. I guess I’ll never amount to anything more than a poor farming fool. I want to have something more out of life. I want to make a difference, make a mark in the family, for them, but also for myself. how can it be possible? Besides, some mornings I would like to stay in bed longer, not up at four thirty in the morning. Evenings, after supper and the cows have been milked, I wash up and do my school homework and then go to bed. I don’t have time to meet with other boys and play ball. Charlotte and Mary have to help Mom, but at least they can stay in bed longer. well, no use standing here looking, may as well get out to the barn. The girls may get up at the usual time today.

It’s not that I hate farming, but it is the early and late hours I hate. Pop and Mom never complain about farm work, at least not in front of us kids. Even in the winter months, there is a lot of work. Pop usually works on the farming equipment and services and oils whatever needs to be done at least once a year. There is always painting and whitewashing in the barn and overshoot and fences around the house. These he usually does when there is no plowing or planting to be done.

Mom does the yearly spring and fall thorough house cleaning when there is no gardening or canning fruits and vegetables. This means moving everything and cleaning rugs and windows. She puts the rugs over the wash line, and then we children have to help her beat them with the rug beater. This is the girls’ job; I get out of that.

She usually takes our overalls (jeans) and coveralls up to the attic. She has the new ones in the trunk there, which we wear in winter. Then during spring and summer, she changes it again and brings down the old ones to wear. They are cooler after they have been worn and washed time and again.

Mom is always baking, it seems. We always have fresh pies. She bakes A.P. cake and shoofly pie for breakfast. My mom makes the best bread too. Oh, our house smells so good. I hope someday I will have a house that smells like this. When she bakes bread and raised cakes, there is yeast in it. You should smell the house. She puts sweet crumbs on top of those cakes, and some she glazes with icing instead. I like the ones with the icing the best.

Our house also always looks so nice. Everything is in its place, and it smells so clean.

We all have chores, even little John and Luke. They have to put their toys away at the end of the day. Charlotte and Mary must collect the eggs in the chicken house. I used to have to do this. I didn’t care for it. i hated when the chickens flopped their wings at me. Feathers were flying, and with the dust, you could hardly see through. Jane has to help dry dishes and dust furniture. Mom says it is best to be trained early in life. Charlotte and Mary are also learning how to bake and cook as part of their chores. Mom says they are already good at making pie dough. On days that there is no school, they have to help get breakfast. We usually have eggs, fried potatoes, and scrapple or pot pudding (some call that liver pudding or pot sausage). It is meat cooked and ground when butchering. It’s sort of like scrapple but with a lot of liver in it, and you spoon it onto your plate. Lard is spread overtop to preserve it and is removed before heating it in the oven to eat. Mom and Pop cook apple butter; Mom cooks ketchup. Scrapple is usually eaten with one of these or molasses spread on top. I like ketchup best on mine. Besides having breakfast cakes, Mom usually opens a jar of her canned peaches or pears for breakfast too.

Each year, when it is cold outside, this is when Pop butchers a steer and two pigs. Uncle Chester and several neighbors come and help. They get meat in return for their labors. My pop makes the best sausage and scrapple. Everyone who helps him looks forward to getting some. He pours the hot mixture into large scrapple pans. Pop and his helpers cut the fat from the meat, cut it up, and fry the fat in the big black kettle. He then presses the fried pieces with a large deep hand press, and we have our lard in the pots to use for cooking and baking. He pours the hot lard into earthen pots or crocks. What is pressed out of the fat and fried looks like a flat crunchy cake. We eat a little bit of it, but it is much greasier than potato chips, and this is eaten while it is still hot. Most of it is thrown out.

Mom preserves a lot of the meat in jars, which has to be cooked, baked, or fried first. Then lard is placed just under the jar lids. This is called canning meat. Some of the beef Pop puts up in containers like pickle barrels. There is so much salt added to the water over the top, it must float a raw egg when it is strong enough. This meat is called corned beef. The hams (the thighs of pigs) are seasoned by rubbing a lot of salt all over them. Then with a big hook in each, they are hung in the smokehouse out behind the outhouse. They are thoroughly smoked using smoldering hickory wood. After that, each ham is carried up to the top of the barn and hung in the granary from the rafters of the barn. It always surprises some people that the meat keeps there, in with the grain.

Mom usually cans her pickles (in jars), instead of preserving any in a brine barrel like the corned beef.

I feel cheated in life at times but only grumble to the dog. The dog is my sounding board. On some days, it is the horses I talk to while cultivating the cornfields.

Here is a story Mom tells about me, and I quote her.

"One day when Benjamin was eight, his pop hitched up Dick, the gentile workhorse, and took Benjamin along to cultivate the field. Benjamin wanted to do it himself. After circling the field the second time, his pop decided to let him do it alone. Dick was obeying Benjamin, so Pop got off and watched. Benjamin kept the cultivator in place, did not accidentally dig out any corn plant, which is easy to do if you aren’t especially careful, or if the rows are planted crookedly. Both Benjamin and his pop felt real good about this. Thereafter, Benjamin got to help with all the cultivating. Now, this was one thing he really liked to do.

"One day, there was a cornfield planted close by the back of the barn, and it was time to be cultivated. Cyrus (his pop) started Benjamin’s row and then he left to do other chores, leaving Benjamin and Dick, the horse, by themselves. The sun was very hot, but it was a short field. Cyrus would occasionally walk back to the barn and see Benjamin doing just fine. Later, he was expecting Dick and Benjamin to be coming back to the barn, but there was no sight of them. He pulled out his pocket watch several times and then went to check. He hurriedly walked through the field, but did not see Benjamin. He could hear the horse snorting as he got closer and closer. then, he saw Benjamin was lying asleep in front of the horse’s legs,