We temporarily suspended her tranquility while Dad built our new home in the tiny farming community of Hartford, New York, fifteen miles away. Dad’s ancestors were literally among the first settlers, arriving from England in 1638. They produced the first female white child born in Hartford. I guess native Indian babies didn’t count.

We resembled this coal miner, but without the hat.
telegraph.co.uk

Exhausted, we flopped down and burrowed into the coals, covering all but our heads. The heaped coal pile was no longer heaped or relegated to its corner. A black cloud coated and followed us as we went inside for lunch.

A hasty exit was sternly forced upon us by Mom and Aunt Mary. We obediently shoveled the coal back into place, gave ourselves the most thorough scrubbing of our lives, and only played that game once.

Replica of the same depository (thunder mug) that I used.
images.yourdictionary.com

I woke up in the middle of the night, too afraid to use the bathroom downstairs. A couple days later Mom discovered my night-deposit in the pot. I only did that once, too.