Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1910 - 1914
In the first year we lived on the farm father had time to work on a new house he was building for Mr. and Mrs. Woods who had been living in the yellow house near us on Duke of Gloucester Street. The Woods had operated a summer hotel in the Adirondacks but were now in the process of retiring to Williamsburg. The place was built in a pine forest on the left side of Capitol Landing Road. All possible trees were left standing even to the point of having a couple of trees growing right up through the porch floor and roof. It really was quite a nice two-storey house and had all possible conveniences for the year 1913. An unusual thing was picture windows which gave the Woods a perfect view of all the little animals and birds around them. They moved into the house before it was completed and once in a while I would go with father and spend the day there while he finished up carpentry work.
One day while I was running around the forest I stumbled onto a nest of turkey chicks. I called father over to see them and he was undecided whether they were wild turkeys or from the secret nest of a domestic turkey - they could have been either. Finally he decided that we should take them home with us, so I put them in my big straw hat and since the lumber-box wagon was so rough riding father decided it would be much better for the scary chicks if I walked along behind, carrying the hat in my hands. But on the way home we passed a farm where a woman, seeing me, walked out onto the road to see what I had. Well that was unfortunate for us because she said right away she knew one of her turkey hens was nesting somewhere in the woods and these chicks had to be hers. Father got off the wagon and came back to speak to her. I have no recollection of what was said between them, but we went on home without any turkeys, much to my disappointment and probably father's too.
Another day we went over quite early and went into the pretty breakfast room to have breakfast with the family. Everything seemed so elegant to me, the furniture was mahogany and we sat by a big window where we could watch cardinals, squirrels and rabbits. That was the first time I ever saw a grapefruit, much less had it served to me with all the sections cut out and a red cherry in the middle. There were two other guests - Professor Jordan, a Frenchman, and his little son, Francois, about my age. Francois and I ran around and played together all day and it was one to remember. I wonder if he is still living sixty-two years later and has any remembrance of it. We sometimes went over to visit on Sundays and Mrs. Wood must have been an excellent cook because I remember once having scalloped oysters that seemed to be the best meal I had ever tasted up to that time. Once our family and some other people were invited over to have a baked bean dinner on a table made of boards and set out under the trees. That was another bad day for me because I found a sealed pint-sized can in the unfinished shed and wondered what was in it. Without thinking, I slammed it down hard, it split open and liquid tar flew up onto my nice white Sunday shirt. I caught plenty of hell for that, and had to walk back to the farm while the others rode home in the surrey later.
Across the road from the Woods, and a little further along, was another place that became very familiar to us. It was owned by Mr. Harris who had been head of the educational department of an Indian Reservation in Oklahoma until he retired to Williamsburg. His wife, a much younger person, was a full-blooded Sioux. Father and mother must have found a lot in common with them because for a long time it seemed that every Sunday afternoon either we drove over to their place or they came over to ours. Mr. Harris subscribed to the Richmond Sunday paper and I saw my first comic sections at that time. I began to think of them so much as mine that one Sunday when we drove over I immediately jumped out of the surrey and ran into the parlor to get the funny papers. I very soon found out that I had overstepped the bounds of propriety and good a good scolding from everybody. However, I never forgot the comics of 1912-13. They were wonderful. "The Katzenjammer Kids", "Hans and Fritz", "Mutt and Jeff", "Slim Jim", "Buster Brown", "Happy Hooligan", "Alphonse and Gaston", and "Maggie and Jiggs".