This one was rerun on Our American Stories last week. What a fun surprise!

Here’s part of Roller Skating in the House

. . . Behind the kitchen downstairs was what we called the “mud room” until Mom changed our terminology to the “utility room.” Men washed up for noon dinner at that sink because it was right inside the back door, the one we usually used from the garage.

      That old cob-burning stove in there was handy when the electricity went out. Once Mom sewed up a baby pig after its mother had stepped on it, and kept it warm behind that old stove. I decided then and there that I’d never marry a farmer.

      When Dad removed that old stove, Mom let us roller skate in that room. All the floors in the house were covered with linoleum, and the floor in the mud room even slanted.

      How I loved this old house!

The other special places were behind the pedestal table and under the stairway. We called them cubbyholes. Dad’s was the smaller one above, where he kept his watch and billfold and mysterious papers.

      The one underneath was large enough that two young girls could sit on the floor and keep our treasures in there, birds’ nests, pretty rocks, and whatever else we’d found as we explored the farm.

      What I remember most about those cubbyholes, though, was the strong smell of mice. Mom had to set mousetraps in most of the rooms, especially the kitchen, hating to find mouse pellets among her utensils.

      The mice, the leaning floors, lack of closets, trying to heat the place. My mother longed for a new house.

      She’d even drawn up plans for it. . . . 

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This story first aired on Our American Stories, February 16, 2021. They still rerun it. 

It’s also in Chapter 3: Child on a Farm in The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland.  Here’s the Our American Stories version–12 minutes.