Buttertub Hill Kids

Curtis, being the youngest, got quite a few things that the rest of us would have liked to have had, simply because he was the baby. Among them, the spring he was five, was a beautiful new pair of rubber boots. Dad got them for him, and he got them plenty big so Curtis wouldn’t grow out of them so soon.

The first day Curtis had them, he put them on and went forth to see the world, and to wade in all the wet places he could find in it. I watched him with black envy in my heart as he stomped proudly out the path to the barn that cold, wet spring morning. The path to the barn had been made solid by the addition of coal ashes for many, many years, but on each side of it, there was a nice quagmire of black, sticky mud.

Out to the barn he went, and then down the hill past the horse tank, and through the gate where there was a lovely, big pool of water standing. What Curtis didn't know, was that it was standing on top of a deep puddle of soft mud. The milk cows would come up to that gate and wait to be let into the barnyard and while they waited, they’d move around and they had recently churned up a nice, deep pond of mud. I’d seen them standing there the night before in mud that came halfway to their knees, and it had rained more since then. That mud must have been two feet deep, and that's where Curtis went to try out his new boots.

When I saw him start into it, I forgot my envy and let out a yell of warning, but I was inside the house and he was many yards away and couldn't hear me. But it brought Mother running.

"Oh, my!" she cried, when I pointed to him, and she started to put on her boots and shawl to go rescue him.

But she was too late! He had stepped just as if he were stepping on solid ground and his foot went down as though he had stepped off a cliff!

Before you could say, “Jack Robinson,” he had stepped in with the other foot, lost his balance, and had plunged both arms into the black, sticky mess to try to keep from falling on his face!

About that time, Mother went out the door, and his loud, anguished wailing came floating in, but worse was yet to come. When he straightened up to get his arms out of the mud, he came up too hard, and since he couldn’t move his feet, he went right over backwards and sat down in mud that came up to his armpits. He let out a shriek that fetched Dad and the boys out of the barn on the run.

Mother, who was afraid he’d really get hurt, left the solid path and took off on the bias across and down the hill towards him. The minute her hurrying feet hit the mud alongside the path, they shot out from under her and down she went, long skirts, white petticoats, gray shawl and all! Golly, what a mess!

Dad waded in and rescued Curtis, but in the process he got stuck and stepped out of one of his boots. To keep his balance, he had to step into the mud with one socked foot and then back into this boot again with his foot covered with mud!

He came back along the path, carrying Curtis, who was mud from head to foot, and yelling at the top of his voice. John followed, carrying Curtie’s lovely, new rubber boots, now splattered inside and out with fragrant black, barnyard mud.

Robert had run to help mother who was sputtering like a wet hen and muddier than any hen I have ever seen, wet or dry. I don’t know whether she was most mad at Dad for getting Curtie the boots or at Curtis for wading into the mud puddle, or at me for laughing, but I know she was most awful mad.

Now hot water wasn’t easy to come by on a farm at that time. It was either heated on top of the stove, or in a tank fast to the side of the stove. The tank had to be filled with water, which we carried in buckets from a pump in the wash room, and since it was lots easier to use hot water than it was to remember to fill the tank, it was quite often found to be empty, as it was this day. Here were three people, badly in need of baths, and no hot water for them to bathe in.