PROSPERITY, ANIMALS, GROWING UP
We were about the luckiest kids in the world. We always had as
much or more than the average kids in our neighborhood. And of
course, we had each other. But most of all, we had parents who
had the knack of teaching us how to get pleasure from working and
how to make our own fun, using a minimum of worldly goods while
doing it.
For instance, we played a game called "Driving the Old Sow." The
equipment for playing the game cost absolutely nothing. It
consisted of one beat-up tin can and a mesquite stick for each
player. We spent many happy hours playing the game, especially
when we had a bunch of other kids to play it with us.
Many of our playthings were not bought with a lot of money, but
were the result of our parents' ingenuity and willingness to
build things for us, as well as playing with us and teaching us
how to live more abundantly.
We were the only ones who had a merry-go-round all our own. It
was a big one--a four-seater, big enough for grown people. And
we had to hold on tightly or be slung off. There was a special
seat for the smaller ones so they wouldn't get slung off. And of
course it was propelled by boy power.
At Christmas we got our share of toys and things, and we got
candy and fruits too. We had apples during the entire year, and
we got bananas a few times. But we never saw oranges except at
Christmas time.
On Christmas Eve nights, before we went to bed, we placed chairs
around the living room with a name in each one. Gifts from Santa
were never wrapped. He put my things in the chair with my name
in it, and the others likewise. Next morning no one was allowed
to go into the living room until all were ready to go in.
We were taught that our family should work together to make a
more abundant life for all in the family, and now I was beginning
to see families working and playing together to bring a better
life to all in the community.
The Stevens family lived about a mile from us and one day one of
the boys got married. The whole neighborhood knew that the
newlyweds were spending the night there at his parents' home.
I was only about nine years old, and I can't remember much about
that one and only chivaree I ever attended. In fact, I don't
think there was much to remember about it. But when they
explained to me just how a chivaree was carried on, naturally I
wanted in on the action. Any country kid could beat a bucket
with a stick. And it seemed that all the little kids and big
kids and grow people were there with buckets and pans and sticks.
We waited until all the lights were out in the Stevens' house.
Then we silently surrounded the house and when the signal was
given we all marched around the house drumming up all the noise
we could make.
After a few minutes, someone came out of the house with a lighted
kerosene lantern. Then the newlyweds came out on the porch. I
suppose they figured we wouldn't go away until they came out.
The groom came out into the yard and said something like, "Ah,
come on that's enough noise, leave us alone." The older ones in
our bunch exchanged a few friendly words with them and then we
all told them goodnight and went home.
Like all farm families, we had animals. And when a cow found a
new calf out in our pasture, one or the other of us kids would
claim it for our own. We would beg, "Papa, can I have it?" or,
"Mama, can it be mine?" Yes, they said it could be ours. And
so, it belonged to one of us kids.
Just about everyone of us had a calf or a colt all our own--until
it came time to sell it. Then guess whose it became. Papa's,
naturally. But then, those of us who were young enough to
believe it was really ours in the first place, were young enough
to forget our loss easily. After all, there was no harm done.
It had been ours while it was little and cute.
We had one old mare that we called Old Ribbon. She was not only
called Old Ribbon, she was old and her name was Ribbon. She was
gentle and slow and patient with us young ones and didn't seem to
mind if four or five of us rode her at one time.
To get up on Old Ribbon we had to lead her up beside a stump or a
tub or a wagon tongue or something else we could climb up on and
then jump on her back.
Along with her other admirable characteristics, Old Ribbon was
also smart. When she didn't want us to climb up on her, she
would move away just far enough that, when we tried to jump on
her back, we would land on the ground between her and whatever it
was we jumped from.
If we cheated on Old Ribbon and helped each other up without her
having to get near some climbable object, she was still patient
and gentle with us. She wouldn't pitch us off. She didn't have
to. She knew where there was a low-hanging limb on a tree that
she would walk under. And when she did, there was no way anyone
could stay on her back. What's more, there was no way we little
kids could keep her from that low limb. If we pulled her head to
one side, she would go sideways to the limb. Then we had a
choice--jump off or be forced off. The one in front could hang
onto the limb; the others would all fall in a pile behind Old
Ribbon. We soon learned it was best to bail out beforehand.
But one day, I remember, Old Ribbon gave us a little trouble.
However, I'm sure she didn't do it intentionally.
When the Abilene and Southern Railroad was being built into
Hamlin, Papa got a job helping clear the right-of-way. And it
was Mama's job to take Papa's lunch to him. Pardon, in those
days it wasn't lunch--it was dinner, at or near midday. Then we
had supper at the close of day. Anyway, Mama and I would hook
Old Ribbon to the old buggy and take Papa his dinner every day.
One day we took Papa's dinner to him and found him sawing down
trees where the railroad was to cross Dry Callie Creek. While we
were there, he sawed into the hollow of a big elm tree and water
gushed out. After the tree fell, the hollow stump was standing
full of water. Of course, you've got to be a little kid for
something like that to impress you. And that's what I was.
But it was another day that Old Ribbon impressed me. It was
almost dinner time when Mama and I hooked her to the old buggy to
take Papa his dinner. As usual, I was in the seat with Mama, and
the grub box was in the floor at our feet. It was covered with a
clean white cloth to keep the flies and dust away.
Now, we hadn't gone more than a hundred yards from our house when
Old Ribbon had to do what comes natural for all horses to do.
But this time Old Ribbon had symptoms of dysentery and gas.
Either one without the other wouldn't have been so bad. But both
together made it plenty bad.
The dashboard was only half large enough. It caught what it
could; Mama and I caught most of the rest. And the white cloth
over Papa's dinner caught its share--but it wasn't white any
more. In your eyes, it burned, in your nose, it smelled
terrible, and in your mouth, it tasted a lot like what it really
was.
No question about it, there was just one thing to do, go back
home, wash up, wash the buggy, change clothes, change the cloth
over the dinner, hope it didn't go through onto the biscuits, get
going again and take Papa a late dinner. Ho hum, dull life on
the farm, no excitement.
Papa may have been hungry by the time we got his dinner to him
and he may have been worried and weary. He may have been upset
and Mama may have been upset but they couldn't afford to say
anything bad. They didn't allow any sort of rough language in
our family.
Old Ribbon was a good gentle horse for Mama and us kids, but Papa
had some big horses he used to move heavy loads and haul his
cotton to the gin. And in the rush cotton picking season, we
kids and Mama picked almost all of the cotton, while Papa took it
to town, got it ginned and then sold it.
There were many days when Papa would leave home before five
o'clock in the morning with a load of cotton, wait his turn at
the gin and not get home until after ten that night.
Ginning was slow in those days. Sometimes it would mean that
Papa could get home an hour or two earlier if he could get to the
gin ahead of just one other farmer. So, a good team was valuable
to a farmer during the cotton harvest season.
I never heard Papa tell of trying to go around another farmer on
his way to the gin. But I have heard him tell of speeding up to
beat another man to a crossroads in order to be ahead of him when
they both turned the last corner toward town. And I have heard
him tell of others trying to pass him on the road. But I never
heard of one who succeeded. Papa drove big horses with a lot of
endurance, and on a three-mile stretch of level road, they
usually held their own.
Despite all the work we had to do, we kids played a lot and had a
lot of fun. When it rained at the Exum place, water ran out of
our pasture, across the parking area by our front yard, and
continued on down a road toward the blacksmith shop.
It had just come a hard rain and was still sprinkling a little.
So we took shovels and damned up the road where it was deepest
and not spread out so much. Water was flowing into our small
lake almost as fast as we could build the dam. The water backed
up and covered the parking area by our front yard. By the time
the water stopped flowing and we stopped building the dam, water
was as much as three feet deep over an area as large as two or
three city lots.
I don't remember where Frank got his boat. Nor do I know how
long he kept it nor whether he built it especially for that
occasion. But I do know we went riding in his boat just outside
our front yard. They even took Kodak pictures of us in the boat
on our little lake.
In two or three days the dam had to be destroyed and the lake
drained so we could use the road again and so we could get in and
out of our front yard.
The years passed quickly and during the period from 1912 to 1916
things were happening fast in our part of the country. Hamlin
was growing up. In the fall of the years, they had their fairs,
with their carnivals, large hot-air balloons, motorcycle races
and livestock shows. Prosperity was spreading over our country
and everyone who wanted to work could get a job.
Frank took his horse and buggy and carried the mail at times, as
a substitute carrier. But for some reason unknown to me, he
became disenchanted with the job and gave it up.
Papa bought our first auto in 1916. It was a 1914 model Reo,
five-passenger touring car--the cost, $800. We drove it until
1922, then junked it.
That Reo car had a feature I have never seen on any other car.
The left pedal was a clutch pedal the first half-way down. The
remainder of the way down, it became a foot brake. The right
pedal was an emergency brake. Both had ratchet-type bars
underneath which held them down to the desired place.
Handy? You bet! Many car owners wished their cars had the
clutch and brake under one foot. It was especially handy when
starting a car headed uphill, because it left the right foot free
to work the gas feed.
The old Reo didn't have a lot of power to brag about--maybe about
as much as a couple of wooden-legged donkeys. I remember we went
to Lamesa in it one time. Going up the Cap Rock, it just
couldn't make it alone. The road was steep and rocky. The
Buick, which we bought later, would go up the hill with all of us
still in the car. But the Reo was different.
We not only had to get out and walk up, we had to push the Reo up
too. There were about four or five of us pushing, and two of us
were carrying rocks to put behind the wheels when it stopped.
Then the driver would "rev" up the motor, let up on the clutch,
and with all of us working together, we would move the car
forward and upward two or three steps. Then again, rocks behind
the wheels--quickly.
That kind of life gave people something to do besides griping and
asking Washington for handouts. It also gave a man pride in
ownership, especially if the car he owned would outdo the car his
neighbor owned.
Bragging on your car was a way of life in early carhood days. If
a man had a car that could do anything his neighbors couldn't do,
that was something to brag about. No two cars were alike.
But now, 60 years later, we find that auto-makers have wiped out
all differences and are making all cars alike. No matter which
company made the car you are driving today, you have nothing to
brag about. Today's cars all have at least four things in
common-
-they are too big, too powerful, too costly and burn too much
gasoline.
But it hasn't always been that way. About the same year we
bought our Reo, a neighbor family of ours had a flat tire. They
set the emergency brake while they jacked up the car to put the
spare on. Then when they got going again, they forgot to release
the brake and drove about a half-mile with the brake on. Later,
one of the boys in that family bragged that their car was so
powerful it went a half-mile with both hind wheels sliding.
My brother, Frank, got rid of his motorcycle and his Buick car
and bought a Grant auto. It had a reputation of having great
power. They said you could run the front bumper up against a
tree and it had enough power to sit there and spin the wheels on
dry land. That was a lot of power for that time.
One fellow who didn't think too highly of the Grant said he knew
a man who bought one and, not having a garage to lock it in,
drove it out by his hog pen and chained it to the pen. That
night some thieves came, cut the chain and stole the pen.
But before cars made it so handy for farmers to drive into town
to buy supplies, peddlers were already plentiful, bringing
supplies to the farmers.
Horse-drawn rigs were apt to pull up at our farm almost anytime.
They had for sale most anything you might want, from kitchen
utensils to medicine; hardware to veterinarian supplies; needles
and thread and blue denim. You name it--they had it--even
horseshoes and nails.
With the new prosperity came growth, and as a country grows so do
her cities and towns. And as towns prosper, they breed violence.
I was only a kid but I heard some grownups telling about a man
who got shot in Hamlin. One man was after another man with a
shotgun. He got off one good shot, which proved to be effective
enough. The man who got shot ran into a hardware store, ran
through the store and out into the alley, up the alley a few
doors, then ran back into a drygoods store. There he crawled
under a counter to hide and died. That's how I remember it.
That's all I ever heard about it. I don't know who got shot nor
why.
During all this time, naturally, we kids were growing up too.
Frank was almost a grown man and Susie had fallen in love. When
she was born, they named her Susie. But it wasn't long till her
Aunt Annie nicknamed her "Sookie." She hated that nickname ever-
so-much. Nevertheless, she was stuck with it until she began to
get serious about having Dode Sanford over to our house for
supper quite a few times through the week and almost every Sunday
night. Then she began asking us kids to call her Susie. She
even gave us a penny now and then to do so.
Fifty years later she moved to California and changed her name
again--to Susan. Some girls are just never satisfied with what
other people give them. She still argues that she was named
Susan to begin with. And she's probably right, Jones County
didn't start keeping records until four years later.
Anyway, Uncle Jim's farm joined our farm on the east. Dode was
working for Uncle Jim on his farm. That made Dode and Susie
next-
door neighbors. I think that was about the time I began to learn
a little bit about what being sweethearts was all about.
Well, the long-awaited day finally arrived and Susie and Dode got
married. I don't remember much about it all. In fact, I never
did know much about it. They didn't tell me and I didn't know
enough about it to know what kind of questions to ask to find out
more. If I remember right, it seems they just drove away in the
car one day with Papa, and when they returned, someone told me
they were married. I couldn't tell by looking; they looked the
same as ever to me. I was told they went to see a preacher but I
didn't know what for.
Even at that early date, the county began to need better roads.
Farmers were allowed to work on the county roads so-many days a
year as a way of paying their taxes. The road work could be done
at a time most convenient to the individual farmers. This was
not a matter of welfare handouts to farmers. Rather, it was a
case where farmers worked together to improve conditions in their
community and still keep their money at home.
If a man was unable to do his share of the road work, the county
would collect tax money from that man and use it to hire another
man to work in his place.
Papa did his share of the county road work. But with that work
added to all his regular farm work, he had to search for faster
and better ways to do some of his work.
You see, one of Papa's big problems was that he had a house full
of growing kids who could use a spoon right well at the dining
table, but were too little to use a feed-heading knife in the
field.
There just wasn't enough time to head our feed in the fall. Papa
had a row binder with which to bundle the feed. But he wanted
feed heads in the barn to feed his work horses.
So he bundled the feed with his binder and shocked it up to dry.
While it was drying, he built a large knife, somewhat like those
paper cutters you have seen in print shops. He bolted the cutter
to one sideboard of his wagon Then he would drive the wagon up
beside a shock of feed in the field, and while he placed the
heads of a bundle across the lower knife blade, one of us boys
would bring the upper blade down and cut the heads off the
bundle. When the heads were cut off, they fell into the wagon.
The cutter worked quite well when Papa had the proper boy
operating the knife, but sometimes he had to use me to help him.
As I said, Papa and I did a lot of things together. Cutting
heads off bundles was one of those things. Almost cutting his
hand off was another.
One day Papa was placing the bundles into the cutter and I was
working the upper knife. I thought he was ready for me to cut,
but he hadn't gotten his hand back out of the cutter. It looked
to me like a bad cut. It bled a lot at first. I sure regretted
what I had done, but I guess it wasn't cut very badly because he
wrapped his bandanna around his hand and we went right on with
our work.
Papa was always and forever doing things that fascinated me and,
at the same time, taught us to use our heads and develop our
skills.
When we had used all the hot water washing our feet at bedtime,
and there was not enough water for Papa to wash his, he didn't
seem to mind. He would get a wash pan of cold water, set it on
the hearth and put in live coals of fire until his water was hot
enough. We kids liked to hear the hot coals sizzle in the water.
There were times when the kitchen was too cold for comfort at
early breakfast time. Of course, the dining table was in the
cold kitchen. Well, Papa would take an open-top, five-gallon can
with about four inches of ashes in the bottom and a few
shovelfulls of hot coals on top of the ashes and set the can
under the dining table. That would warm our feet while we ate
breakfast. And it would also help warm up the kitchen.
So, it was there at the Exum place that I spent six of the best
years of my life. They were years of family contentment and
prosperity--we youngsters working, playing, exploring, wading in
the creek, hunting rabbits with air rifles, going to school;
gathering eggs, feeding chickens, feeding cows and horses;
playing in the barn, playing in the cottonseed, eating peanuts in
the barn loft, wading in puddles after summer showers; enjoying
the warm fire in the fireplace, washing our feet by the warm
hearth at bedtime, snuggling between warm blankets in cold
bedrooms; in short, growing up and enjoying every minute of it.