The shed

Tales from the Backyard…On the farm we had an old shed which had fallen down, the roof half gone, a perfect place to climb, using the exposed nails as footholds.  So up we went, my brother Jerry and me.  I remember him making it all the way across the roof when he slipped and put a deep gash in his foot.  Trying to help, I also slipped and put a 2” gash in my leg.  We made it back off the roof.  Mom could only afford for one of us to go the doctor, so my brother was chosen; I was left with a cloth bandage.  I still have the scar…  Our water came from a well which was powered by an electric motor, which was hooked to the pump via a V belt drive pulley.  This belt was old and loose so when you started the motor, the belt would sometimes just sit there and slip on the pulley.  To get it going, you had to carefully (did I say carefully) give the wheel a push, keeping your fingers free.  Even when I reached six, I was never allowed to do this.  The same week as we had cut ourselves, my brother and I were in the driveway building pretend roads (our second favorite thing), when we saw my sister Helen running and screaming from the pump house holding her hand in front of her.  She had not been careful and had severed her finger clean off, dangling by a thin strip of skin.  Not having a car, my mother grabbed my sister and ran to the neighbors for help to the doctors and there they re-attached it in his office, no ice or anything even after several hours, and except for it being not perfectly straight, you couldn't tell.