There were so many little stories unfolding simultaneously that I am going to be unable to keep them all up to date as I go along. While I have been telling about some of our working habits and our little family customs, I find that the story of my love life has been neglected. I must go back a way now and bring some of my social living up to date.
Oh, yes! I had a sweetheart. Her name was Gladys, and I must tell you about her.
You see, when we moved to the Exum farm, I was a little boy barely five years old. But then, when we had lived there a year and a half, I was no longer just a little kid. I was getting to be a big boy, six and a half and going on seven. And my ears were getting bigger also. I began to hear about sweethearts. Susie was thirteen and was just the very one to explain it to me.
She told me once, jokingly, "A sweetheart is a chicken heart baked in molasses."
But seriously, what she explained about sweethearts amounted to something like this, "Sweethearts are one boy and one girl about the same age who like each other and like to go together and like to do things together. He is her sweetheart and she is his sweetheart."
Now the Flints, who had moved onto our old farm, had a bunch of boys and girls and we all played together. The one I liked best was Gladys. She was just my size, she was six years old, and she and I liked to go play together. So, when I learned what sweethearts were, I knew for a fact that Gladys was my sweetheart because we liked each other and played together.
Of course, I didn't tell anyone, not even Gladys. I didn't feel any differently toward her. We just went right on playing together as we had been doing. But I had this newly acquired knowledge that she was my sweetheart.
No more than I knew or could understand about it all, I wondered why boys and girls had sweethearts at all. They were just like other boys and girls except they were your own age.
I never heard of any parents who objected to their older boys and girls having sweethearts and dating. (In those days we called it "going together.") But in our immediate community, there were some pretty strict rules to govern their behavior.
The "good" people in our community didn't allow their boys and girls to dance. So, there were no dances in our neighborhood because there were no families that wanted to be branded as being "not so good." Instead of dances we had parties. Many a Friday night some good farm couple would give a party. These parties were always family affairs. The young people didn't go to the parties alone. Their parents took them to the parties and then the grown-ups took part in many of the games.