A well-worn footpath led directly from the Little House to Uncle Earl’s house. Unlike the road that went around the draw where the branch started, it went through the pasture and the branch. The path left the Little House, headed east towards Uncle Earl’s, down by the orchard, across the pasture fence, through the pine thicket and right to the branch. I shouldn’t have described play without including the branch!
The branch started with springs just a little north of where we crossed the branch on a wide plank that spanned the narrow stream. Just above the plank was a broken dam made of bricks, partially overturned into the stream bed. Uncle Earl had built that dam. He mounted a little water wheel on it that turned a small grind stone that would sharpen tools. That has always seemed like a lot of work for a machine to sharpen an ax! And it apparently didn’t last very long before the branch flooded and took it down.
But just above the plank and broken dam was a delightful pool in the branch. In it there were crawfish and tadpoles galore. Little tadpoles and big ones. I never really knew the difference, but I guess the big ones turned into bull frogs and the little ones into toads. There were lots of other aquatic life. Little insects that skipped across the top of the water. Off in the edges there were wiggle tails that would turn into mosquitoes. And there were snakes. Mama always said that just because we didn’t see them didn’t mean that they didn’t see us. “Watch for snakes,” and “Don’t get on a snake,” were well worn warnings. But that didn’t keep us from having a great time in the branch!
A little southeast of the little house in the pine thicket, there was a sawdust pile. There had been a saw mill at some point in time, and it made a big pile of saw dust. I don’t remember anything about the sawmill. Maybe it’s where they cut the boards to build the Little House. Close to the saw dust pile was the pig pen, but I don’t remember the pigs that lived there.
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