In this sophisticated, mechanized age none but some who are classed as II senior citizens are likely to remember ever having attended pea hullings. Pea hullings turned out a large amount of hulled peas, band some sore fingers, but they were also social events. Like barn raising and quilting parties, they filled two needs, the speedy accomplishment of a big job and the need for social good times. In rural communities manual labor was an almost ever-present necessity and those big jobs went much faster when people got together and made a party of it. Before the days of big business entertainment, of every clean and sordid kind imaginable, country people were resourceful enough to make their own entertainment. The common activities of everyday life could be turned into fun; and rarely was any one ever smitten with boredom!
When I was a boy most farmers raised several acres of field peas. For hay the peas were cut with a mower about the time the first pods began to turn yellow. Our family reserved about two acres each year to be picked by hand, after the peas matured for table use and for seed. Most days after school, in the golden atmosphere of Indian summer, we children picked peas until chore time. By the time we finished the pea picking, we had a sizable mountain of unhulled peas stashed away in the granary. About every autumn a few pea hullings high-lighted the social season. Sometimes we gave one, but not often. It took a great deal of preparation for pea hullings, and the thought of cleaning up afterward usually made a housewife think twice. However, the contemplation of the many bags of hulled peas was apt to over-rule, along with the fact that the young people liked pea hullings.
A pea hulling was prepared for as for any party, going heavier on refreshments, perhaps, than they do now. The many kinds of fancy snack foods so common today were unheard of at that time, but the girls baked generous amounts of goodies -cookies, cake sometimes even pies, and always a luscious variety of homemade candy. Apples fresh from the orchard, unsprayed and unspecked were on hand to counter balance the sweets, and popcorn sometimes made an appearance. Furniture had to be removed, as far as possible, from one or two rooms, so that sheets or table cloths could be spread down to hold the big piles of peas. But before the peas were brought in, a brief period of fun and games, and perhaps a little impromptu group or quartette singing, served to launch the party.
Soon, however, the “main attraction” got underway, with everyone sitting flat on the floor, forming circles around the piles of peas. The seating arrangement was not exactly original. It followed a familiar pattern, the boy-girl design. It was hard to say which flew faster, fingers or tongues. A competitive spirit made sure the job did not lag and there were certain “bonuses,” which spiced up the interest. Every time a boy found a black pea, he got to kiss the girl of his choice. Black peas were rare, but if one hulled enough peas, he could count on finding one, or more. My brother. Eli, usually came up with more black peas than anyone. We could not figure out how he did so well. I suspected that he hunted out some black peas ahead of time and hid them in some convenient place, but as far as I know, no one every caught him at it; maybe it was luck!
I especially remember one pea hulling at our house, when Fred and I were both too young to enjoy kissing girls: but food we did go for! At that time parties were not for “age groups,” but for everybody, and the junior members got into the act with their contributions to the fun, inadvertently or otherwise. Frequently what Fred said turned out funny, whether he intended it to or not. For instance: his first day of school Teacher asked him if he had ever gone to school before. She was likely trying to help him establish his identity as a first grader, and she certainly expected a negative answer. But Fred proudly affirmed, “Yes, I went one day to old man Terry!”
This time Ruth passed the candy, and as everyone munched and rested their fingers, Eli noticing that Fred was not eating, asked “Fred, where is your candy?” It would appear that poor little Fred had been overlooked. Wearing a sad-eyed-hound-dog expression, Fred’s droll reply settled the question: “It’s – in – my bell- e -!”
This drew a gale of laughter. We laughed spontaneously at small things. We knew nothing of sophisticated comedy of the variety now current. Tame and relatively innocent, our “comedy” consisted of humorous skits in an occasional school play, and the witticisms of a master of ceremonies at a box or pie supper: and our own good-natured jokes. But a sense of humor was lacking in very few people. Fred’s answer would have been even funnier had we then for seen what heights of dignity he was destined to attain in adult life. We should have realized, even then that Fred would amount to something because he was the only one of us who had the ability to get out of work! A couple of circumstances might have contributed to this notable accomplishment. Being the youngest helped.
A terrible Accident, which almost took his life at the age of two served to further the spoiling process. I am sure it tore the heart out to see that miserable badly burned little fellow sitting long periods of time pinned into the high-chair, which seemed to be the best place Ma could find to put him during the day while his burns healed. There is no doubt but that it took a long time before the picture faded sufficiently for Ma and Pa to see Fred in a somewhat objective light. I was assigned the role of being his entertainer during that ordeal. His chief pastime was throwing down immediately, the toys I picked up.
Pea hullings were not the only activities autumn brought to the Ozarks. It was a tangy delightful season, a pageant of flaming color and a parade of busy, fruitful days. Luscious red apples and golden pears were picked and brought to the kitchen for processing: some of the best ones carefully wrapped and stored for winter eating some canned, some dried, and usually a batch or two of spicy applebutter cooked down in the big brass kettle in the yard. Sweet potatoes had to be dug peanuts pulled and picked off, the last of the green tomatoes and peppers gathered in before frost. The old folks always knew when to look for frost without benefit of weather reports. Their rheumatism served as a fairly accurate barometer.
After frost was “on the Punkin” and the “fodder in the shock.” came persimmon time, and nuttings-high-spirited outings into the countryside with bags or buckets, according to the particular quest of the day to gather nature’s abundance. In one thicket, that I remember, hazelnuts hung in clusters which must have rivaled the Garden of Eden, and black walnuts and hickory nuts were plentiful. A bee tree, full of honey was a thrilling and not unusual find: but capturing such a tree required special skills.
Yes, autumn brought a fitting and spectacular conclusion to our summer sweat. In memory I can again experience the feeling of accomplishment and well-being that surged over us while contemplating our barns and granaries tilled with feed for the animals, the cellar and storehouses bulging with a delectable assortment of fruits, vegetables nuts and other foods for us. Grocery bills were not the consideration they are now. The few items we needed, to supplement our own produce. Pa usually ordered in wholesale amounts, sometimes by the barrel. We made very few trips to the store for food.
Frosty November days found us in the wood-yard much of the time, sawing and splitting out winter’s wood supply. We kept a good amount of wood ranked against the wall on the back porch. Every possible preparation was made for the months ahead when another season would weave its own peculiar charm into our lives; when the tempo of the days would be slower and there was time for long evenings of listening to Pa read by the light of two oil lamps. We journeyed to the past and lived in the strange and exciting time of Christ with Ben Hur. We kept step with the Arkansas Traveler, we experienced the isolation of a jungle island with the Swiss Family Robinsons we joined the antics of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and other Mark Twain characters. I remember when Ma found out who Mark Twain was.
“Sam Clemens!” she exclaimed with surprise. “Why. I’ve heard Pa speak of him lots of times, Pa knew him well.” Grandpa Thornburgh had been a Mississippi riverboat pilot in his younger days, when Mark Twain had been only a caterpillar growing in a common “cocoon” called Sam Clemens. According to the way Ma remembered it her father had taught Sam Clemens to pilot. Later, it came Pa’s turn to be surprised. A new author, Harold Bell Wright burst with sudden brilliance upon the literary scene and Pa had a distant acquaintance with this man. He was a fellow minister of the Christian Church, whom Pa had on occasion, corresponded with. Harold Bell Wright is now known principally for “Shepherd of the Hills.” but he wrote other good books, my favorite being. “The Calling of Dan Matthews”.
Without doubt, those old fashioned winters had their own snug, fireside charms; gusty, sometimes severe “charms,” uncomfortable in the extreme, on cold nights, when we reluctantly left the warm precincts of the living room fire for the frigid zone of the bedrooms, where we shivered industriously until we generated enough heat to warm up the bed. The insulation provided by our long handles, which we slept in made it more bearable. To be sure, winter had its good points along with the bad. But autumn was a season unrivaled; at its peak a season to revel in! There were balmy days, when summer hung around for a last tantalizing rendezvous; wet, chilly days when the chrysanthemums drooped. Faded and sagged; crisp days and frosty nights when the honk of wild geese, passing high overhead, proclaimed the near approach of winter. The colorful mountains, at the peak of their splendor, resembled immense patchwork quilts spread over mountain sized piles of something such as perhaps dried, unhulled peas. But autumn had its bad points along with the good.
One of the best features of winter was the sense of security which our autumn preparations, the laying up for winter gave us. Gathering in the popcorn, apples and nuts had been fun of a sort, but eating them while we listened to Pa read at night, was more fun; and how good to know we would not have to roll out at 4:00 o’clock the next morning to start pressing sorghum cane! (This was autumn’s bad point!) Sorghum making was the biggest of the autumn jobs for the mare members of our family, but it resulted in big pans of aromatic gingerbread, and taffy, all through the winter and our part of the job was now done except for the eating! One way or another, sorghum contributed very largely to our sweet tooth and although we did not know it then also to our hemoglobin. But I can say, without the least hesitation those chilly early morning appointments with the sorghum mill was the worst thing autumn held for me! Usually Millard carried up the cane. Eli fed it into the press and I carried off the pumice. the spongy, cellulose material left after the juice is extracted. We had to start long before daylight in order to get ahead on the juice. so that when Pa started cooking right after breakfast there would be plenty of juice to keep him supplied. Later, Pa bought a two-horse mill, capable of turning out the juice faster and we did not need to start so early to keep ahead.
Perhaps autumns have not, changed, but memory is vesting those long-ago autumns with a magic quality I seem not to find anymore. Autumn still flaunts its colors, if only briefly the reds and golds of every hue, and maybe some take time to notice maybe some respond. But life has changed!
I doubt if people anywhere really enjoy the seasons the way we did in those more uncomplicated times, when each day brought an awareness of the simple things around us in the setting of the season.
Coming out of the past with the memory of those distant autumns garbed in the clear ringing voice of a school boy haunting words from Whittier step into the light of consciousness:
Heap high the farmer’s winter hoard.
Heap high the golden corn.
No richer gift hath autumn poured
From out her lavish horn.
