FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
  ________________________________________________
  
          CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD
  
  Such trouble for our seed corn
      That spring, when we came here,
  We thought we'd save our seed
      While in the roasting ear.
  
  They pulled it in the husk
      While it was in the milk,
  The husk was very green,
      But dry and black, the silk.
  
  They brought it in the house
      And left the husk on whole,
  Except a little mite,
      They tied across a pole.
  
  And thus we saved our seed,
      And we found it all did grow,
  That's all that we got planted
      Before we had to go.
  
  We bought a field of corn,
      Likewise a stack of hay,
  East side of Covel's creek,
      Perhaps five miles away.
  
  Then where we had to move,
      We bought a stack of wheat,
  And then we calculated it
      Would make our bread to eat.
  
  But he wheat proved to be sick,
         And we found it was not good,
  And we were disappointed,
      For it would not do for food.
  
  The boys went south for corn,
      In the cold month of December,
  And they brought us home two loads,
      Just how much, I don't remember.
  
  My children did agree, if
      We could not raise corn here,
  That we would move off southward,
      After we had tried two years.
  
  The corn was badly shriveled,
      And looked so pale and dead,
  But it was better, some, than bran,
      For nourishment and bread.
  
  In the spring of thirty-two,
      When the Indian war was here,
  Although so badly frost bitten,
      The corn was very dear.
  
  Eighty-seven cents a bushel
      For that poor corn we give,
  That fall our corn got sound
      And we concluded there to live.
  
  For then we felt encouraged
      When we had some corn, 'twas sound,
  Because two years before,
      No good corn could be found.
  
  When my children went for corn
      The snow was very deep.
  And I was uneasy about them,
      I could not sleep.
  
  Within the last thirty years
      The winters have grown milder,
  But over thirty years ago
      The frost and snow were wilder.
  
  In the year of twenty-nine,
         The first winter John was here,
  The weather very cold,
      The winter was severe.
  
  He had an errand to the neighbors,
      Perhaps two miles or more,
  The frost was most terrific,
      And had been some time before.
  
  The air was sharp and keen,
      And seemed to take his breath,
  And if he got on horseback
      He thought he'd freeze to death.
  
  He concluded he would walk,
      "Twould be safest and the best,
  But before that he got there,
      The wind from the northwest.
  
  So nearly paralyzed him
      To such a degree,
  So chilled and so benumbed, him,
      He could scarcely hear nor see.
  
  He seemed to lose his reason,
      Providentially got in,
  But could not speak one word    
      Till he there, some time had been.
  
  So you see, my friends,
      How the frost of Illinois,
  Came so near to freezing
      And the destroying of my boy.
  
  An over-ruling Providence,
      Kindly preserved him then,
  And he is yet alive,
      And will die, we don't know when.
  
  Oh! May the Lord prepare him
      For the solemn awful hour,
  Convert him by Thy grace,
      And by the Sovereign power.
  
  Oh! Grant him truth and peace,
      In this world's length of days,
  And in thy Heaven above,
      Some humble resting place.
  
  "Twas in the year of thirty,
      The second winter John was here,
  Upon the crust of snow
      He ran, and killed three deer.
  
  The crust would bear the boy,
      The snow was very deep,
  But upon the crust
      The deer could not keep.
  
  They could walk upon the crust,
      But when they came to run,
  Every leap broke through the snow,
      And to the boy the chase was fun.
  
  The snow was two feet deep
         In the timber all around,
  But on the knolls and the prairies
      The snow had left the ground.
  
  The wind had swept the snow
      In the gullies and low ground,
  And upon the knolls
      No snow was to be found.
  
  He said sometimes that he dropped in
      To his middle, just about,
  Sometimes up to his head,
      Then 'twas hard to get out.
  He said he had good help,
      He had three dogs in all.