by HH "Hub" Brown

 When we were little kids we thought the good times we enjoyed there on the farm on German Hill would never end. It must have been 1915 for, although we weren't old enough to worry too much about such things, I remember we would hear the folks talking about what the Germans were doing over in Europe. Of course, there was no radio then so we never heard the details. I didn't find out till just recently the reason we had to move. It seems the son of the woman that had married Grandpa Brown after Dad's mother had died, had gone to the owner, Mr. Sitser and offered to work cheaper than Dad had been doing. I suppose being a banker and not realizing how much the rest of the family enjoyed living there, the savings appealed to him and so the change in operators.
 Anyway, the first thing I knew about the move was a couple loads of stuff on hay wagons and when my feet got too cold having to get off and walk till I got warmed up again till we ended up in Lymanville in Susquehanna County. Dad had rented a farm on shares from a very stingy man. This turned out to be the most unlucky move of Dad's life. He got oats, corn, and potatoes planted but it rained so much he was unable to cultivate corn and potatoes, and had trouble harvesting oats and didn't finish haying till September. 
 Dad and the owner of the farm were total strangers but the fact that he was very tightfisted must have been well known for in the country store they told of an imagined conversation between the owner and his son. "Howard, give old Dan five more grains of oats, we're going to push him to the limit today!"
 There was no hired man here, Bob and Jady had to take his place, Bob's and my old carefree days were gone and I had to begin babysitting my two younger sisters. They would go along with June, our Scotch Collie, who was famous for hunting woodchucks, and me on our travels. 
 Early that summer there appeared in the store posters of big doings on the Fourth of July. There was to be a big ball game, a parade featuring a horseless carriage and fireworks that evening. To our surprise, the folks let us hitch old Dan to a buggy and go to the festivities. The horseless carriage proved to be a buckboard with the thills at the rear, steered by a rope on the front axle and powered by a small mule, hence the horseless claim. 
 Another vehicle in the parade caught our attention. It was a retired fire truck. It had hard rubber tires one of which had been replaced by a substitute. They had gone to the Tannery in Tunkhannock and got a piece of three inch hemp hawser that they used to pull carloads of bark up to the barkmill. Some expert splicer had spliced the ends of a piece of this rope to make a circle that they had forced onto the front wheel for a tire. 
 I sorted out five nickels, to pay for the ball game, half of my spending money but they never asked for it. Of course Bob and I had to stay to see the fireworks but all at once here was Dad wondering if we were coming home that evening. He had hitched up his road horse and come down to the ball ground to see that we got home safely.
 The highlight of our days was when we got a chance to go to the creamery with the milk. The location of the creamery was called Sanky and the ball team went by that name. We'd get a chance to watch a young farm boy show off his speed and control.