Rides III

(Continued)

Back on the gravel going north the road swings west and Dad talks of a small-unnamed community that existed there. The road turns back north and crosses a stream. “There was a grist mill here,” he says. Farmers from as far away as Mt. Pleasant would sometimes bring there grain here.

At the next corner we follow the road left. We could go straight but it is dirt. It’s the Trabert Place. I have written about this spot before. We go west to the blacktop past Eagle School (a one room school long ago boarded up) and then take the first right about a mile down the road.

On the left, out in the field is a lone dilapidated windmill and nothing else. “I was born there.” Dad says it’s where his Grandfather, Christian Egli, lived. He talks about what a kind man he was and I am sure he greatly influenced my father. He talks, too, of “buckets” of arrowheads that he used to see sitting around the farm. He wonders what happened to all of them.

On the right side of the road is Harold Hinkle’s farm. He is our cousin and we almost always stop and talk with him for a while. Harold’s wife, Helen, is a teacher in the Fairfield district. We talk education while Dad and Harold swap stories. Their son Dwain joins in the discussion now and then. After awhile we excuse ourselves and head on down the gravel.

We cross the creek and on the left is one of Dad’s cherished arrowhead hunting spots. Harold doesn’t let anyone else hunt it. There, a drainage ditch has bisected a large mound in the center of the field. It’s a rich spot. The soil on the mound has a different color and texture. Dad speculates that it is because people occupied the site for hundreds of years. I think we have walked every inch of that field many times. Dad says this is where many of the arrowheads that he saw at his Grandfather Christian house came from. Dad has many in his collection from here, too.

The deep plowing and freezing and thawing of the ground forced the stones and artifacts to the surface. It was occupied so long that it is littered with hundreds of campfire stones and chips and artifacts of the former residents. Dad and I spent countless hours walking over every inch of this field after every big rain or anytime the ground had been worked. We spent long hours, too, during these hunts, just talking about everything under the sun. They were special times with my Dad. I miss those long discussions.

From this spot we head up over the hill and then down past “The Real Thing.” It is a youth church of some kind out in the middle of nowhere. The road winds around through the Skunk River bottom. This whole area floods a lot in the spring when the river gets out of its banks. We come to an intersection. We turn right and head across the Merrimac bridge.
(To be Continued)