FOR MOST OF THE CENTURY: GAS LIGHTS AND THE ATWATER KENT (PART 22)

Jean Bell Mosley's new autobiography, "For Most of the Century," is only available in serialized form in the Southeast Missourian. Return each week for her continuing story.

Daddy's artificial arm worked fairly well. He could screw in a hook or a hand at the end and manipulate both by a twist of his shoulder muscles which would set in motion certain leather straps that embraced his upper body and other arm. He preferred the hook which he could open and close to clasp anything he wanted. The first thing he learned to do quite well was hold his pipe in the clasped hook, fill it with the live hand, transfer it to his mouth, light it and smoke. A glimmer of pride shone in his blue eyes when he had accomplished this -- he who had made wagon wheels, hammered horseshoes on the anvil, operated a diamond drill at the mines, drilled boulders out of a granite quarry. A flash of pride over lighting a pipe. What class! Sometimes, at a fork in the road, one had to take the one less traveled.

The rock crushing business continued and thrived. When Dad had, much earlier, gone to work at the Diamond Drills in the lead mines, as the new procedure was called, he had purchased a 1916 Model T Ford, brass radiator and all. When he lifted and folded back the side of the louvered hood to show me the workings of the motor, all the little things jumping up and down scared me so that I ran to climb into the bed of the big wagon, a haven of safety from this strange, noisy thing that might take a notion to run after me.

From the Ford, Dad moved to a Chevrolet coupe, a Baby Overland with red spoked wheels, and by my high school time to a long, low, sleek, gray Chrysler touring car. Oh, if only the roads had been better.

Coolidge was nearing the end of his second term as president, the same Coolidge the strange rider at Loughboro had urged the pupils to vote for, or maybe just the teacher. Times were good for everyone but the farmers so they said.

Grandpa and Dad were, in a way, hedging their bets, Grandpa largely operating the farm and Dad going into business.

At home, things moved along. Cows were milked, the cream separator with its many parts was operated, dismantled, the parts meticulously washed and dried for the next twelve hour shift. Hogs were butchered, corn planted, eggs gathered, the payment on the mortgage made.

Cousins came from the cities to visit and stayed for long stretches during the summer months. It was their vacation, I suppose.

We ate good meals at the same kitchen table we had used since moving to the farm. Hounds chased foxes and wild turkeys called from Gillman's Hill. Nothing in the kitchen had changed except the wood plank floor was covered with blue and white checked linoleum. It seemed to perk up everything in that big comfortable room, including the Arm and Hammer bird chart, the same chart upon which the pileated woodpecker's crest had glowed more red in that war time aurora borealis.

I feel more indebted to Arm and Hammer for my accumulated knowledge of birds than I do for the many biscuits and cakes it helped to rise. At that early time this company put into their yellow boxes (they are still the same yellow) of baking soda a little colored picture of a bird with the bird's description and habits on the back.

Then, suddenly, came a forward leap. Gas lights! Dad, always the innovator, never let the loss of an arm get him down. He installed a carbide light system in the old farm house.

The system worked much as did the little brass carbide light I had found that wonderful, turning-point day.

In the nearby smoke house, two tanks were placed, one to hold the grandular carbide, the other to hold water which was arranged so as to drip into the carbide. This, of course, formed a gas which was piped, underground into the house. With the turn of a switch and the scratch of a match, we had wonderful gas lights with pretty glass fixtures in both the kitchen and parlor, a great improvement over the kerosene lamps which had to be filled weekly, the chimneys washed and dried, wicks to buy and keep properly trimmed. We didn't discard them, though, for sometimes we would run out of carbide before we could get another supply.

I should mention that this gas light project was interrupted and delayed for a year or more because one of our neighbors had fallen upon hard times and "light" funds were funneled in that direction for a while.

The first night we sat in the glow of the gas lights, a family conference was held -- a serious conference. We never, never, were to all go away from the house unless the last one out turned off the lights before shutting the door. This ordinance supplemented the old one to never leave without blowing out the lamps.

The gas lights paled into insignificance when Dad brought home the Atwater-Kent radio, powered by batteries in what was known as the Delco System. On Saturday nights, especially, we all sat near the round speaker and listened to the Grand Ole Opera. I loved it when Bradley Kincaid sang, "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine." I ordered the sheet music from Sears Roebuck and pecked out the melody on our piano

DeLaval cream separator, Burroughs adding machine, gas lights, Atwater-Kent radio! Boy, were we moving up through the twentieth century!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.