Bedtime

I suppose it was just as hard to get kids to bed on time years ago as it is now, even though we didn't have television to watch, and I can't remember having to do home work. Evidently we never got to bed on time either, as our older sister, Esther, devised a plan whereby we would get to bed by 8:00 o'clock without having to remind and prod us. She made a chart for each of us on the back of a tablet, with squares marked off for every day of the week. If we were in bed by 8:00, we would get an x for that day. If we had an x for every day of the week, we were to get a nickel for that week. This was worth working for, as we hardly ever got any money. I don't remember if we actually got the money, but it was quite an incentive for us to get to bed on time.

We had a mantle clock that struck on the quarter hour, half hour and on the hour. Many was the time that we jumped into bed just as the clock was striking 8:00, so we would get our x for the day.

This mantle clock was a wedding present our mother and dad had gotten. I still have it today, setting on a chest in my basement. It would still run if I wound it. It is now 86 years old, and is one of our treasured family heir looms, since all of us can remember the important part it played in our lives.

When we were older, we no longer had to be in bed by 8:00. Sometimes, Mother would play cards with us and we would forget all about our bedtime. The card game we played was called "Rook", and we would get so enthused in this that before long we heard the mantle clock strike 10, then 11, and sometimes even 12. We were all whispering already because it was getting so late and we didn't want to wake Dad. He had gone to bed earlier, and would be very irritable if awakened. After all, he had put in a full day of hard work and had to get up very early every morning. Also, we knew that we should be in bed because it was late, and the next day would be hard for all of us. We enjoyed this card game so much that we always begged for just one more game.