Journal of Elijah Charles Clapp
Excerpts from the
Journal
of
Nina Clapp Olsen
It was during that (first) school year that I cried so much with the leg ache. Several times I remember father coming by the school house and finding me crying, put me on his back and carried me home (piggy back). How I did love my father and what a thrill it was to ride on his back.
We children often went barefoot and part of the time through necessity. Father didn't always have work and with a large family some of us were always out of shoes. This time it was me. A traveling theatrical group were putting on a show in the church house and such events didn’t happen very often so father wanted to take us, but I didn't have any shoes to wear and was just about to be left at home. Of course, I didn't like that so I started to cry. Then father said, "I often carry her piggy back when she has the leg ache, so why don't you put some stockings on her and I'll carry her piggy back. That way people will just think she has the leg ache or a sore foot and everything will be all right.
As I remember it was about two blocks to the church house and I didn't feel a bit bad because I didn't have any shoes. To ride piggy back on my father's back was fun. More than anything I loved to put my arms around his neck and feel the warmth of his body as his arms drew me close to him. How proud I was to know he loved me enough to carry me all that way.
During the time we lived on the farm (at Moore), I was with father a lot. There were two things about him that impressed me very much. One was the way he would sit for hours oiling the harnesses for the horses. He would heat the oil and with a piece of woolen cloth dipped in the oil, rub it over the leather of the harnesses. I asked why he did it, he explained how the oil kept the leather from getting too dry and cracking. Another thing I remember is watching him smooth the ax handle with a piece of glass. He would work at it until the handles were as smooth at the glass themselves.
Another thing I liked was watching him play his violin. In the evening after reading to us kids he would get his violin out and play and sing. Oh did we enjoy it! It was also fun to watch him halfsole our shoes. He had the equipment and could do it as good as any professional. He tanned his own leather and when he put it on our shoes it usually last a while. He was so good at so many things. Both he and mother could do anything with their hands. Father was also an inventor. He told us that some day all we would have to do to make a fire would be to turn a button on the wall. He explained it to us just the way it is now.
A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW
We liked the stories father would tell about when he and mother were young. This one he told was when they lived in Eastdale, Colorado. Eastdale was a small town close to the Ute Mountains and not many miles from the border of New Mexico and east of the Rio Grand River. All supplies had to be hauled in fron some place else and father often made long trips for hay, grain, and other supplies. Always when he was going to be after dark getting home mother would put the lighted lamp in the window so it would let father know she was sitting up waiting for him.
This time he went he expected to be very late so they agreed that mother would not wait up for him. He was late as he expected, so late he wished he had waited til morning. The night was one of those nights when there was no light from moon or stars and the darkness was so dense he could hardly see his hands before him. The only sound was the sound of the wagon and horses as they made their way through the dark. Even the rattle snakes and prairie dogs had hid themselves among the greasewood bushes. How dark it was. Finally a light shone forth in the distance, as he came nearer to it he could see it was the lamp in the window and father said to himself, "Well I guess Mary decided to stay up and wait for me after all." And father was real happy because the light had been a guide for him in the dark.
When he had the horses taken care of he went to the house but the light had gone out of the window. He went in and found mother in bed asleep. He asked about the light and she said there had been no lighted lamp in the window that she knew about, But father knew there had been and explained it to her. Father always said there was a lamp in the window.
Father and Uncle Lish were so much alike that it was hard to tell them apart unless you saw them together. One Sunday Uncle Lish was sitting on the stand and Zelma and I were talking about it. One of us said, "I didn't know Pa was going to talk in church today." And in discussing it I said, "I don't think that is Pa. I think he wore his corduroy coat this morning," and that is the way we decided which one it was.
One time father built a house in Moore for a man by the name of Harper and they had to wait for the windows and doors to come before father could finish it. One day father met Mr. Harper and asked him when he was going to get those doors and windows and then a few days later Mr. Harper met Uncle Lish and said, "Well Mr. Clapp I have the doors and windows now so you can come and finish the house." Well Uncle Lish saw a chance to play a trick on father so he went and put the doors and windows in. Then later father met Mr. Harper and said, "Aren't you ever going to get those doors and windows? Mr. Harper being astonished said, “Why Mr. C1app you put them in two weeks ago." Father said, "Well if they are in I better go and look at them" and when he did he found they were put in wrong side out and the door was wrong side up or something, I don't remember. Any way he had to do it over again.
Father said his own mother couldn't tell them a part and he often took some good spankings for his brother. Uncle Lish was always trying to play some tricks on father. When mother and us kids came from Colorado (to Moore), father and Uncle Lish were already there. Uncle Lish wanted to play a trick on mother. He was to meet us at the train just as if he were father. He didn't think mother could tell them apart. Father went along with it but said, “You can't fool Mary.” But Uncle Lish thought he could. When we got off the train Uncle Lish came and hugged and kissed us and we didn't know the difference. Then Mother said, "This is fine, but where is Lige?" Uncle Lish said, "He said I wouldn't be able to fool you, they could fool Aunt Hattie but not mother.