Both of my maternal grandparents grew up in Vermont, but they later settled in Connecticut where my grandfather taught high school history. In the mid-1930s, they bought a small house in North Fayston, Vermont, for use in the summer. The house was soon named Little House by my aunt, who was a child at the time.
As kids, my older brother and I were lucky to have a few weeks there every summer. The house was on Shepard’s Brook, and every year my grandfather, despite using a cane since being wounded in WWI, would spend days building a dam with straw and rocks so that we could swim in the frigid water. When it was too cold to swim, we’d put on our creek shoes and explore up and down the brook for hours. Our grandfather had a small apple orchard and a large vegetable garden; my grandmother had flower gardens. Grandpa was always waging war on cabbage moths, and he paid us one cent for every two that we collected in metal Band-Aid boxes. I’m sure he did that to keep us out of his hair. On cool days, we took the little red wagon, which I still have, up the steep hill behind the house and raced down the hill. I’m surprised we survived.
The only chores that I recall having were picking berries, shelling peas, and taking the compost way up the hill into the woods. My brother and I took turns with the compost chore, but if it was getting dark, I’d make him go with me, probably because Grandpa always told us to watch out for bears. Across the brook were raspberry bushes that had spread wildly. Grandma was a master pie baker; I can almost smell her raspberry cream pie. It’s the only recipe that I have that has never left the family.
I always begged to go with my grandfather to the old IGA store in Waitsfield. I was probably hoping for a treat, but that only happened once a week. Grandpa would buy a quart of orange soda (always orange) and every-one got a small glass on Sunday. It was heavenly as we didn’t get soda at home either.
We often walked up the dirt road to visit the Boyce Farm. Mr. Boyce let us jump into the hay in the lower level of his barn. When I was 7 and my mom was expecting our baby sister any day, we walked up to the Boyces’ every night and used their phone to call home to see if there was any news. Grandma was probably hoping for news so that she could send us home!
Little House had electricity but no heat or hot water. On cold evenings, we had a fire in the fireplace, and we were expected to read quietly until bedtime. My brother and I had twin beds in the back bedroom. We refused to go to sleep until Grandpa played his record of cowboy songs. Usually there were mice in the attic, and Grandpa would come in and make a great show of banging his cane against the ceiling to quiet them down. I believe he would have been disappointed if we hadn’t called him in.
Grandma was an excellent cook, but Grandpa always made breakfast… and it was always oatmeal or some other kind of hot cereal that hopefully they don’t make anymore. He was proud to tell people that he made cookies as well, usually oatmeal.
My very favorite plaything was a wood-framed, three-sided burlap playhouse which rested up against the house. The burlap was painted with flowers, windows, and curtains, and it had a creaky door with a metal slot for mail. When my little sister was old enough, we spent hours writing notes to each other and putting them through the mail slot.
Grandma and Grandpa had a small boat, and once a year we would get up early and go to Peacham Pond to go fishing. As my brother and I got older, we thought Peacham Pond was a bit small for our taste, and we thought it was hilarious to call it the Peacham puddle. We caught a lot of perch, and we were expected to eat them. Grandma would fry them coated in cornmeal. They were quite boney. My brother had to help clean and prepare the perch for supper. Perhaps I was inside shelling peas or something equally non-messy.
When I was in my 20s and my grandparents were no longer able to travel, Grandpa decided to sell Little House so that the family wouldn’t fight over it. Grandma was distraught, but Grandpa’s word was law. I was so sad to learn that an antique dealer had come to the house and taken the burlap playhouse along with other treasures. We were able to find the playhouse in an antique store, but it was out of our price range and we had to let it go.
Last summer, on our way home from the Waterbury car show, we found North Fayston Road, stopped at Little House, and spoke to the owner. It seemed to me that Shepard’s Brook was smaller and narrower than I remembered and the apple trees were in a different area, although that doesn’t make sense. And Little House wasn’t pale yellow anymore. I was hoping the owner would invite us in, but he didn’t. In hindsight, I’m just as glad he didn’t.
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