Peter and the Farmhouse

By James DeHaven

Peter did not know what adventure lay ahead of him this sunny warm day. He started out to explore the fields behind his new house this morning with no expectation of anything but fun.
When he discovers the remnants of the old farmhouse foundation his morning outing will turn into a mysterious adventure that will bring him closer to his grandfather than ever before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312969223

Book preview

Peter and the Farmhouse

Peter and the Farmhouse

PFH2.JPG

By

James DeHaven

Copyright 2008 by JMD Productions™

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by The 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the publisher.

©JMD Productions

Requests for such permission should be addressed to:

JMD Productions™ :[e-mail]

Peter and The Farmhouse by James DeHaven

Layout:   James DeHaven

Cover:    Adaptation of free images

Fonts:    Garamond

Author:  James DeHaven

ISBN:    978-1-312-96922-3

First Edition February 2015

Dedication

To my brothers, who created and shared this childhood memory. We talk often of those days when we grew up in the very neighborhood depicted in this book. And we are grateful for the childhood our parents provided that allowed us experiences such as these.

CHAPTERS

1    The Foundation

2   The Wooden Box

3   1885 Wade Jonathan

4   Who to tell?

6   What about the contents?

7   The Storm

8   The Items

9    More Information

10  New Farm - New Life

11 Amazing Discovery

12 Treasure

Authors Notes

Pictures

1

The Foundation

Peter or Petey as his friends liked to call him at this young age loved to go exploring in the fields and woods behind the new home his family had just built and moved into. This morning would be the furthest distance he had travelled away from the comfort and safety of the backyard their new home provided.

He and his brothers and friends had just begun to explore this brand new neighborhood. There was a magnitude of things to explore due to the land that had been cleared in preparation for the new homes that were being built.  What had become their favorite past time was to walk deep into the corn fields that were left behind their new homes by some unknown farmer. What the farmer had left was dried up corn stalks that were taller than Peter, his brothers, and all their friends at this young age. It almost appeared as though the farmer had left suddenly and the corn stalks remained just as they were. Over time, they dried out and remained as tall ghost like soldiers standing at attention in their place.

The young boys discovered with the dried out stalks that they could break them off and weave them together, horizontally between the verticals shafts to form makeshift walls or forts.

And when they traveled beyond the corn field they discovered that at the edge of the forest line to the east were some pear and apple trees that still bore fruit for the picking. Among the bushes that surrounded all of it, were blueberries, and blackberries, and strawberries among others.  It was a glorious field to explore in on a daily basis. Once they walked but a few steps into the cornstalks, their world suddenly changed as they became engulfed by them and realized that the only visible sign that was familiar was the blue sky and white clouds they saw if they looked straight up. It was as if they passed through a mysterious doorway into another world.

The stalks would completely surround them. If they looked left or right the two foot row of dirt that separated the rows of stalks stretched on as far as they could see. It was a new experience for them all. They came to realize that if they kept walking straight ahead through the stalks, they would eventually come out on the other side where a dirt pathway, the size of a driveway width, would appear before they entered the perimeter of the forest which was another two blocks in thickness before it ended near the main east west road named West 38th Street. It was in all intent and purpose, a rather grandiose playground.

Peter’s family home was the last completed on his side of the street. Holes for the basements of others were still being dug. There was so much activity going on in this short block, that there was never a day where something to do could not be found either exploring the woods or the new construction that was happening all around them every day.

When the workers left for the day, the neighborhood kids would walk through the two by four walls of the news homes and climb the mounds of dirt that surrounded each new home from the digging out of the basements. There were plenty of left over nails and wood pieces left in the dirt that they scavenged to build forts in the trees in the forest. Sometimes an excavator or old truck was left on site. The kids would climb over them, in them and poke all around them acting out as though could drive and operate each one; accompanied of course by the appropriate sounds that they made from their young voices. Their imaginations were on fire and never stopped until it was time to head home for lunch or at the end of the day. During the daytime, they were never too far away to hear a mother’s voice shouting out lunchtime. At night, the standard rule was to be home when the street lights came on.

It was a glorious time to be a kid in this developing new neighborhood.  For most of the neighborhood kids however, the corn field left behind Peter’s home, which had been sold with the rest of the land to the developer, as well as the woods behind it, were the most intriguing things to explore on a daily basis.

The grassy field that Peter was meandering around in today was just a little further east of the corn field that was directly behind their new housing development.

It was about a half block long walk up hill to get to the cornfield. A rather long walk for someone as young as Peter and his friends; but the adventures that lay ahead would always worth it, for every day held some new treasure or discovery.

Today, he ventured beyond the cornfield that was immediately behind his house and wandered to the left of it where the stalks ended into a grassy area. It was about another half block long walk.

He then continued to walk north into the woods which were immediately behind this grassy area which bordered the cornfield and the woods. 

Where the corn field stopped, the land was grassy and rolled up into small rolling hills that stretched east to the main north-south road and then north towards the woods again.

Once he stepped into the woods, the cool shade and comfort the forest tree canopy provided was a welcome relief from the hot summer sun. He would climb up a