Chapter 2
When my grandfather and his brothers came across the mountains to western Pennsylvania their caravan came down the Little Toby on its southern side. Group by group, in families, they selected desired spots for their homes along that beautiful valley. The lands chosen by grandfather were furthest west and not very distant from the Allegheny River. He took up the entire peninsula formed by the river where Pine Hollow Run flows in. For convenience the neck of the peninsula was made the boundary, and as the rest of the lands were bounded by the river this made less work of fencing.
We were thus rather isolated from the settlement of Pennsylvania Germans who had preceded us, and as no one in my home could understand their dialect, we were rather more drawn in with the settlers of Scotch-Irish blood.
My grandfather, Michael Dunkle, as was customary those days, took up lands so that each of his sons, Michael (the boy who doted on his bread and butter), Jacob and Peter, should have one hundred acres of land each in his legacy. They wee not all fitted temperamentally to be farmers so Jacob and Peter took up trades, selling to Michael their legacy. Thus it was my grandfather's original holdings came into my branch of the family. I knew every foot of it; half was a level plateau about two hundred feet above the river, the remainder was a gentle hillside and woodland. There on the bench land he built his log house which was considered the best in that community; a roomy house of white oak logs, flattened on all four sides with the broad ax and set together with white clay, finished smoothly with concave joints that were neatly attractive; one and a half stories in height, with the corners accurately fitted with "V" and saddle cuts, the second story was then substantially covered with oak clapboards. There my father with his sister, Polly, as housekeeper, lived for years after his father's death and was a bachelor until forty-five years of age.
The grant taken up by my grandfather was a primeval forest with no meadow land. Clearing was done by chopping a ring around each tree and allowing it to die before it was chopped down, when they were cut into convenient lengths for rolling and piled with refuse for burning. Nothing but the white pine which could be floated in rafts to market and a sprinkling of other trees for fencing, fuel and other home uses, was left standing. There was a little pine on the lower course of the river that was used for local building or floated down to Pittsburgh. Although the hardwood was of greater intrinsic value than the soft wood, the grand old oaks, white, read and black, the hickory birch, maple, and other valuable woods were burned on the spot, or when near blast furnaces used for fuel. In vindication of this ruthless destruction we must take into account that the pioneer depended on the fruits of the soil; to him the forest seemed an enemy to be exterminated; he must clear the land or live like the savage. In those days, too, when income was limited, he welcomed the cash for sales of wood to the blast furnaces.
Log rollings were frequent, and then the whole community would gather happily; the women to quilt and later prepare a hearty meal for their men folk who worked together in the clearing. Evenings following the work would be given over to a "frolic," and it was at these gatherings that much of the matchmaking occurred.
In my earliest recollections, there was a "Grand-daddy Painter" who would remind me every fourteenth of May that he planted corn for my father in the upper field on the day I was first placed in the family cradle. There at the end of that six-foot crib my life responsibilities began when two years later I was told to "rock the baby." By right of priority I assumed the leadership of my brothers and a sort of parental feeling remained long years afterward. It was I who led in the childish games, taught the younger ones to discriminate between the friendly toad and the snake, chased off the big rooster and the turkey gobbler, baited the boys' hooks, "scutched" the chestnut trees, shook down the butternuts, and tested the depth of the swimming holes. The hoe, the ax, scythe and reins passed through my hands while I proudly gave instructions as to their use.
After a few years our many boys made hired labor unnecessary. We strapping boys were a factor to be reckoned with both in the field and at the table. Mother had great pride in her stalwart sons and in later years boasted that she had "thirty six feet of boys" as we all grew to be six feet tall or taller. In this we were no exception to our cousins, and there were many of them. The Pennsylvania Dutch townsmen had a simile in their quaint vernacular; they said, "Dunkle stout-like." Of the scores of men by the name in my home county, the only exception to the case of a good height was one distant cousin called "Little Pete."
Poultry played an important part on the farm. They furnished all the meat but game in the summer months. The geese were plucked twice a year and their feathers were a small part of the income of the fowls, but the farm supply of hens' eggs was more considerable. They not only were much used on the home table but were also exchanged for groceries. Both geese and hens were given the freedom of the premises, the garden being well protected by a picket fence. Daily the eggs had to be gathered in warm weather and placed in the springhouse to be kept cool. In winter weather they had to be brought in the house lest they freeze.
No Secretary of Agriculture more keenly felt his importance upon receiving his presidential appointment than I felt when first given charge of the egg gathering. My job entailed some sleuthing, for the hens crept into deepest weeds or crawled under the buildings. Some individuals seemed always to hunt the highest spots in the granary.
The goose after carefully covering her eggs goes stealthily away. It was, however, the turkey hens that played havoc with my pride. Their domestication had not been long enough to wean them from the woods. As the flock wandered beneath the trees, scratching up the fresh, crisp bugs and luscious grubs, the turkey hen about to lay dropped behind the gobbler and the rest of his harem, crouched low, stretched out her neck and turned off smartly at a right angle from her companions. Her speckled feathers so camouflaged her among the decaying vegetation and dry leaves she was all but invisible. While many a time I acknowledged defeat when after turkey eggs, I invariably told all it would not be so next time.
My egg hunting began when I was five. One day my father told me that I could go with him to Grandfather Boyer's shoe shop. I wanted to gather the eggs first, and scampered fast to the barn. One of the most used nests was in the loft above the thrashing floor where there was loose straw scattered on the boards. My way up was over the granary and the corner braces. One of the floor boards had no bearing on the sill; when I stepped on it, it gave way and dropped me to the floor below, eighteen feet. My fall was heard at the house for the board fell, too, with a clatter. Thinking a vicious bull was breaking out of a corral, my parents ran first to the stableyard, then came up the stairway to where I was crawling on the floor. I was told afterwards that I complained that my leg was limber and I could not walk.
Father tenderly gathered me up in his arms and carried me to the house, where he placed me on the best bed, and there I stayed for five long weeks. I was not much frightened until they told me that the doctor would soon come to set my leg. Father had set the leg of a lamb that spring, and it had seemed to me that the splints so deeply imbedded in the wool which had some blood on it, were deep in the lamb's flesh. All was well as soon as they convinced me that I was mistaken. Nothing of the weariness of those bedridden days remains in my mind, but I do remember brother Henry, tiptoeing in and out, bringing me stacks of flowers and hundreds of dandelion stems to be split with my tongue and made into "wagon wheels."
I, too, can see the picture books piled about me for at that time the whole world seemed to revolve around my wishes; there were the big volumes, The Wonders of the World, The Guide to Knowledge, The Indian Book, History of the United States, and still another called by us "The Little Black Book." All of these had lost their covers before the end of my five weeks in bed. Two pictures stand out in memory clear-cut -- Zaccheus in the tree, looking down at his Master, and the little girl with a flower garland about the necks of a lion and a lamb as they peacefully lay at her feet.
One day the doctor came with a pair of small crutches he had the wheelwright make for me, and mother gently helped me into my little knee pants. The doctor had not babied me much when removing my bandages and splints but when he swung me quickly up on the crutches, I was so frightened that they could not induce me to venture a step, and I never would try to use the crutches afterward. When the doctor was gone, and I felt I was among friends, I found I could stand by a chair and follow along as it was moved. The family made it a holiday! My elder sister, Olive, always thoughtful and kind, took charge of the moving about of my chair. Henry danced around, now out, now in -- chattering about my achievements. Even little year-old brother John, cooing, joined in the performance for he would demonstrate how he could stand just about as well as his big brother Peter.
My accident had been in the early spring. Now the wheat and oats were up and waving tremulously. In the front yard the great clump of lilacs with their heavy heads of lavender flowers filled the air with fragrance; the symmetrical snowball bush was so completely smothered with flowers it resembled a winter hillock; the swelling buds of mother's rosebush were an earnest of the summer soon to be, and the weeping willow stood apart by the wall with its graceful, long limbs trailing to the ground like a robe. On my second day up mother carried me to the garden to stay while she worked in the bed of young vegetables. Our garden was not large and a full third of what there was had in it currants, raspberry and gooseberry bushes. Along the fence were sage, parsley, hoarhound, peppermint, and wormwood which we dried each year. The rows of vegetables were in narrow beds, bordered with perpendicular boards and so planned as to be very easily cultivated and weeded. Olive had a posy bed there, safely away from the farm fowls. I considered it much beneath the dignity of
