VISITING AUTHOR/EDITOR ARTICLE

JANUARY  2010

Youthful Pranks in Neudorf

Forwarded From German Cultural Society, St. Louis

          In our village people knew each other and most were related.  However, there was a lot of mischief done by teenage boys and it was tolerated as long as it was committed by local boys.  It was considered to be a tradition.  Of course people who were affected by the deeds were not exactly happy about it but accepted it.  There were many stories of misdeeds, some are long forgotten, others still well remembered.

          Houses were built with at least one or two rooms with windows facing the street; one was usually used for a bedroom.  One older couple planned their daily work by the changing daylight.  One night the boys painted the glass panes of the bedroom windows with black paint.  When the couple woke up in the morning it looked like the sun was not up yet, so they stayed in bed.  When they heard a wagon rolling by they became curious, opened a window and saw....bright daylight.

          Many homes had summer kitchens as the summers were very hot in our area and the kitchens were usually free standing and had only three walls.  The boys picked up the pots and pans from the kitchen and hung them up on the tallest tree nearby.  Breakfast was late in the morning.  Farm wagons had two small wheels in front and two large wheels in the back. The boys removed the smaller wheels from the front axle and put them on the rear axle and moved the large wheels to the front axle. The result was interesting, it gave you a feeling that you are driving uphill.

          Wheat straw was piled in high stacks, up to about 30 ft.  The straw was used for animal bedding and then spread on the fields as manure.  One night, the boys rolled out a farm wagon, took it apart and carried the pieces to the top of a straw pile, assembled it and hung harnesses from it.  In the morning the farmer searched for his wagon until his neighbor asked him how his wagon got up on the straw pile. The farmer was wondering for a long time how his wagon landed up there.

          A lot of houses had a wide, raised walk covered by a roof extension supported by pillars, running along the wall.  On hot nights many people moved mattresses out of the house to sleep outside in the yard, on the raised walk. The boys sometime sneaked up on the mattresses and carried them to the straw manure pile with people on them.  In the summer people worked very hard and were very tired so that they did not wake up when they were carried off.

          Cows were milked in the evening and because there was no refrigeration.  The milk was poured into quart size clay pots, with glazing on the inside, which were set into a horse trough flooded with water to keep the milk cool.  After a while the cream would rise in the pots.  Sometimes the boys would sneak up and drink the cream.  There are stories told - unsubstantiated - that some people put laxatives into the milk to keep the boys away.

          Between houses there usually was a large gate to let the farm wagons in and out.  Next to the house was a door, so that the large gate did not have to be opened, just for people.  Some evenings the boys unhinged the door and leaned it against the doorposts from the inside.  When somebody wanted to open the door and leaned against it from the outside the door fell back with a lot of noise.  Sometimes the boys smeared gobs of axle grease on the handle.

          Several cats were kept in most of the houses to keep mice under control.  The cats were not fed but took care of themselves and sometime we didn’t see them for days.  But there were always some in the house and we played with them. Once we decided to have fun with them.  So, we used two walnuts, split the shells and removed kernels.  Then we slipped the half shells over the paws of the cats and watched the fun.  It did not last long, cats are very nimble.

          In the night of May 1, the boys scattered wheat chaff on lawns of houses where girls lived.  If the chaff was not gone by early morning the girl was considered as lazy.  Chaff was not easy to remove when it dropped on the grass, in particular on wet ground.

          One of the most often committed tricks was stealing chickens.  It was usually done in the fall when the hard work of summer was over.  The boys got together at one of their parents house played cards, told stories, became bored and decided to do something exciting and mischievous.  So, they agreed to steal a chicken, there were plenty around, and make Paprikash (A Hungarian dish - highly spiced).  They asked one of the boys to go out and get a chicken.  He told them he was not in the mood but would be willing to cook it.  So one of them volunteered to do it.  He came back shortly with a rooster.  The boy who had refused to get a chicken looked at it and said it looked like one of their roosters.  He killed it, plucked the feathers, cleaned and cooked it.  The boy of the house got a bucket and fetched some wine from the wine cellar and they had a good time.  Next morning the mother of the boy who had prepared the rooster told him that their rooster was missing- it was never found.

          Most people kept dogs in their yard and it could be assumed that they would bark at the boys.  But they did not because they recognized the voices of the boys. They heard them almost every day.  But the dogs barked when a stranger approached.

By George Taubel