EARLY CHILDHOOD AT THE FLINT FARM
The first farm we owned, the one where I was born, is still
spoken of as the Flint place, because we sold it to a family
named Flint. So at times I may refer back to it as the Flint
place.
Since I was only five when we moved away from the Flint place, I
remember only a few things which took place while we lived there.
I remember we had old hens that laid eggs for us to go gather up
and take to the house in a bucket. Sometimes the bucket would
get so heavy I couldn't carry it. And sometimes we had to get
eggs out from under old setting hens that wouldn't get off their
nests. They would peck me to keep me away. I was too little to
get those eggs. Mama or some of the bigger kids would have to
get them.
But if the old setting hen was off the nest, I knew which eggs to
get and which ones to leave in the nest. The ones she was
setting on to hatch out little chickens were marked all over with
a lead pencil. The ones that didn't have marks on them were
fresh eggs that had been laid that day.
Some city folks are confused at times about some of the words we
farmers use. For instance, take the words sitting and setting.
The truth is, if an old hen is on an egg that she has just laid,
and if she is planning to go away in a minute or two, she is just
sitting on the egg. But if she is on the egg or eggs with the
intention of hatching out little chickens, then she is not
sitting, she is setting.
Even some people who are supposed to be smart don't know farm
words. In college English, the teacher had us making sentences
using certain double words like, "_Look up_ a word in the
dictionary." And "_Hand over_ your gun."
I made a sentence like, "The cow wouldn't _give down_ her milk."
The teacher gave me a zero on the sentence. And when I asked her
why, she said, "A cow can not _hold up_ her milk nor _give down_
her milk."
I told her, "Lady, you may know your English, but you sure don't
know milk cows."
Now back to the Flint farm.
I was so little that, when I would throw out corn and maize seed
to feed the chickens, I couldn't throw it far enough away from
me. Some of it would fall at my feet. So the big chickens would
crowd around my feet to pick up the grains and I was afraid of so
many big hens so close to me. And I really got scared when they
started pecking the feed out of my feed bucket. Sometimes I
would drop the bucket and run away.
I remember seeing Papa digging up big trees where he was going to
make a field. It wasn't far from our house. Sometimes I would
go take him a drink of water. And sometimes Mama would send me
to tell Papa dinner was ready.
While Papa was drinking his water and resting a bit, I liked to
get down in the big hole he dug around the bottom of a big tree.
The dirt was damp and cool in the hole. Some of the holes were
so big and deep it was hard for me to crawl back out.
Sometimes our old surley (bull) was close by and I was afraid of
him, so Mama would leave me at the house to watch after Albert
while she took Papa a drink. But if the cows were way over in
the other side of the pasture, I wasn't afraid to go.
I remember our garden just outside our yard. I was big enough to
pick fresh beans and peas. The older ones in the family taught
me how to break the peas off the vines without breaking the
vines. Mama could pick them so easily, with just the right twist
of her hands. But I had to hold the vine with one hand while I
twisted the peas off with the other hand.
I had the smartest Mama. She could do so many things, and she
could do them so easily.
I especially remember one little incident that took place in our
home when I was three. Most of the things I remember from my
early childhood have been almost forgotten and I now remember
them through special effort and recall. But this one brief
moment has lived with me and was never put aside to be recalled
later.
Mama was sitting in a chair in our living room. Albert was in
her lap getting his natural milk breakfast. I was in a hurry for
the baby to get through nursing so I could play with him down on
the floor. In the meantime, I was standing leaning against Mama
and playing with the baby--playing with his hands and feet,
rubbing and patting his "tummy," and sometimes tickling him to
make him laugh.
Now all this activity caused a lot of wiggling and squirming in
Mama's lap. And it also caused a lot of letting go of, and
getting back to, the baby's morning meal. This kind of playing
with the baby might have aggravated some mothers and might have
brought a word of scorn, or at least an expression of impatient
dissatisfaction from them, but not from this mother. She was one
of a kind. She seemed to enjoy it all. She was my Mama.
I was standing on Mama's left. When Albert finished and was
full, Mama stood him down on the floor on her right. And while
he was standing there holding to her dress for support, before
Mama put his breakfast away, back into her blouse, she looked
over at me and very motherly asked, "Now, do you want some of the
baby's milk?"
I didn't say a word. I just bashfully backed away a step or so
and looked up at her and thought something like, "That's for the
baby, not for me."
For the first time in my life I was consciously aware of my
mother's love for me, in that brief moment, because of that
simple little gesture. The poet expressed it better than I can,
when he wrote, ". . .the love of a mother for her son that
transcends all other affections of the soul." I was deeply moved
by the thought that, although she had another little one to hold
closely and love and nourish, she had not pushed me aside. Her
love included me too.
As the years went by, sometimes all seemed hopeless and I would
ask myself, "What the heck? Who cares anyway?" And always that
little three-year-old kid would give me the answer, "Mama does."
I remember the windmill by our garden and the water tank way up
high on the tower. When the wind blew and the mill was pumping
water, we could open a faucet at the top of the well and get a
drink of fresh cold water. We had a tin cup hanging on a nail on
the windmill tower to drink out of. And we kept some water
hanging up on our back porch in a wooden water bucket made out of
cedar. There was a dipper in the bucket that we all drank out
of.
Once when Papa was building his big barn at the Flint place,
before he got it finished, a strong wind hit it and leaned it way
over, but it didn't blow it all the way down. Papa took a block
and tackle and got some men to help him and they pulled it back
up straight.
Our house had three rooms. One of them was a kitchen and dining
room together. There was a long porch at the front of the house
and an L-shaped porch on the back. There were flower beds and
flowers in our front yard, and morning glory vines on the front
yard fence and china trees in the back yard. They made good
shades to play in.
There was a hog pen on the north side of the barn, with sheds to
protect the hogs from the summer heat and the winter cold. The
horse lots and cow lots were on the south side of the barn, with
sheds to shelter the stock. Feed troughs were under the sheds
and feed was stored in the big barn.
I remember the hill west of the barn about a hundred yards. It
wasn't a steep hill--just a gentle rise in the land. But it was
high enough to get up on and see Uncle Andrew's house and
Grandma's house. I couldn't see Grandma's house as good as I
could Uncle Andrew's because hers had so many big trees all
around it.
I remember we had a syrup mill too, up on the slope northwest of
the barn. We had a horse that would go round and round and make
the big iron rollers squeeze the juice out of the cane stalks.
The juice would run down a spout and we would catch it in
buckets. Then Mama would cook the juice in a big pan over a fire
out there in the pasture.
Of course Frank and Susie and Earl would all help keep the fire
going and help Papa keep putting cane stalks through the big
rollers. Joel would help a little bit, but I was just in the
way. And Albert had to be looked after too.
Sometimes the cows and horses would come and try to eat the cane
and we had to put them in pens by the barn. When we finished
squeezing the juice out, we would let them all come out of the
pen and eat the stalks we didn't want any more.
When we got the juice cooked enough it was good ribbon cane syrup
and we would put it in big jugs and take it down in the cellar.
But not all of it. We would take some of it in the kitchen to
eat.
I remember a big pile of wood and lots of mesquite posts. They
were southwest of the barn on the slope of the hill. The wind
had been blowing and lots of sand had drifted up in piles by the
woodpile. Some of our plows and wagons were out there too by the
woodpile. The posts were leaning up against big trees.
Just north of the hog pen was our stack lot with big stacks of
bundled feed in it. And when I think of the stack lot, I think
of a little black horse we had named Keno, because all too often
Old Keno was in the stack lot without an invitation. He was not
a big work horse, yet he could hold his own when hitched to a
cultivator. And he could outdo all the others at acrobatics.
Yes, Old Keno was a fence jumper. We often found him in the corn
patch or maize patch, what time he wasn't in the stack lot.
That's probably the reason I always remember him as being fat and
having a shiny coat; he got more than his share of goodies to
eat.
Anyway, one time I remember seeing Old Keno in the stack lot when
we were coming home from church or from Uncle Andrew's. We drove
up from the west and as we came over the rise west of the barn,
there he was, in the stack lot again.
I really believe we were coming home from church because we were
all dressed up and were in our new hack.
We had an old buggy and I think we had an old hack. I think I
sort of remember when we got the new hack. The old one was good
enough for everyday use, and so was the old buggy. But for
really stepping out in style, that shining black new hack was
something else. For Sunday and for going to town, we used the
new one. It had two seats, rubber tires, and a beautiful glossy
black finish--with tiny little yellow pinstripes at just the
right places. When Papa hitched his two trotting horses to it,
it was truly a carriage to be proud of.
We also went socializing in the new hack. And Papa never fooled
around with a walking team, they always trotted. Even when we
drove 18 miles to Anson to visit the Hood family on Sundays, our
team trotted practically all the way. And then they trotted back
the same day.
As I said, Old Keno was eating more than his share of the grain
from the bundles of feed, and he was wasting a lot also.
I was in the front seat with Papa and some of the other kids. I
was probably in Papa's lap, I don't remember. Mama was in the
back seat with some of the others. In fact, Mama always rode in
the back seat. There is no picture in my memory of Mama ever
riding in the front seat of our hack. I don't really know why
she chose the back seat. Fact is, it never occurred to me until
now that she may not have chosen the back seat; she may not have
had a choice. While she was with us, it never entered my mind to
ask her why. But now as I ponder these things, I wish I had. If
she were sitting here in the room with me now, I would stop
writing long enough to look up and ask, "Mama, why did you always
sit in the back seat of our hack?"
And I haven't the slightest doubt that she would answer, "Why,
Willie and you children always rode in the front seat. There
wasn't room for me."
Anyway, I was less than five years old, probably less than four.
And I don't remember what else Mama was doing, but I'll bet a
dollar she was holding Albert in her lap. And I'll bet another
dollar I can guess what Albert was doing. Since baby bottles
were almost unheard of in those days, and were not needed in our
family, he was probably getting his milk from some other source,
as mother nature meant for him to.
Be that as it may, Old Keno was eating at the feed stack and he
seemed to be much happier than Papa was to see him there. I
don't remember what Papa said, if anything, but I do remember
that Mama expressed her disapproval of Old Keno's bad manners by
calling him a scoundrel. That was the name Mama gave to
troublesome animals and mean people.
There was plenty of work to be done on the farm, and we kids
learned to work early in life. Joel was just 16 months older
than I was, and one spring, when he was too young to go to
school, Papa had him planting in the field with a two-row
planter. In the afternoons, when Earl got home from school, he
would relieve Joel, so Joel could go home and play the rest of
the day.
Then one day Joel got a foot hurt and couldn't run the planter.
So I had to take his place on the planter for a few days.
Planting had to go on. I don't remember how old I was at that
time. I do know for sure I was planting at the Flint place. And
we moved from that place in January--the same January in which I
became five years old. So, I must have been planting when I was
a little over four years old or when I was just past three, I'm
not sure which. I am sure, however, I was older than two,
because, when I was only two, Earl was too young to go to school.
If it were not for skeptics, I could go ahead with my memoirs.
But I feel I should detour here and explain a thing or two, or
some folks will think I am lying. One man has already questioned
my story about the two-row planter. He thought they hadn't made
a two-row planter as early as 1910. This one happened to be a
special type planter. I have never seen but two of them in my
lifetime.
But you could be sure, if William Franklin Johnson heard of a
farm implement that he thought could be used to do a better job
on the farm, he would get it, if at all possible. And if it
wouldn't do to suit him, he would make it do whatever he wanted
it to do.
I remember having seen Papa, as early as the Flint place, mind
you, using a combination cultivator-planter. He could cultivate
his young feed or cotton and, at the same time, plant new seeds
in the skips where the first planting had not come up to a good
stand.
He built the implement himself. That was ingenuity. He was my
father.
This special two-row planter that I used was pulled by two big,
gentle horses. They knew how to follow the furrows and stay on
the rows. And they knew that "whoa" meant stop, even when a
three-year-old said it. What's more, Papa was plowing along
beside me, just a few rows away, and he worked the lever and
turned my team around at both ends of the rows.
Now, that doesn't sound so far out, does it?
I'll bet the people around the little town of McCaulley would
believe me without an explanation. They had a man in their
community who used a dog to do his plowing for him. It's true.
And the man didn't have to be there to work the levers for him
and turn the team around at the end of the rows.
There were no rows. He was flatbreaking his ground, going round
and round. His mules followed the furrow all day long and the
man only had to sit there hour after hour doing nothing. Then he
got the idea of tying his lines up and slipping off to the house
without his mules knowing he was gone.
This worked well except when the mules would stop once in awhile,
and he would have to go start them again. So, next he put his
little dog on the plow seat. The dog liked to ride so well that,
when the team would begin stopping, he would bark to keep them
going.
People could hardly believe their eyes--the very idea--a dog
plowing while his master sat on his porch in the shade.
Now, Papa didn't have a dog, so he used me.
We Texans have to be careful what we say and to whom we say it.
When I start talking with a man, the first thing I want to know
is, where is he from?
I know, Texans have a reputation of being big liars. It is true,
all Texans are capable of lying, but they are not all liars.
They don't have to lie. In Texas the truth is wild enough.
If I am talking with a man from north of the Mason-Dixon line, I
only have to tell the truth and he thinks I am telling a big
Texas lie. But if the man is from Oklahoma, I sometimes have to
lie just a little to make the story interesting to him. Those
Okies are almost as bad as Texans about story telling.
Some people think Texas is a state, but it's not. Texas is a
state of mind, an attitude, a broad open expanse of freedom and
liberty known only to Texans. It's a feeling you can never get
just by living in Texas, you've got to be born in Texas.
There are other happenings dating back to the Flint place. Here
are a couple which took place before my time. I can only relate
them to you as they were told to me.
We don't know where Frank got his first taste of chewing tobacco,
but he liked it and he wanted another taste. It was only a half-
mile from our house over to Uncle Andrew's. Now, Uncle Andrew
chewed tobacco and Frank knew it. So, Frank found it easy to get
Mama to let him walk over there to play with Ruth. He also found
it easy to ask Ruth if she knew where her dad kept his tobacco.
She knew all right, and she found it easy to "snitch" a chew for
Frank. She also had the forethought to make sure she took enough
for both of them. But, now that they had the tobacco in their
possession, it wouldn't be smart to risk being caught playing
around the house with tobacco in their mouths.
So, now Frank tells Aunt Mary he came over to see if Ruth could
come over to his house and play. Yes, Aunt Mary would allow her
to go, which was a perfect set-up for five-year-old kids. They
could chew the tobacco all the way from Ruth's house over to
Frank's house, just so they got rid of it before they got there.
Who cares how long it might take two little kids to walk a half
mile? They could chew a long time.
However, one little problem developed. The tobacco didn't affect
Frank at all, but before they got to Frank's house, Ruth was as
sick as a horse.
Naturally, they didn't dare tell why she was sick. And she was
sure she would feel better in a little while.
Another little story came to me from Susie, my older sister. She
was always having to see after the baby of the family. At this
time Albert was the baby and I was about three years old. She
probably had to take care of me also, when I was a baby. But on
this particular day--the day of the snuff--Mama, Grandma, and I
went out to the garden. Susie wanted to go but had to stay in
the house with Albert.
This was one of the few times during my childhood that I was just
the right size, and here I am, unable to remember a thing about
it. Susie had to tell me about it. If I had been any smaller, I
might have had to stay in the house with Susie and Albert. And
if I had been any larger, I might have had to watch after Albert
while Susie went to the garden.
Anyway, Susie's brain was partly angry but mostly just idle, so
the devil used it for his workshop.
Grandma had put her snuffbox on the door casing above the kitchen
door. Susie had never been allowed to taste snuff, but she
reasoned that it must be something special, because Grandma
"dipped" it all the time.
Many's the time Grandma would send me to the "branch" (creek) to
bring her a small hackberry limb for a tooth brush. (It was
really a snuff brush.) She would take a hackberry twig about
twice as big and twice as long as a wooden match and chew on one
end until it "frazzled" out into a bristle. Then she would dip
the damp bristle into her snuff, put it in her mouth, and work
happily for hours, with the "brush" extending out one corner of
her mouth.
Now, this picture of contentment on Grandma's face as she dipped
and worked, is what the devil showed to Susie when he told her
she ought to climb up on the kitchen cabinet and get her some of
that delicious brown snuff in the little tin box.
She climbed up in a chair and got up on the cabinet, only to find
that she couldn't reach the snuff. But she didn't give up. She
climbed back down and put a chair up on the cabinet. Then she
climbed up in the bottom chair to get onto the cabinet so she
could get up in the top chair. And by leaning way over, she
could reach the snuffbox.
Now, Susie didn't want to climb down to dip her snuff. It would
be too hard to have to climb all the way back up to put the snuff
back on the shelf over the door. So she just sat down in the
upper chair and began dipping the snuff.
That's about all the story. At least that's all she remembered.
She never did know how she got down from the chairs and the
cabinet. She only remembers that, when she began to regain
consciousness, she was a mighty sick little girl, and snuff had
lost its charm and glitter.