(The memoirs of Daniel Rowlee Schoonover play an important part in the story told in “Echo Hill and Mountain Grove.”)
It was in 1880, and I was 8 years old that things was pretty tough: no work anywhere and Pa who was good at most any kind of a job, hired out to a man named Madison who lived over on the back road to Barryville from Yulan.
Butcher wagons went through the country for those days you had to buy everything from the peddler wagons. There was John Bower, the butcher, and Joe Sturns, the peddler, with everything from crown combs to Jew’s harps and they took all the rags, bottles, and boxes that we had saved up in part payment.
So we moved over to the Madison Place and Pa did the butchering and what a big time Em and I had. I remember we had the attic strung full of bladders blown up and dried. And Ma used to bind the tops with red tape and put strings in them and give them away for tobacco pouches for Christmas presents.
The family stayed that winter and came back home to Eldred early the next spring, for Pa would never let a spring go by without going down the river on a raft.—Daniel Rowlee Schoonover.
