Home School History Day

The Henning Five gathered in front of the Bookhouse and waited patiently for Mrs. Wood too unlock the door. The cool autumn breeze teased the blonde hair of the children. The Henning children were homeschooled. Being homeschooled had its advantages. One of those advantages was Homeschool History Day. On History Day, the five children dressed up as their favorite characters or professions from history. Caleb was dressed in a coonskin hat and a leather jacket with fringes up both sleeves as Daniel Boone. Scott was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt and topped off his ensemble with a tattered cowboy hat and a red and white kerchief around his neck. Kelsey and Kerry were dressed as Mary and Laura Ingalls complete with homemade bonnets courtesy of their Grandma Stucky. Luke was dressed as a cowboy as well and his outfit closely mirrored his older brother’s. Christa did not dress up for history day. She was the mom and she could dress however she wanted.

 

The Henning family had chosen to spend their history day at the Bookhouse in Paris. The Bookhouse was a small building about ten feet wide by fourteen feet long. The was a skid style yard building with a small porch on the front that had been converted into a miniature library. The Bookhouse was owned and maintained by Mrs. Wood, a retired school teacher who had been responsible for part of Dale Henning’s early education. The Bookhouse, as its name suggests, was full of books. There were a number of built-in bookcases lining the walls including a bookcase that acted as a ladder to a small loft. The loft ran around three of the four walls and was also filled with books. There was a fake fireplace on the east wall. A rock that had been painted to look like a very realistic rabbit rested peacefully on the hearth. In a world designed for adults, a building built around children held a special draw for the kids. They loved it there.

Homeschool History Day did involve school work, otherwise it would just be called Home History Day. There were two or three desks and a small table in the Bookhouse where the children could work on their homework. They worked diligently on their studies as Christa drifted back and forth between the students and Mrs. Wood watched with a smile. They worked all morning until lunch time. Since it was History Day, the kids got to take the afternoon off. So, they packed up their books and supplies and put them in the van. 

They walked out to the west side of the Bookhouse where Caleb and Scott took turns striking matches on the box until they finally got a fire going. They added larger and larger pieces of wood to the growing flames until they were satisfied that the fire was big enough to serve their purpose. Christa had packed lunches for everybody, so they didn’t really need a fire. However, the cool fall air gave them the justification for such an indulgence. Besides, it was History Day. What was more historical than fire?

The children sat on the ground around the small fire as Christa and Mrs. Wood watched from their seat on couple of chairs. The children finished everything in their lunches except for their apples. 

“Hey,” Caleb addressed the group. “I wonder what these apples would taste like if we cooked them over the fire.”

“I don’t know,” Scott replied. “Hey Mom, can we cook our apples over the fire?”

“Sure,” Christa replied with a smile. “You’ll need some sticks to roast them with.”

Caleb and Scott walked around underneath some nearby trees in search of appropriate roasting sticks. They returned to the fire with several options in tow. Caleb, being the only child that was old enough to carry a pocket knife, set about sharpening the sticks for his siblings. He handed them out as they were done and then sharpened one for himself. He picked up his yellow delicious and pushed it carefully onto the sharp end of his roasting stick. his younger siblings watched carefully and proceeded to follow suit with the exception of Kerry. She took her apple and stick to her mother who was more than happy to skewer the apple for her accident-prone youngest. 

Before long, the smell of warm apples drifted in the autumn breeze. The skin of the apples bubbled and pulled away from the warm flesh. Scott pulled his back and looked it over before touching it with his index finger. He pulled his finger back sharply and smiled as his sibling.

“It’s hot!” he exclaimed.

“Duh,” Caleb replied. “You just had it over the fire.”

“Be careful, Scott,” Christa chided her other accident-prone child. “Don’t burn yourself.”

Scott just nodded in response and poked the apple again. It had cooled slightly since the first poke so he tested it again with his teeth. He took a tentative bite of the apple and tossed the hot morsel around in his mouth as he waited for it to cool. Finally, he was able to chew it up and swallow and declared that roasted apples were quite tasty. The rest of the children followed his example except that they were a little more patient and waited for the apple to cool a little more before consumption. Christa just sat back and enjoyed her fresh cider with Mrs. Wood as she watched her children.

It’s All Gone Sideways

Seven-year-old Scott followed his dad as he walked towards the lower fence of Grandpa Henning’s pasture. Scott watched his father’s feet and to synchronize his steps with his father’s. Scott matched his father’s steps for a minute or two until he realized that he was falling further behind his dad. He jogged to catch up and matched pace again. As could be expected, he once again fell behind the elder Henning and had to run to catch up. This cycle repeated itself over and over again until they reached their destination.
 

Scott looked ahead of his dad and wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. He had seen all manner of farm equipment in his short lifetime. He had watched his father and his uncles drive the tractors around the farm pulling all sorts of equipment and wagons. At his young age, he had gotten used to the constant flow of farm traffic. But what he saw on the hillside just north of the pasture did not look right, even to him.

As the cross-generational duo walked up the hill it became clear what they were looking at. At the steepest part of the hill, there sat a forage wagon. This in and of itself was fairly unusual. It was not standard Henning farm practice to leave forage wagons parked in the field overnight. The situation before them was even more unusual due to the orientation of the forage wagon. The wagon was on its side.

 Scott’s mouth hung open in wonder as he approached the wagon. He ran his fingers along the corrugated roof of the wagon as he listened to the dull purr of his fingers glancing off the ribs of steel. He followed his father around the rear of the wagon and watched in wonder as the undercarriage of the wagon came into view. The treads of all four tires were exposed to the two. One of the upper wheels lazily turned in the fall breeze emitting an occasional squeal. The webbing of the cross conveyor was clearly visible on the underside of the wagon. Scott stifled a gasp as they rounded the final corner of the overturned wagon and stared into the partially filled interior of the wagon. 

The beaters stood like spiked guards at the entrance of a creepy lair. The floor webbing was partially exposed on the high side of the wagon and freshly cut corn silage drifted away from the floor and across the inside of the wagon like a green and yellow snow bank. The sweet and sour smell of the silage greeted the duo as they stood at the opening of the wagon and surveyed the damage. Scott, who was experiencing great amounts of wonder and excitement at the strange situation, worked to conceal his elation. He knew by his father’s demeanor that his excitement would not be well received.

Dale had been working late into the evening the day before chopping corn. Corn season was well under way and there was a lot of work to be done. To make matters worse, Luke, his fourth born son, had broken his arm earlier that week. Luke was skinnier than average in the Henning family and had decided that he didn’t care for the idea of having a cast on his arm. So, he simply slid his arm right out of the caste. Christa took him to the doctor to get a new caste that, hopefully wouldn’t slide off. All things considered, Dale had a lot on his mind when he was chopping corn the night before.

He had been driving the John Deere 4455 through the dark corn field towing a Fox chopper and the forage wagon behind him. With the other things on his mind, Dale had neglected to ensure that the silage was being evenly distributed across the back of the wagon and had allowed the wagon to get disproportionately heavy on one side of the wagon. One of the wagon wheels had rolled into a groundhog hole and had thrown the center of gravity off just enough for the wagon to tip over.

So, that left the Hennings with an overturned forage wagon that was half full of silage. David rolled up to the bottom of the hill with an open topped forage wagon. Jonathan followed behind him with the Gehl skidsteer. The three adults had a lot of work ahead of them. They sent Scott back to the house and got to work. they took turns shoveling the corn silage out of the overturned forage wagon and into the bucket of the skid loader. They dumped the buckets of silage into the open topped forage wagon. After an hour or two, the sidelined forage wagon was empty.

Once the wagon was empty, they had to figure out how to tip it back up on its wheels. They hooked a chain to the undercarriage of the wagon as close to the high side as possible. The other end of the chain was attached to the 4455. Dale put the tractor in first gear and slowly pulled on the chain. The wagon slid in the field for a few feet and then began to tip. Jonathan pulled the Skid loader up to the opposite side of the wagon and lifted as gently as possible. The center of gravity finally shifted enough for the wagon to land hard on its tires. It rolled slightly until the front tire came up against the bucket of the skid loader. David un hooked the chain and piled it into the toolbox of the 4455 as Dale backed up to the wagon. David hooked the wagon up to the tractor. The tractor pulled forward enough to relive the pressure on the skid loader bucket and everyone headed for home.

“Well,” Dale grumbled to himself. “I guess that could have been worse.”

Stone Soup

“Okay,” Richard exclaimed. “Everyone all set?”

 

Everyone nodded as they settled in for the ride out to the woods.  Richard put his John Deere 730 in gear and the faded green machine lurched forward as it pulled a wooden flat-bed wagon behind. His grandchildren watched with varying levels of elation as the gray bank barn behind them shrank into the distance. The three-stand barbed wire fence of the pasture to the west of the drive passed beside them while the heifers that occupied the pasture watched the passers-by with mild curiosity. The oversized rear tires of the tractor rolled into a large puddle, dispelling the water from the driveway depression. The dry gravel around the puddle flooded with muddy water momentarily before the water rushed back to the puddle only to be dispelled again, though not as dramatically, by the smaller tires of the wagon. 

The driveway lazily curved around the northern end of the pasture and then took a hard right at the oak tree. The drive turned left at the cherry tree at the top of the waterway and left again at the crest of the eastern hill. The kids looked out over the hill to their left. A yellowing corn crop occupied the entire field with the exception of a grove of trees that had gained the title of “The Island.” The large red bank barn and the t-shaped farmhouse looked so small from the top of the hill. Soon enough, their view of the farm valley was blocked by the woods. 

Richard guided the tractor and wagon along the edge of the woods, down a small hill to a tractor path that led into the woods. From that point, a traveler could either take the drive to the left and go into the woods or that same traveler could go straight and arrive at Clyde Henning’s house by way of “Oldsmobile Pass.” (“Oldsmobile Pass” was a section the driveway that passed through a small section of woods and gained its name from a few old vehicles that sat decaying to the right of the drive.) The tractor took the road less traveled and disappeared into the woods. The trees shaded the travelers from the sun as they rode through the woods. The air in the woods was cooler as well. The driveway went up a small hill and leveled out just as it passed a large pile of tires to the west. The tractor slowed to a stop at the top of another hill. Scott hopped from his perch on the wagon and grabbed a yellow handle at the end of a single strand of barbed wire. He unhooked it from a loop in the fence and swung it to one side so that Richard could guide the tractor through the resulting opening. Once the wagon was clear, Scott reattached the wire gate to the other side and hopped back onto the wagon.

The tractor continued down a hill and emerged from the woods right at the oil well. Now, the route that Richard had taken to get to this point was a rather roundabout route. However, it really wasn’t much worse or better than the alternative which was to drive the tractor down the waterway to the farm and take the oil well drive back to the woods. There was no direct path from Richards home to the oil well as the crick that ran through the pasture acted as a fairly effective obstacle. There was a culvert that could be crossed at the farm. There was a shallow area at the southeastern corner of the woods where tractors had forged the crick in the past, but not in recent years. The route Richard had taken was beyond the springs which fed the crick so he hadn’t had to cross the brook at all.

The tractor pulled up beside one of the hickory trees that bordered the heifer pasture. Just off the driveway lay three large branches that had broken off two of the hickory trees in a recent storm. Dale had removed them from the road and had called his father to let him know that they were there. Richard had taken this information and kept it in the back of his mind knowing that Jonathan and Rebecca would be bringing their children to visit. So, on this particular day, he had loaded four of Dale’s kids (Scott, Kelsey, Luke, and Kerry) and all three of Jonathan’s (Samuel, Benjamin, and Johanna) onto his flatbed because they were going to make stone soup.

The idea of making stone soup comes from a children’s book that Richard often read to his grandchildren. The gist of the story is that three soldiers were walking on the road towards a village. When the villagers heard that they were on their way, they grew worried that the soldiers would require too much food and leave the villagers with less food than they had before the soldiers’ arrival. So, the villagers hid all their food before the soldiers came into town and told the soldiers that they had no food. The soldiers, suspicious that the villagers were not being honest, offered to make stone soup for the whole village. All they required was a large pot, three smooth round stones and a lot of water. The villagers were eager to oblige, thinking they might benefit from the soldiers instead of the soldiers taking advantage of them. As the soldiers stirred the pot of simmering water, they commented to themselves, but loud enough for others to hear, how much better the soup would be if they had a number of vegetables, meats, and milk. Little by little, the townspeople pulled their food from hiding and offered it to the soldiers. By the end of the day, there was a huge pot with enough of the best soup the villagers had ever had to feed the whole town, and all from three smooth round stones. (My synopsis really doesn’t do the story justice. I recommend you find the book and read it for yourself to get the whole story.)

Each cousin had looked that morning to find the perfect smooth round stone to be used in the stone soup. Richard would only choose three stones to be consistent with the story. Each child grabbed an item from the wagon and began setting up to make the soup. Richard took an axe and began working the tree branches into manageable sizes while the boy worked to clear a spot for the fire and the girls gathered small dry twigs to use as kindling. Finally, they were ready to start the fire. Richard took a piece of newspaper (he read the Alliance Review) and crumpled it up into a ball. He stacked twigs in a teepee shaped pile on top of the newspaper. Then, he took a blue tipped match (the blue tipped matches were “strike anywhere” matches) and stuck it on the head of his axe. He held the flaming tip of the match to the paper until the paper caught fire.

“I need some branches about this big around right away,” he directed the children as he held up his pinky finger.

The children scrambled to oblige. They rushed to the branches that Richard had been working on with the axe and returned with appropriate sized sticks in hand. Richard took the sticks from them and added them strategically to the growing fire before sending the children after thumb-thick branches. Before long, the fire was big enough to handle the larger sticks. The wood was dry and the fire quickly grew in size and intensity.

Richard reached into and apple crate and pulled out several cans of beef stew. He opened them up and poured them into a cast iron pot and added an appropriate amount of water.

“Alright,” he addressed his grandchildren. “Let’s see your stones.”

The children eagerly gathered around their grandfather with their hands outstretched. Each child held the smoothest, roundest stone they could find, hoping that their stone was just perfect. Richard appeared to carefully consider his options and secretly remembered the children whose stones he had chosen the last time. He avoided those three stone and arbitrarily chose three stones from the seven that had been offered. Those three children expressed their excitement in various ways while the other four returned their rocks to their respective pockets. Scott was kind of relieved that his rock hadn’t been chosen. Scott collected rocks and had grown rather attached to his stone during the day and was reluctant to give it up at that point.

Richard took the three chosen rocks and rinsed them off before dropping them into the beef stew. He set up a metal tripod and placed the pot over the fire. He stirred the pot occasionally with a homemade wooden spoon while the “stone soup” cooked. The children played in the pasture, being careful to watch out for pasture specific landmines (cow pies). After what seemed like a long time to the children but was about fifteen minutes in real life, Richard declared that the stone soup was ready for consumption. The children lined up with Styrofoam bowls in hand to get their helping. They fanned out around the fire and dug in expressing their satisfaction in various mmm’s and ahh’s. 

“All that from just three smooth round stones,” Samuel chuckled between bites.

The stone soup tasted just like regular old beef stew because it was regular old beef stew. However, in that moment it was the best beef stew the children had eaten in a long time because the experience of making stone soup with their grandfather was the true treat. One by one the children finished their meal and threw their bowls on the fire. The cross-generational crew stayed in the pasture until all the fallen limbs had been added to the fire and burned up. Finally, the children all piled back onto the wagon and enjoyed the ride to the farm by way of the oil well drive. The Ohio cousins were due back at the farm for chores. This, of course, meant that the South Carolina cousins were also due back at the farm for chores since the Ohio cousins insisted on their companionship through the evening routine. Therefore, their grandfather would be returning to his home by a different route.

Note from the author: making stone soup was something that happened several times over the course of my childhood and included different people at different times including Paul Henning's daughters Mandy and Katie.