My father liked to play solitaire. This is was way for him to get his mind off things. I watched him play, big eyed from the corner of the table. He would wink at me and turn over a card, one he wasn’t suppose to look at. I knew he was going to get he best willy-nilly of that guy called solitaire.

When I was eleven I wasn’t to see my father for over 30 years. My grandmother Swehla was very ill and my mother, sister and I went by train to Wilson, Kansas.. We had been on the farm but a few days when my grandmother died. The old farm was crowed with Bohemian relative and neighbors. Grandpa Swehla stood out not only because he was baled headed and had a wavey beard, but because he was Francis Joseph Swehla who had brought more Bohemians to Central Kansas than anyone else. Anna and I liked him because, although we were children he seemed to enjoy teaching us to play eucher. After a supper of warmed over potatoes, fried eggs, baking powder biscuits and milk, the mantles of the gasoline lamp were lit and we would begin our game. It wasn’t long before he was teaching us to drop seeds in the rows he made in the garden and to scatter grain to the chickens. We liked to go after his mail a mile and a half down the road because, now and again, we would see the Union Pacific train go by near thecorner where the mail boxes were.

Mother showed us how to gathers eggs, but  not the ones under the hen. Later, we learned the miracle of the baby chick picking its way out of the shell looking so sprightly with eyes, beak, claws and golden feathers. She made us fishing poles and took us across the pastures to Smokey Hill River. On the way she had us avoid the cacti, snakes and fresh cow chips and be sure to notice the wild flowers. She was the first to take us down to the spring house where there was a tin cup from which to drink. Further off the pond was Uncles Ben's homemade rowboat looking as if it owned the place. It was always filled with water and had to be dipped out whenever anyone used it.

Mother taught me how to cut up a chicken and fry it and mix bread. One time I put my dishpan of rising bread on a chair, Anna and I were romping around the room and I backed into the bread and mashed it. Before sun-up I used to hear the gasoline pump drawing water to a tank for the horses. My grandfather, uncle's and mother would be already up and had their breakfast. Mother would have skimmed the milk that was in the crocks in the pantry for thick rich cream to go with our biscuits. When school was out cousin Romeo and Violet Swehla would come to visit us from Ellsworth. Sometimes cousins Rose and Helen would come too, from five miles away. They liked to come to grandpas. When the parents of the cousins would come, there would be fried chicken, homemade bread, black current pie and lots of talk in Bohemian. During the harvest a stranger would come with a team of horses with gaudy harness. Neighbors would trade labor. The kids would carry lemonade to the fields. Women in the kitchen would bake bread, kolashes, pies and heaps of fried chicken. When the harvest was over, Anna and I would wade barefoot in the full wheat bins in the grainary,. When there were no cows nor horses in the barn, we liked to walk in the sift, spongy earth which had such a pungent odor. When we first came to the farm Grandpa’s youngest son was living there. Benjamin was nineteen and had numerous hobbies. He would let us go to his large dark closet he called his darkroom and watch him develop pictures. We marveled at the forms coming to life for never had we seen such a thing before. Uncle Charley came home from the Navy. We had been going to town with the eggs in a single horse buggy. Now, there was the Auborne. When I was allowed to drive something happened. Uncle charley bulged out his eyes and said, “you striped the gears!” He liked to fix cars so much that I wasn’t sure if I did something wrong or not. Ben and Charley eventually went into the car business at Kansas City, Missouri, then later in Hollywood, California, to fix the cars of the movie stars. After some twenty six years I traveled to Wilson, Kansas, to attend one annual Czech Festival. While there, along with other members of the family, we visited the old farm. It belongs to strangers now. There used to be four or five horses, some cows, a few hogs and chickens. Now, fences had been removed and a beef herd was grazing. The only building left was the chicken coop and part of the stone wall, The stone wall had been the living room but, also had a long table with chairs, enough to feed the harvesters, or company. I sat and played it so long that grandfather would look up from his book, slap a fly from his bald head, and look at me quizzically. There was a phonograph with cylinder records among which were called Some of these Days. It went...some of these days you’re going to be lonely. There was Day Dreams, Mighty like a Rose, That little boy of mine. We didn’t have many records.

A man from the Kansas Historical Society came out to interview Grandpa because he had written," Bohemians in Central Kansas”

And they wanted his picture. It was taken in front of the desk where he sat so often. There were kinfolks at the Festival at Wilson that I hadn’t seen for many years, and many whom I had never seen. Some of us went to the cemetery to look at the gravestones, and then drove out to the old farm. The stone  wall out there that I spoke of, looked so gaunt and pathetic. Of course it would...without the loving arms of the peach orchard around it, and the proud red grainary that use to face it. In spite of all these things, the wall had a magnetic charm that drew us towards it. We went over to it. Once inside, without realizing it, we had formed a circle and seemed in silent prayer. A cousin shoveling the toe of his shoe into the dust and weeds dug up one lone organ stop from the beloved old organ. We got into our cars and went back to the festival in Wilson.