Dead Indians

Our house with grandma had a basement.  I can barely remember my dad and relatives putting in the cement floor.  To enter the basement, there was a door (with a hook and latch to secure it) off the kitchen.  When the door opened there was a small landing with old wood floors.  Behind the door is where we stored the brooms, mops, pails and next to the light switch hung the strap.  From the landing the steps lead down into the actual basement.  They were a slight bit wobbly at times.  At the foot of the stairs were to interesting things.  First was the water pump, since we had well water, that was none  to small and a pipe that went from the pump under the steps and into the far wall.  Now the water pump would turn on and off periodically.  Usually at a time when you least expected it and scare the living daylights right out of you!!!  The second thing of interest was a rectangle whole in the cement wall just before you reached the last two steps and right before the pump motor.  The whole was like a window in size, and occasionally one had to crawl into it to retrieve canning jars or what ever they stored in there.  Creepy!!  If you would look into the window it was filled with dirt to about 2 feet below the opening.  We were told that years ago Indians were buried in that section.  Needless to say, I was terrified that a spirit of and Indian would reach out grab me and pull be inside and that nobody could hear me scream!!  Just for your info, Diane was as scared as it would happen to her as well.  So when we had to go down to get home canned items, we always stopped a step before the opening, look in (it did not ever have a door or covering) check for Indians or feathers and run down the last 2 steps as fast as we could.  By the time we took the 5 or 6 steps to the homemade wooden shelves to get the canned goods, we were exasperated and our heart rate was at least 140 beats a minute.  It felt like that, fear can make you move really fast!!  Past the pump was the ringer washer, a large porcelain sink for soaking laundry, and a stool that had a huge galvanized tub to rinse the laundry before running it back through the ringer to mom.  She would shake it to get the shape back then put it in the laundry basket to either hang outside on the line or we had clothes lines in the basement to hang them in bad weather or in winter months.  We had a clothespin canvas bag that we used to hang the clothes on the line.  Immediately behind the tub for rinsing as another opening in the cement wall but it had a wooden door with a round ring to pull it open and the inside was identical to the other opening, sand and more Indians!  Next to that opening was the 6 or 7 wooden shelves dad built for us to store all the home canned fruit, vegetables, potatoes, beef and things like that.  Just in front of these shelves about 4 feet was our electric dryer that we used if it was too damp for the clothes to dry by hanging.  Then there wasn't anything until you came to the corner of the basement where there was a big freezer that we kept locked.  Relatives who can trust them??  We had meat and the usual frozen items as well as homemade pies and breads.  We always had company that needed to be feed lots of food.  So Diane and I made many heart throbbing trips to the basement and each time we out smarted those dead Indians, HA!!  Now at this end of the basement were the only 2 small windows that you could see outside.  They were too high to actually look out of, but you could see the sky and the wheels of any car parked in the driveway.  Just to the other side of these windows was a dark corner that had more than its share of cobwebs and spiders of all sizes and speeds.  In the corner was a hole in the floor for the sub pump to pump any water that accumulated on the floor to prevent flooding.  Which it did not always do very good.  Dad many times would have to go down in his boots to sweep water into the hole, shovel water into a 10 gallon pail to dump outside, or connect a big long rubber hose to the sub pump to pump the water out the basement window into the driveway.  Poor dad he worked so hard then came home to keep the basement dry. We have made a circle around the basement because after the sub pump was the under side of the steps to back upstairs to safety.  Yet, under the stairs were 2 things.  One was a ledge where the potatoes were stored to keep them from spoiling because it was dark and cold in the basement even in the summer.