This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Charlton, Chase, Gideon, Hughes, Greason, Jones, Crozat Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/zMB.2ACI/855 Message Board Post: IRON COUNTY REGISTER, Ironton, Iron Co. MO, Thurs. April 11, 1935. MORE MAINSTREET MEMORIES PART FOUR By Cora Chase Charlton Since my last we have changed our base from Seattle to Fir Lodge, Cashmere, where we spend the summer. It is partly a small fruit ranch, partly a pine and fir covered hillside retreat, surrounded by the foothills of the Cascade range, the turbulent Wenatchee River down an abrupt eight hundred foot drop. We had other plans for this Sabbath evening, but a late freak snowstorm has shut us in, loading the evergreens with its soft beauty, and I could think of no better occupation than this rendezvous with the past. I had expected some tiresome male literalist would hit at my hailstorm story. Not for world would I paint one hailstone an ounce too heavy, or have it bounce a foot higher than the facts justify! There was one circumstance in connection with that phenomena I did not mention. In the house next below us lived Dr. Gideon, who sometimes took patients into her home. Fifteen minutes, (please don't demand proof of the exact number of seconds) before the storm, she had sent for my mother, saying a patient was dying. This was awesome in itself to us. So, when the heavens let fly, my mother came to a side door and opened the upper half and stood trying her best by pantomime, to reassure us. My sister, then about half my age, (but never again), clung to me and wept loudly. Mr Hughes' horse, tethered on our place, had broken loose and was charging madly about, threatening every moment to attempt the tall picket fence, where other horses had come to grief, which also was disturbing. As w! e stood, eyes glued on our unattainable mother, the trees in our immediate vision were three smallish scrub oaks, a Ben Davis apple tree, (we didn't know our varieties in those days.) and the young maples planted around our terraces and I'll swear the stones bounced as high as any of them. And they did not bounce straight back from where they had come, but obliquely in all conceivable directions. In my recollection of Arcadia Valley, (I always avoid saying Ironton when possible, it is so unromantic) one of the charms with which memory invests it, is that there the sense of time never intruded itself. I cannot even now, think of the Valleyites as being hurried or running on a schedule of twentieth century speed. I would fain sample once again that sense of endless leisure if it is still on tap anywhere on this restless globe. It was not entirely due to the age of golden adolescence which I spent there. The impression that remains is of days with endless time for everything and yet they were full up, not with arranged and tabulated things, but of drifting from whatever one wanted to do to the next that claimed attention. Somewhere in the Bible is the statement that "time shall be no more." Some of us have found that almost literally true already. I have been moved to wonder just what we did with all those long long days minus all modern means of time squandering, not even a Movie to beckon. Because they were slightly naughty, and naughty things stick, I can recall several times when Satan took a hand in finding something for our idle hands to do. What if I tempt your smiles by some belated confessions! My oft times quoted as "saintly" friend of the rare head of pure golden hair, had in reality a rich streak of mischieviousness in her. At least when she was with me. To go way back, her people once lived in that large house, (I've forgotten who built it) which would be about a half a mile west of the new hospital, I think, and on the road which led to the old Greason farm and formed a loop back to Ironton. My parents were sometimes invited there for a meal, and at such times we two escaped to play in the more or less abandon which I enjoyed all the time but of which [she] was quite rigorously denied. "Once on a time" w! e wandered down to Stout's Creek and I promptly took off shoes and stockings and was soon wading in a perfectly delightful muck that plastered me up almost to my knees. I boasted tauntingly of how cool and good "that kind of a boot" felt, and finally she could withstand the temptation no longer, and joined me in what to her was a most novel experience. It is sad to recall how short-lived was her innocent pleasure, for somehow the "facts" leaked out, (or more possibly some of the ooze,) and she was seriously reprimanded. But that was not the worst of our larks. One afternoon when our feet took us aimlessly down to the railroad bridge, and we hung over the rail regarding the water below us, we were simultaneously aware that someone had torn up a letter into little bits, which they had scattered thinking the waters would carry them off to the St. Francis, and maybe ultimately the Father of Waters. Some of the bits lodged on the brink, and the rest had merely sunk on a motionless sandy bottom. With one accord we dashed down the steps to the Russellville side and began retrieving those bits of paper. Not one did we pass up no matter how small. Then we hied us to our house where surreptitious deeds were not nearly so apt to be censored, and with a patience worthy a good cause we fitted those pieces together and pasted them on a new sheet, picture puzzle way, until the whole letter was dicipherable. Yes, it was a love letter, but quite an innocuous one, and whether written to or by the son of a certain Russellville physician who could boast a "quiver full" of stalwart sons, I cannot remember now. It was the third son, I think. If that person is still living and this meets his eye, it may solve for him a life-long mystery, for we didn't do a thing but mail that revamped letter to him! At that time we had become slightly boy conscious, and were both suffering from the mild heart palpitations caused by the arrival in school of a new boy. He came from the south, Arkansas I think, and wore at that time a homespun butternut suit of the shade of olive green which set off his wavy auburn hair and red-brown eyes to perfection. Instead of this mutual feeling separating us with jealous pangs it seemed to draw us together, en rapport. Junius Jones! There was a name to conjure by. Full many an evening this friend and I could have been seen wending our way toward the "westering sun," as near to the gate of his place as we dared. Who can remember when that place was the property of an old Frenchman named Crozat, (pronounced Crozay,) who raised grapes and kept wine, and where Celene's parents and any other of that nationality used to foregather of Sunday afternoons? There was just one prank we played not quite so innocent. In fact we may at least get a big toe apiece roasted in the hereafter as just punishment. If you do some Sherlock Holmesing you will recall, some of you, that once two very estimable widows on Main St. were very close friends. A widower from Fredericktown started calling regularly on one of these. Then it was whispered about that the charms of the younger and more vivacious of the two were weaning him from his first attraction. Then one evening as we two young things were sauntering idly by Uncle Henry's and Aunt Willy's we saw the dapper widower headed for the home of his last charmer. We saw him ring the bell, suavely bow and greet the pleased lady, and the door closed behind him. Here was something doing! But evidently not enough to satisfy our craving for the sensational. We halted in the shadows of the maples, and a dastardly temptation assailed us. We knew that most frequently the two ladies went to prayer-meeti! ng together on that evening. We walked shamelessly down to the steps that led to the rooms above the other lady, rang the bell, and -- true as truth I cannot remember who was the guilty spokesman, but whoever, they told her they thought Mrs. ---- wanted to see her. Why? Probably because she was expecting to go to prayer-meeting with her. She murmured something about wondering why this had not been mentioned when she had seen her earlier in the day. But anyway she donned her hat and started for the scene at her rival's. We dilly dallied by as she made her entree, hoping against hope that some hint of the sensation would be visible to us through the opened door. We never knew a sequel, unless it was that the Fredericktown widower rather abruptly stopped his Ironton visits. We felt pretty sure that the two widows never got together on an explanation, or we would have got hop-scotch from one or both.