(George’s father, a Methodist minister, is also trying to be a farmer in 1873 Nebraska. But the cow and chickens ate his rotten onions and spoiled the taste of their milk and eggs. Now he’s trying to take sorghum cane to be milled into molasses, but the ox team bolted and spilled the cane all over the road.)

He brought the team and wagon to about the center of the scattered cane, unyoked the oxen and turned them loose to grass, while we went to work loading our cane. This took until dark when we made camp for the night.

We arrived at the mill at noon the next day. We made a bargain with the man who owned the mill to make the molasses for half if father would drive our oxen on the sweep to grind the cane and we boys would feed the stalks between the rollers. The owner of the mill was to do the boiling of the juice.

We finished the next day and the following morning loaded our two little barrels of molasses, and started for home. We hadn’t traveled far, when I noticed the bottom of the wagon box was nearly covered with molasses. Both barrels had sprung a leak.

Father didn’t cuss, he just said, “well, well, that sure is too bad.”

Then he urged the oxen to the top of their speed (which was about three miles per hour) in an effort to get home before all the sorghum leaked out, and when we arrived we emptied one barrel into the other and had just enough to fill one barrel which we set over a washtub to catch the drip. Mother put a wash boiler of water over the fire to heat, soaked the empty barrel with hot water until it was tight again, then poured in the molasses from the other barrel together with what had leaked into the tub. Father had a spigot but no sugar to bore a hole for it near the bottom of the barrel. So he put a rag around it and drove it in the bung hole, then all hands rolled it down into the vegetable cellar and set it in one corner by the door where it would be handy to get at, and father says, “Now we will be sure of that much of our sorghum.”

But he was wrong again, for in coming out after placing the barrel, the door was left open and my baby sister found her way down there and turned the spigot handle and before any of us knew it, all the sorghum in that part of the barrel above the bung hole had run out on the cellar floor and under the pile of vegetables stored there. They had to be taken out and the molasses scrubbed off and laid in the sun to dry and the cellar had to be dug about two or three inches deeper to get rid of the molasses that had soaked into the dirt floor.

Now everything was ready, and we put the vegetables back in the cellar but daddy didn’t want to run any more chances of loosing the rest of the sorghum, so he got a large demijohn that he used to haul water from the river for home use, that he didn’t use for that purpose any longer, an we had recently dug a well. He said “We’ll fill that and set it in the corner of the bedroom where it will be easy to watch.” There was just enough to fill it, and it was set in the corner by father and mother’s bed and father said “It surely will be safe there, and we still have enough left for winter use.”

But alas, daddy was wrong again, for one night not long after, there was an explosion like the firing of a gun or the bursting of a bomb. Of course everybody jumped out of bed, to land half way to their ankles in sorghum molasses. The demijohn was in a thousand or more pieces and molasses was all over everything in the house, even dripping from the ceiling. Our clothes, bedding and hair was smeared and poor father’s beard was matted with it.

But father didn’t say any cuss words, he simply said “well, well, this surely is too bad.”

We didn’t go back to bed that night, and we want to house cleaning, which lasted for several days before we got rid of the last of the molasses. Father said “well I am glad that is all over, and that is the last of the molasses.” But dear old dad was wrong again, for some of the horrible stuff had gone through the cracks in the floor, and soon began to mould and smell, so we had to move things out of the room, take the floor up, dig the dirt out that the molasses had soaked into, scrub all the boards and replace them before the molasses deal was finally finished.

Mother decided if we did not eat the eggs on account of the rotten onion flavor, we would have to eat the hens, so she cooked a nice fat one, and made corn dumplings with it, but nobody could stomach the rotten onion taste that it had. So there was the milk, butter, eggs, and chicken dinners “gone with the wind.”

Father said we’ll have to have something beside vegetables to eat, so he decided to butcher the cow. She had gone dry anyway (probably because of eating so many onions) and was nice and fat and would make prime beef and enough to last all winter.

We children all shed a few tears when Old Broch was killed, for she was a family pet, but we had to have something to eat. That was the day before Thanksgiving, and the next day mother planned a real Thanksgiving feast – a large roast of meat with potatoes and carrots laid around it. Something we had not had for years. But there was a peculiar odor that filled the house while it was cooking. Mother said she might have spilled something on the stove which in burning, caused the stench.

The table was set and the roast brought on and how delicious it looked, and father, after giving thanks for the prosperous year and the many blessings that we had enjoyed, carved the roast, placing a liberal helping of meat, carrots and spuds on each plate. Mother took a bite and looked at father; he took a taste and looked at us kids. I took a mouthful and my stomach heaved, and horrors of horrors, there was that familiar taste of rotten onions. So our dinner was entirely spoiled and all we had to eat was johnny cake straight with nothing to put on it or go with it.

Still father did not say any cuss words and though sorely tried, was still able to say “well, well, that surely is too bad.”

We took the remains of Old Broch and buried them out in the field, and my little sisters laid flowers on her grave. Father decided then and there to quit farming, and although this all happened over 60 years ago, to this day I just can’t say that I’m very crazy about sorghum or onions.

Adaptation c. 2004, Mike Peterson