SOLD FARM; MOVED TO HAMLIN
By the summer of 1919 things were looking somewhat better. Papa
had ordered two new tires for the Reo. They had come in but
there had been no hurry to put them on the car. They were lying
there in the garage beside the old car which had been mothballed
for quite a few months.
Then one Sunday afternoon we saw an airplane flying around over
at Lamesa. It was a small two-seater like they flew in the war.
Anyway, there we were sitting at home and watching the action
from ten miles away, when Papa asked if any of us would like to
drive over there and watch the airplane. OH BOY! Would we! We
got busy right away putting the new tires on the car, pumping up
all four tires, and getting the old car to run again after quite
a spell of sitting. Then we drove over, watched the action from
up close, then went back home.
While in Lamesa watching the plane, we learned that the pilot was
taking up passengers, that is, anyone who wanted to pay ten
dollars to ride. And he would loop-the-loop for an extra ten
dollars each loop. One man paid $40 to ride and loop three times
in rapid succession. It was hard for us to imagine anyone having
that kind of money to spend for so little in so short a time.
Our parents wanted to be good to us kids, but being good to us
didn't include spending a lot of money on us. By their ingenuity
and hard work, they had a way of stretching a few dollars beyond
contentment and happiness, almost to abundance. We each had a
saddle and a horse to ride, including Ollie Mae, but not William
Robert. Papa braided quirts for all of us. He would take the
leather uppers of worn-out shoes, cut them into long strips, and
make quirts as good as the best. He cut up Ollie Mae's old high
top red shoes and made the prettiest little red quirt you ever
saw. And as I mentioned before, we boys had our guns.
The Higginbotham Ranch was in a rundown condition and was being
sold piece by piece to farmers. Most all the ranch houses were
vacant and much of the pastureland had become a dust bowl.
Tumbleweeds had caught against the fences and sand had drifted
into the weeds, burying both the fences and the weeds in many
places. There were abandoned houses here and there on the ranch.
The vacant houses had most all the windows broken out. Most of
the doors were off their hinges or broken or had been taken by
someone who had a need for them. We boys often took Old Scotch
and our guns and our horses and went to a lot of the old houses--
just exploring to see what was there.
In one of the old houses, behind a door casing, I found a 22
rifle. It worked but not well. It wouldn't shoot where I aimed
it; the barrel had a curve in it. If I had found the old gun
when I was younger, I might have thought I could shoot around
corners with it. But I was much smarter now and I knew you
couldn't shoot a curve with a gun. no matter how crooked the
barrel was.
Actually the curve in the gun barrel was no problem. Papa showed
me how to straighten it by placing it on a four-by-four, then
placing a block of wood on it at just the right place and hitting
it with a big hammer. Oh, yes, I got it fairly true, but not
true enough for hunting rabbits. But then, I had my good new gun
for rabbits. I learned a lot about guns by having the old gun
around to play with.
One day we four boys got off out behind the barn, hiding from
Papa, and made shotguns out of our rifles. We would take the
bullet out of a 22 shell, place the shell in the chamber, pour
some powder from a shotgun shell down the barrel, stuff in a
little paper for wadding, then put in a few shot from the shotgun
shell, and a little more wadding to hold the shot in place. Then
we would aim and fire. But the little birdshot wouldn't even go
through an old rusted out washtub. After a couple of tries, I
put more powder in my gun next time. They still wouldn't go
through the tub. The other boys were afraid to put a lot of
powder, but I wasn't. So I put twice as much powder the next
time--I really put in an overdose and a few extra shot.
Well, yes, the pellets went through the tub this time for sure,
but the gun went the other way--right through the stock. The
metal body of the gun split the wood stock and came almost to my
shoulder. Smoke filled my eyes and a cloud of smoke rose above
my head like an Indian smoke signal. It seemed that maybe it was
trying to tell us something, so we listened, and we stopped
muzzleloading our guns.
Once during a big, big rain the swamps caught a lot of water, and
ducks became plentiful on them. A neighbor man and Frank and we
four boys went duck hunting. The swamps were four or five miles
apart. There was a lot of water and plenty of ducks, but there
were practically no trees or bushes to sneak up behind. The
ducks could see us coming and fly away. We met with failure at
swamp after swamp--no ducks for us, anyhow not many.
By two o'clock in the afternoon we were circling back toward home
but were still about seven miles from home, and with only three
little ducks about the size of quail--well, maybe a little
bigger, and we were very tired and hungry. We had been walking
since early breakfast. It had been a long day and we had covered
many miles.
Finally we decided to eat the ducks we had. At a vacant ranch
house we found a rusty syrup bucket. There was water at the
windmill. And in the barn we found some cattle salt with some
black stock powder mixed in it. First we built a fire. Then we
picked the ducks and boiled them in the rusty bucket, salting the
stew with the black and white salt. We could hardly wait for it
to cook.
We had walked at least 25 or 30 miles, and if you think walking
that distance in eight hours doesn't make victuals taste good,
you are plum loco, no matter what they are cooked in or seasoned
with. That was, beyond a doubt the best food I had ever tasted
in my life. We divided the meat as equally as possible, and it
came out to about one fifth as much as each of us needed. Then
we drank the soup--two swallows for you, two for him, two for me,
and so on, right out of the rusty bucket. When a feather came
floating along, we didn't risk wasting a single drop of soup. We
would let it go into our mouth, suck the juice out of it, then
spit it out.
We always had some good neighbors wherever we lived. One fall we
headed maize for a good neighbor. He was to pay us $2.50 for
each wagon load. But the stalks had fallen down so badly in
places that heading went very slowly and we couldn't make much
money at it. Papa tried to get the man, Mr. Wood, to pay us
three dollars a load. Mr. Wood thought we were just trying to
get more pay for less work, and he wouldn't pay it, so we quit.
Then Mr. Wood finished heading the maize himself. Now, I say he
was a good neighbor because, when he saw how much trouble it was
to head the fallen stalks, he came and paid us fifty cents extra
for each load we had gathered. My parents made a practice of
praising the good in people and they taught us kids that "By
their fruits ye shall know them."
Yes, our parents taught us a lot of things. But there were other
things which were not taught in our family. We kids just had to
learn about these things as best we could. Along about my early
teens, I began to learn about new-born calves and colts and
babies. Up until then, all I knew was that horses and cows found
their babies out in the pasture, and doctors brought babies to
women at times. And about Santa Claus, I wasn't curious about
him, I was just happy about him. I well remember how
disappointed I was when I learned the truth about Santa. And my
newly acquired knowledge about babies brought a bit of
disappointment concerning the moral character of adults.
We learned some of our lessons the hard way. I remember one
Sunday afternoon we boys were riding young unbroken horses while
Mama was away from home and Papa was sleeping. We knew we were
not supposed to ride wild horses unless Papa was with us. He had
told us never to do so. It wasn't that we deliberately disobeyed
Papa. It was that we thought we had learned a lot since he last
told us that, and perhaps the rule didn't apply any longer. And
besides, we were riding a real gentle unbroken filly.
Anyway, Joel was on the horse and we were holding the reins when
she went sideways and fell and rolled over on Joel. She mashed
the wind out of him and left him unconscious. It looked bad to
me. There he was, just lying there doing nothing. I knew Papa
would be unhappy with our disobedience, but when there is
something that needs to be done, you just do it. I was scared
and I hated to have to face Papa but I didn't hesitate a second.
I ran as fast as I could to get him. I was about 12 or 13. Was
I scared? Brave? Loyal to Joel? Trustworthy? Devoted to duty?
I don't really know. I only knew there was something that had to
be done and my sense of duty was stronger than my fear of having
to face Papa with my confession of disobedience, so I did what
had to be done.
Lucky for all of us, Joel went down lengthways in a furrow
between two ridges. The ridges held the horse up somewhat. Joel
wasn't really hurt--just had the wind knocked out of him and it
left him unconscious for a few minutes.
Along about this same time in my boyhood, I had something that
one of my brothers wanted to buy from me. I don't remember what
it was but I do remember I offered it to him for eight cents. He
offered me a nickel for it. He had a nickel and four pennies. I
finally offered to take the nickel if he would pitch the four
pennies up and give me all that fell "heads." We didn't make the
deal because Earl learned what I had offered to do and he shamed
me scornfully. He said, "That's just the same as shooting dice
or playing poker." I didn't know how to shoot dice nor play
poker. I only knew that either one was a bad thing to do. I was
deeply hurt, not because Earl had scolded or shamed me, but just
to think that I would bring dishonor to my family by even
thinking of gambling, after all the moral training my parents had
given me. Also there was the element of ignorance. I hadn't
realized that such an act would be gambling, and I was too proud
to admit my ignorance.
Anyway, I resolved to myself then and there never to do a thing
like that again as long as I lived, never to gamble in any way.
But, like Adam in the garden of Eden when he blamed a woman for
his disobedience, I too can say, "A woman tempted me and I did
gamble." I'll tell you about it later.
This last year we were on the plains, it looked like we were sure
to make good. But it seemed that fate was trying our patience.
I think the devil also had a hand in the turn of events. I never
did like that guy. Sometimes I think he is still after me.
Anyway in late summer Papa and the neighbors looked at our cotton
crop and came to the conclusion that we couldn't keep from making
100 bales. And cotton sold that year at $200 a bale. It looked
as though the Lord had finally smiled on us as he did on Job.
But I guess we hadn't suffered as much nor repented as well as
Job had. When the Lord favored us with a good rain one Sunday
afternoon, our neighbors saw the rain and said, "Man, that
Johnson family sure must be living right. Look at the rain the
Lord sent them."
But what the neighbors didn't know was that the devil had put a
boll worm in each and every drop of that rain. None of us knew
about the devil and his pesky worms until later.
What happened? We made 20 bales instead of 100, about enough to
pay the taxes, interest, and the annual note. If the devil had
left us alone, we would have had about $16,000 left over.
So now what? Sell out, of course--sell out and get out. We sold
the farm for $25 an acre; we had paid $18. That would have been
a good profit on the place except for the fact that the
improvements we had made on the place cost about as much as we
made on it. So we just about broke even. But the value of land
had begun to rise and we didn't know it. Before we moved off the
place, even before Mama signed the deed, the farm sold again for
$10 an acre more than we got for it. When Mama learned about the
last price it brought, she said, "I don't think I'll sign the
deed."
Papa told her, "Oh yes you will."
Of course, Mama had not really meant what she said.
So, due to three years of drought and crop failures, we had gone
broke. Then we moved to Hamlin--all of us without money, and
Mama and Papa very weary. In a short three years we had gone
from a good life on the Exum farm to poverty in a rundown house
in a one-horse town.
This gives you some idea of the financial state of the family at
that time. This might also give you an idea of the patience of a
couple who had come through this valley of gloom and
destruction--came through in fairly good moral condition, and
continued on to guide their children along the right path.
OKAY! Okay, so we didn't stay on the right path all the way. At
least we were told which way to go. We were not all angels, but
at least we tried hard at first to hide our devilish ways.
That last fall on the plains, Papa didn't have enough money to
pay us kids for gathering cotton. But he promised to pay us so-
much a 100 pounds and told us to keep an account of how much he
owed us, and he would pay us gradually and eventually.
We each kept an account in our little books. When we boys wanted
to buy or sell among ourselves, we would show the transaction in
our little ledgers. Evidently some of my brothers didn't put
much stock in Papa's ability to pay later, or they got a little
pay from him now and then much faster than I did, or something.
Anyway, after we moved to Hamlin, I still had my book which
showed a balance of quite a few dollars that Papa owed me. I
hadn't gotten all my money, but I hadn't needed as much as some
of the others. And I thought it my duty to spend less and
thereby help Papa out over a longer period of time.
Furthermore, at that early age I was getting a thrill out of
watching my balance grow. I had sold quite a few items to my
brothers without cash. We had simply subtracted the amount from
their books and added the figures to my balance. I actually had
over $23 in my balance when one brother accused me of cheating
and stealing. They could have checked up on me. I had every
transaction written down. But I threw the book away rather than
have my family doubt my honesty.