Art & I, or The Misadventures of Two Brothers

To the editor:
    My brother, Arthur, passed away this past fall after being ill for eight years; I was asked to comment during his funeral services, so I spoke of the various things Art and I, and our boyhood friends, would get involved in while growing up: from nearly burning down the outhouse at Grampy's farm in Littleton to setting the Presque Isle Stream on fire.
    Our lives together started in Houlton where Art was born. (He wanted to be born there as that was where Mom was). Actually, he was always known as Thurston, his name being Arthur Thurston and that was the name we always used. In years later, he decided he didn’t want to be known as Thurston, but as Arthur, although he was always known as Thurston to Mom and Dad.
    We lived right in town in Houlton and being adventurous, we liked to explore. Even though we were just tads, about 3 or 4 years old, Mom used clothes line rope to tie us to the back porch. During our explorations, we liked picking up chewing gum off the sidewalk in front of our home. It wasn't too bad when you got the little rocks picked out.
    When the family moved to Grampy Stitham’s farm in Littleton, we really blossomed! (Probably a couple of bad weeds.) We had the fields, woods and streams to play in, especially the barn. Grampy wasn’t too crazy about us being in the barn. He had a horse for his buggy in the barn and there was Bessie, the Jersey milking cow, and usually a pig, a calf and of course chickens and an angry rooster.
    For some reason, the rooster got upset with Arthur, who was still just a little guy, and one day the big bird got Art down and was going right after him, I wasn’t too big either, so I just stood there. Mom came a charging, waving her apron and drove the big bird off. (Actually I thought it was kind of funny).
    Speaking of Bessie, the cow, we didn’t have a pasture, so we staked her out on a patch of green grass, but Bessie was always looking for greener pastures, or whatever green was handy, and would pull her stake and head for the neighbor’s garden. Art chased her down and grabbed the tether chain and tried to take Bessie home. The Jersey would have none of this and led Art on a merry run. Being a little stubborn, Art wasn’t about to let go of the tether so the cow dragged him through a potato field on his stomach before stopping. Boy, was Art a mess! He attempted to ride a young calf that was in a box stall but the calf didn’t cotton to the idea and it wasn’t long before Art was laying on a pile of manure we had neglected to clean up.
    Experimenting with smoking, as a lot of guys will, we decided to sneak off to the nice wooden outhouse in back of the fenced-in chicken yard and try our hand at smoking rolled up toilet paper. It wasn’t long before things got a little out of hand and a little hot to hold, so down the outhouse two-seater the flaming papers went. Well, that was just the start and we soon had roaring blaze down there. The fire wasn’t exactly where you could stamp it out and we probably wouldn’t have even if we could have reached it. We tried throwing rocks down the hole. I don’t know why, but soon Grampy showed up carrying a bucket of water. We got our water from a pump, so it took a little effort to get a bucketful. Grampy wasn’t too happy with us.
    We seemed to have this thing about smoking, even though I never really got into it, except with a pipe later. And, that reminds me, not having real tobacco handy, we tried sawdust in corn cobs a few times. We would get a good smudge going and a strong taste, but we never really developed a lasting taste for sawdust.
    The barn was always a great place to play, with all the hay and things a kid isn’t supposed to get into, and Grampy, having been a butcher, had large meat hooks hanging from ropes attached to beams in the barn. It was fun to swing back and forth standing in the hooks . One day a friend from down the road was swinging with us when his feet slipped and the hook caught him by the seat of his pants. I can almost hear Walter now, “Don't just stand there laughing, get me down.”
    Fresh water has always been a treat for me and like any farm family, we had our own well. It was located down a hill in the field behind the house and was about three feet deep square and lined with stones. It had a wooden cover, which was easy for a couple of young guys to remove. One hot summer day, Art and I decided, just for the heck of it, to see if we could bail all the water out of the well. I don’t know why, but we did it by just using dippers, cans or something. But It wasn’t long before the well was nearly full again.
    My first driving experience came about when we picked potatoes for a neighbor. We were paid five cents a barrel. Once in a while, bear would venture into the lower part of the field and some of the other kids would run screaming at the bear. The farmer, Edison Briggs, asked me to drive the trucks so others could pick up the line of barrels full of potatoes. Hey, I never drove anything except a kids’ cart and I was probably 10 or 12 years old.
    Anyway, I put that truck into some kind of gear and away we went down the field, knocking off every barrel. I don’t think I did any driving after that. Not in the field, anyway.
    After we moved to Presque Isle we spent a lot of time at the Presque Isle Stream and we learned to swim there, sometimes with bathing suits and sometimes without. A group of us had a nice area on the banks with lots of privacy. I don’t how it came about or where we got the large can of gasoline, but someone set the can on a large rock at the edge of the water, set it ablaze and away we go again! Another fire! In an effort to extinguish the fire, the can was pushed into the river and before we realized it, the river was on fire and spreading downstream. It was back to rock throwing and this time it worked. The fire was soon splashed out.
    Like everyone, we were movie fans and we earned our movie money by collecting returnable beer bottles. It didn’t take many to get 12 cents for the movie and a little extra for popcorn. Art and I both liked ice cream and we would carry teaspoons in our shirt pockets, buy a pint of ice cream apiece and sneak them into the theater, watch the film and have a picnic. I recall one winter night, we wanted ice cream after we had gone to bed. As our bedroom faced onto the shed roof it was no problem to put our ice cream in the snow on the roof, crawl out the window and retrieve the cool stuff. Art went out on the roof in about a foot of snow in his bare feet. He was real cool that night!
    I guess most brothers would get into various situations growing up, but when I think of Art, these incidents come to mind. Rest easy Art, I won’t tell anyone.
Oscar ‘Voscar’ Nelder
Presque Isle