from the Hill By HH (Hub) Brown of Owego
When we were small and lived on the farm on German Hill, we always look forward to the big wooden box that would come from Sears and Roebuck. (That name always reminds me of the old man Dad used to tell about who called that company Searfoss and Soreback.) This box would contain our winter underwear, a big bag of a special kind of oatmeal which is grains of oats with the hulls off and clipped in half. This took a long time to cook. Sometimes Mom would cook it at night in a double boiler and then just warm it up in the morning. The girls would each get a small doll and there would be a jackknife for each of us three boys. Also, we'd each get a set of felts and rubbers which consisted of a pair of knee highstiff felt stockings and a low one buckle rubber boot.

The best present we ever got didn't come at Christmas and it did not ever really belong to us. Some years earlier, the banker that owned the farm where we lived had a friend who had a little daughter much admired by the banker who had no children of his own. He bought the little girl a real small Shetland pony, so small that when Dad stood erect, Hugo, the pony, could walk out from under him. Well, the little girl kept growing but Hugo stayed the same and got to be just another chore. One day, Sitser, the banker, said to Dad, "Bring someone over to lead that pony back to the farm, your boys might as well get some use out of him." Although he had been equipped with a saddle, bridle, harness, halter, and a wicker bodied two-wheeled cart, when Bob went to bring him to the farm, all they put on him was a halter and a lead rope. The distance from Mr. Sitser's place to the farm, if you went over Avery Mountain, was four miles. If there were cattle pastured in the fields you had to cross, you had to take down and replace two sets of bars. If you went down the river to La Grange and then up our road it was seven miles. Anyone walking usually took the shorter route.

When Bob arrived with Hugo, we were all out there to greet him. Someone said to Jady, the oldest brother, "Get on him and try him out." Jady was so long legged his feet just cleared the ground. Someone laughed and Jady never got on him again. I was small enough so that I used the hair which was almost like sheep's wool, to help me get on and stay on. Bob was, as usual, just the right size. There was always a group of neighbor boys at the farm on Saturday mornings and word must have gotten out that there was a new pony at Bob Browns for we had a larger crowd than usual that day. Of course there were hundreds of questions to answer and Bob had to tell them all about bringing Hugo over the mountain. One boy, Casson Rogers, kept asking, "Is he really yourn?" Only the way he said it, it came out "youren." Our younger sister, Elsie, who was four years younger than me stayed in the background every time Casson would say, "Is he really youren?" Elsie would say, "Urine is pee!" In the excitement over the new pony, no one paid any attention to her but I can still see her, one foot flat against the side of the horse stall listening to all that was said and ever time Casson would come out with that "Is he rally youren?" Elsie would say, "Urine is pee!" I'll tell you more about the exploits of Hugo another time.