GOT MARRIED, DROVE TRUCK, FARMED, CATTLE DRIVE
A year or two after I quite high school I got married. It was
either in 1928 or 1929. The stock market crash came in one of
those years and I got married in the other one. I keep getting
them mixed up. I know we got married June the second, and I
believe it was in 1928.
After our honeymoon Ima and I became sadly disappointed. Things
were not as we had expected them to be. For years we had been
courting and seeing a lot of movies. And every love story we
ever saw ended by showing the couple getting married and living
happily ever after. They didn't say one single word about the
husband having to drive a truck six days a week, and sometimes on
Sundays, nor the wife having to wash and iron and cook and keep
house. Those were our big disappointments. We got married and
had to work hard ever after.
After we married Ima and I lived in Hamlin in Papa's rent house
west of the truck warehouse. I was driving a truck on a daily
run to Abilene and back to Hamlin. That was when I learned that
a truck driver could live on two meals a day. I didn't have time
to eat three meals.
The rule of command, mentioned earlier, where the oldest in the
group had authority over, and the responsibility for all the
younger ones, proved to be a poor ruling after kids become men.
So I began to drift way from doing any and all things whatsoever
Earl told me to do. After all, I was a big boy now, even big
enough to drive a truck to Abilene, which was twice as far away
from Hamlin as Earl drove his truck. His regular run was only to
Stamford.
At times I even hauled a lot more freight than Earl did. I had
to deal with people he didn't even know and I had to conform to
trucking methods which he had not been exposed to. Why, I saw
trucks on U.S. Highway 80 headed for California with greater
loads than Earl's truck and cargo combined. I saw those same
trucks return with more miles added to their speedometers in one
week than Earl might drive in ten weeks. I witnessed the advent
of balloon tires on front wheels of large trucks and I saw them
run as many miles as heavy duty, high pressure tires had been
running on front wheels, and at half the cost--this before Earl
realized that balloons were even being used on trucks.
Conflict between Earl and me was inevitable. I realized that he
was not just trying to shove me around--not trying to be bossy
just to see if he could be. Rather he was trying to do what he
thought was best for the company. But he didn't always know what
was best for the company. Progress had gotten way out ahead of
Earl and he had not realized it. What was good for Earl and the
truck line to Stamford was not necessarily good for me and the
truck line to Abilene.
So, one day I thought it was time to disobey Earl and make some
decisions of my own. I fought back. I was tired of listening to
him and doing all the things his way. But he didn't think it was
time for me to be weaned as yet, so he fought back also.
We didn't take time to put the boxing gloves on; we just went to
slugging, bare fisted. I wasn't mad at him, just tired of taking
orders which didn't always fit the occasion. However, I was glad
he remembered Papa's old rule of not hitting each other in the
face. That could have hurt; noses bleed and teeth cost money.
Our chests took a terrible beating--at least mine did. I'll
admit he hurt me, and I tried to hurt him. It was not that I
really wanted to hurt him, I just wanted him to get the idea that
I was driving my truck and he was driving his. He was too small
to drive both of them.
Finally I said, "Boy, I'm tired and sore. How about you?"
He said, "Naw, I'm not tired."
I told him, "You sure jarred me. Did I hurt you?"
Again he said, "No, I'm not hurt nor tired."
Anyway, we stopped hitting each other, We rested awhile, got us a
drink of water, and went on with the business of getting our
trucks and cargo ready to roll. All this took place without a
cross word from either of us--and without a witness. And with no
witness, I can tell it like I want to; it's my word against his.
About this time, Papa needed a good used tire for his Hupmobile.
Earl was unable to find a suitable one in Stamford, so I was
asked to pick up one in Abilene. And Earl warned, "Be sure you
don't get a Goodrich."
Well, I looked all over Abilene and the only tire I found that I
would consider buying was a Goodrich--a half inch oversize. It
only cost $4.50, so I bought it. Of course I didn't buy a
Goodrich just to bug Earl, but when I showed up in Hamlin with
it, you would have thought I had set fire to another keg of
powder--with Earl sitting on it. He was sure the tire would
break and blow out. Besides, he had told me not to get that
brand.
I told him that if it blew out, I would pay for it. But it
didn't blow out; it gave good service. This was another case
where I had to make a decision without Earl's presence. It
proved to be a good decision. It was another step toward my
independence from Earl.
During this time I'd had experience with oversize tires and low
air pressure on my own car, and it worked well. I had also seen
trucks running through Abilene with low pressure in front tires,
and it worked there also. So, I wasn't surprised that it worked
on the Hupmobile.
One year Papa bought a new Dodge truck with all four wheels and
tires the same size. Up until that year they had used much
smaller tires on the front wheels. But this truck had heavy-duty
wheels and tires in front just like the ones on the back.
I told Papa that, if he had the money and wanted to invest in two
balloon tires for the front, at $30 each, he could save the $60
heavy-duty tires to use on the back wheels later when needed.
Earl told Papa that I was crazy to think that a $30 tire would
run as far as a $60 tire.
Papa listened to me and bought the balloons, and they did run as
far. This pushed me a little further away from my big brother.
Of course, I though it was time he should review some facts and
notice that I might have a little more sense than he was giving
me credit for. If Earl had been willing to follow a leader, who
knows, he and I might have worked happily together ever after.
Other problems came up in Abilene, the likes of which Earl never
had to face in Stamford. One day the shipping clerk at Wm.
Cameron Company told me he had a shipment of windows going to
Stamford and he wondered if I wanted to haul them. I told him,
"No, Earl told me to let Rountree's truck haul all shipments to
Stamford."
The clerk asked, "Clarence, when are you going to stop listening
to Earl and start telling Earl?"
Well, Earl was the acting manager of the truck lines--not
authorized, but acting, and he had told me not to pick up any
Stamford freight.
Then the clerk told me that the man in Stamford ordered the
windows shipped either by Johnson or by rail. Then the clerk
added, "By law we can force you to haul them, but we wouldn't do
that. We'll just ship them by rail."
Now, I never did enjoy holding back when there was something to
be done. I had always been a "go-getter." But now I was being
held back by an invisible force 40 miles away, Earl. And I was
beginning to feel about as useless as a knot on a stick, and I
was being treated as such by big freight men who were beginning
to wonder why W. F. Johnson didn't get a driver with the ability
to solicit and haul freight. Competition was the name of the
game and I wasn't competing.
Anyhow, in this case, if I hauled the windows, I wouldn't be
competing with Rountree, it would be with the railroad. I
reasoned that Earl shouldn't be opposed to that. But my Stamford
freight had to go by way of Hamlin, and Earl would have to take
it from Hamlin to Stamford the following morning.
I made my decision, loaded the windows, and took them to Hamlin.
But Earl was very unhappy with me. He was never one to calmly
ask, "Why?"--and then listen to reason. He had one
uncompromising attitude, "I told you what to do. You must do
it."
Naturally, Earl was upset toward his little brother. He even
refused to haul the windows, and went to Stamford without them.
Finally, after two or three phone calls from the consignee to Wm.
Cameron Company and then to Papa, Earl delivered the windows,
reluctantly and under protest, and only at Papa's order. And
Papa told me to get all the Stamford freight I could, and he told
Earl to deliver whatever I brought to him.
Although Papa was owner of the truck lines and was supposed to be
in full command, Earl had ways of making life miserable for both
Papa and me. And as time went by, our relationship didn't
improve.
Remember now, this is my version. If Earl were writing this, I'm
sure it would read differently. And actually, it wasn't all that
bad. Earl was a good boy, and he still is. He's my brother. I
loved him then, and I still love him. That was a long time ago.
I don't hold any of this against him. I'd do anything I could
for him. And I don't think he holds anything against me, except
maybe my writing about it like this. But then, we are big boys
now and we probably don't have more than forty years left to
enjoy living and reminiscing. Why not enjoy it while we can?
I was a Jonah to Earl and perhaps to Papa also. At any rate,
Papa found a way to throw me overboard. In 1931 he asked me if I
would like to farm. He said he would invest money in a farm for
me like he had invested in a truck for each of the other boys and
I could pay him rent from the farm.
I agreed and he made a down payment on a farm nine miles
southwest of Roscoe, Texas. That is where Ima and I lived during
the year of 1932, and that is where we lived when Dennis, our
first born, came to live with us.
But the national economy was such that many farmers lost their
farms to mortgage holders. By the end of 1932 the Federal Land
Bank had repossessed more farms than they knew what to do with.
I was told that they were begging farmers to hold onto their
farms without making their annual payments--pay only the interest
and let the principal wait until they were able to pay. By this
time Papa could buy better farms for less money than he still
owed on this one. So he let it go back to the mortgage holder.
At the beginning of 1933 we moved onto Uncle Jim Johnson's farm
at Royston, 14 miles west of Hamlin. He offered to sell me the
place for five thousand dollars, with nothing down and nothing
per year except the interest until I was able to pay some on the
principal. I turned it down. During the depression of the 1930s
there were a good many years that the farm didn't make enough to
feed our family and pay the interest.
Then soon after we moved to Royston, Papa came to me and told me
that he would have to sell the plow-tools and horses to me
"Because," he said, "They keep hounding me and won't leave me
alone as long as I try to help you as I am helping the others."
He didn't tell me who "they" were and I didn't ask him; I didn't
even care who they were.
The 1930s hit most all of us pretty hard, including those who
were still in the trucking business. I knew men with families
drawing wages of less than two dollars a day. When I was
building a tractor, I hired a man, who was a good welder and
mechanic, for 50 cents a day plus a hamburger for lunch. The
burger cost me a dime. Those were the good old days. It was a
wonderful depression but I'm glad it's over.
Dennis was eight months old when we moved to the Royston farm.
The farm had been neglected for years and things were quite run-
down--fences, barn, the house, everything.
My youngest brother lived with us three months after we moved to
Royston. He and I would take our 22 rifles and go out after the
milk cows in the afternoon, and it was a common thing for each of
us to kill from three to ten rabbits each day. Our pasture had
the smell of dead rabbits for three months.
Rattlesnakes were also plentiful on our farm during warm weather.
We even killed one in our back room--that is, Ima did, with a 22
rifle. And when Anita was two years old, Ima and I were out
early one morning milking cows and when Anita woke up she came
out to join us. Ima picked her up and carried her back to the
house, and there under the icebox, right by the door through
which Anita had passed, was a rattlesnake.
Big rats and mice had their heyday the first few months we lived
there. Rats would often wake us up at night gnawing holes up
through the floor in our house. We managed to catch those in the
house in traps, but those under the house sometimes kept us awake
gnawing. I got out of bed one night and poured carbolic acid
around a hole where one had been gnawing up through the floor.
Later that same night one woke me up again and I found the hole
large enough for a rat to come through, and I found the rat in
the house feeling very sick--from acid poisoning.
We often saw mice run from furniture to furniture or peep out
from their hiding places. Many times I carried my rifle to the
dining table with me and also placed it by my side when I sat
down to read. If a mouse hesitated just a moment he was apt to
find himself to be a dead duck. One more little bullet hole
added to the big holes in the floor didn't mean a thing in that
house. Of course, as we continued living there we made some
improvements and it became quite comfortable.
When Dennis was two years old, just about a month before Anita
was born, Ima, Dennis, my brother, my brother's wife, and I all
went to the Rocky Mountains sightseeing. We were driving my old
Dodge sedan that wouldn't stay in high gear, leastwise it
wouldn't voluntarily. We had to prop the gearshift lever in high
with a forked mesquite limb about a foot long.
There in the Rockies one afternoon we had left Cripple Creek and
were driving down Phantom Canyon when night overtook us. But
before night had come on so strongly, we had gotten a good view
of the canyon. On one side of our car we could see straight down
hundreds of feet, and on the other side the mountain was straight
up just about as far. And every few miles the road crossed to
the other side of the deep gorge over dilapidated bridges with
big holes in their floors. Most of the bridges had been patched
with boards running lenghthways. And some of the patch-boards
had holes in them also, and some of them were broken and split
up. Others had come un-nailed and were loose and out of place.
Once we came to an abrupt stop on a bridge when a front wheel
pushed one end of a board down through a big hole and kicked the
other end up against our differential. We had to back up and
detour around loose boards and big holes in the floor of the
bridge,--all this at night, high above the floor of the gorge
below. They condemned the bridges and closed the road soon after
we made that trip. As a matter of fact, ours may have been the
last car over it before they closed it.
We didn't have much time nor money for such trips. We were too
busy farming and raising cattle. The pasture on our Royston farm
was a mile and a half long, and when Dennis was three years old
he often went with me to drive the milk cows home in the
afternoons. He usually walked all the way there and half way
back. Then he would ride my back the rest of the way home. Just
as my father and I did a lot of things together when I was a
small boy, so did my children and I do a lot of things together
While we lived on the Royston farm, Ima was telling me about the
death of a kinsman at Gordon. Ima didn't attend the funeral but
many of her people did. Families had gathered from far and near
to pay their respects and to attend the funeral the next day.
The house where visiting was taking place that night had no
electric lights but was lighted instead by kerosene lamps. Ima's
sister, Mary Beth, was five years old at the time, and when one
of the men struck a match to light his pipe, she said, "Oooooh!
Don't it get light when you strike a match."
The story is told that just before it got dark that night, one
woman, perhaps an Aunt Minnie or an Aunt Hattie,--she was blessed
with an oversupply of aunts by both names--anyhow, one of the
women went out on the back porch and, looking toward the
outhouse, said, "I want to get a good view of that outhouse
before dark. I have an idea I'll have to make a beeline for it
before morning and it's going to be dark."
Well by midnight all were bedded down, on beds, on cots, on
pallets, in hallways and in corners. Then for the next three or
four hours all was relatively quiet except for snoring and other
occasional noises made unintentionally.
Then there was the movement of a person--perhaps a woman--maybe
the same woman who took a good look across the back yard just
before dark. It was dark in the house now, and she couldn't be
seen, but her movement could be followed by your ears as the
floor squeaked and groaned under her weight, as she tiptoed
between the pallets and through the hall door, getting faster now
as she neared the back porch, and still faster as she left the
porch and crossed the back yard. Then suddenly and without
warning there was the noise of a heavy soft object against a
clothes line, followed by the noise of the same soft object as it
fell flat on the ground. And then, after a moment of silence,
there came the voice of a woman sitting on the ground and saying,
"Oh well, I wouldn't have made it anyway."
I have a lot of memories of things that happened at Royston when
our kids were growing up. I was working on the windmill down in
the field one day, about a half-mile from our house. I needed a
wrench from home and I needed Ima to help me a little. It was
getting late and I wanted to keep working, so I sent Dennis and
Anita in the car to get Ima and the wrench. I told Dennis not to
try to turn the corner up by the barn, but to switch off the
motor there and walk to the house and tell Ima what I needed. I
put the two kids in the front seat of the car, then I put the car
in low gear, got it started toward home, and then I got out.
Dennis was upwards of five years old, at least past four. He
could drive the car by getting up in the seat on his knees. All
he had to do was guide it and switch off the motor when he got to
where he was going. But Dennis thought he was smarter than I
was. He still thinks that at times even now. I can't seem to
convince him otherwise.
Anyway, he thought he could turn the corner by the barn, and he
almost did. But he sideswiped a fence, taking a post or two with
him until the car got so involved in the barbed wire it couldn't
go any further and the motor died.
The little wreck scared both of the kids. They got out of the
car and went to the house, Dennis crying and Anita trying to tell
Ima what had happened. Ima was about as upset as a wet hen in a
rainstorm as Anita told her, "Car run in pense." Ima was still
upset when she drove the car back to the windmill. She seemed to
think I had done something wrong. How was I to know that Dennis
wasn't as smart as I had been at his age? My goodness, I was
planting with a two-row planter before that age. Was Ima going
to admit that her son wasn't as smart as his pa?
I had always wanted to become a school teacher. I thought I had
the ability to teach kids a lot of things. At times it seemed
hopeless but I kept trying and some of my ideas worked. When
Dennis was about four, Ima saw him reach up under a car fender,
break off a chunk of dried mud and start eating it. She scolded
him and told him to stop it. But after Ima went in the house I
took Dennis around the other side of the car, where Ima couldn't
see us from her kitchen window, and showed him a lot of good
lumps of dried mud and I told him he could eat all he wanted. He
ate a little and quit, and we never caught him eating any dirt
after that.
During the 1930s most of my brothers and sisters were married and
had kids of their own and we often took our little children and
all went to visit Papa and Mama on Sundays. During those visits,
many times my brothers would go away to do their thing and I
would be left in the house with Mama and Papa and a bunch of
sisters and sisters-in-law. Then when Papa would leave to go
play golf, which I didn't have enough money to do, I would find
myself with a house full of women.
So one day Mama asked me why I didn't go on out with the other
boys. She said, "There must be something wrong with you. You
just can't get along with your brothers." Well, I got out all
right as she suggested, and I found them out in the freight
warehouse, drinking beer and shooting dice. If I'd had a dollar,
I guess I might have been out shooting golf with Papa. But all I
had was 18 cents, so I asked if I could get in their game.
They let me in and I soon had $1.50. I decided this game was
more interesting than I had thought. At this rate thought I
might really learn to like it. Then after playing quite awhile
they planned to stop the game at a certain time, and since I was
not "hooked" on the game as yet, I began trying to lose back down
to my original 18 cents.
But I wasn't that lucky. I kept winning now and then and when
the game ended, I still had 98 cents. I took my 18 cents and
left the 80 cents lying there. I told them I was only playing
for fun, it was their money. But they said they were playing for
keeps and didn't take it.
Later that day some of the smaller grandkids were playing in the
warehouse and took the 80 pennies into the house and showed them
to their Grandma.
Meanwhile, my brothers had gone some place in their cars and I
went back in the house. Mama was afraid the little ones had
gotten into Earl's desk out in the warehouse and had taken his
money. She asked me if I knew about the money. I told her,
"Yes, I won it in a crap game with my brothers, and I tried to
give it back but they left it on the loading dock."
Mama asked, "Is that what they do on Sunday afternoons?"
I told her, "Yes, that and drink beer."
She was horrified as she asked, "Why haven't you told me this
before?"
I told her, "Because you never asked me before.'
She said, "Well, don't you ever do that again."
I said, "Okay, I won't unless you tell me to again."
I often wondered if some of my brothers sort of hated me because
I wouldn't drink and gamble with them. It wasn't that I thought
I was too good to do those things. I just didn't enjoy doing
them and didn't want to. I didn't hate them for doing what they
did, so why should they cast me out for not joining them?
A little note here, Joel was working in Stamford in a drygoods
store in those days. He wasn't included with us in these
gambling and drinking affairs. Now, I only gambled one time and
I didn't drink their beer. I tried it one time and couldn't
stand the stuff. I was sick with influenza and they told me it
would be good for me. I took two swallows and decided to leave
off drinking and keep the flu.
But now back to the farm at Royston. Most people think of cattle
drives as something that happened long ago; and that's mostly
true. But soon after we moved to Royston, I got Lester Whitley
to help me drive a little herd of cows to Carriker's farm in Kent
County. Lester would ride Old Nancy and I would ride Old Buck.
We would carry a bite to eat for lunch, but there was no need to
go to a lot of trouble and try to take everything as though we
were heading up the trail to Abilene, Kansas, like back in 1885.
After all, we wouldn't be far away by nightfall, and my brother
would have all day to put a few things in my car and drive out to
find us about sundown. He would need to bring us something to
drink, something to eat, something to sleep on and some horse
feed and a rope or two.
Lester and I got an early start and had the cows headed in the
right direction when we learned that we had one old Jersey cow
that thought she was a racehorse. Right away she started running
straight up the road ahead of all the others. And she kept right
on trotting until one of us got ahead of her and brought her
back. We could see we really needed three horses, one for that
old trotter and two for the rest of the herd. But we had to get
by with one for her and one for the others. We thought surely
she would settle down after awhile but she didn't. It was the
same thing all day long, one of us behind to drive and one in
front to hold her back.
Sundown found us about where we had planned to be. There was a
place where the fence was set quite a way back from the road,
embracing an extra two or three acres of Johnson grass and weeds
and a puddle of water, all within the right-of-way. So we turned
the cattle into that little pocket and held them there while they
grazed and settled down.
If it had not been for that one old cantankerous Jersey cow, our
entire day would have been dull and uneventful. There wouldn't
have been anything of value to mention in our story during that
day. Without that cow, our story could just as well have started
after we got them bedded down for the night.
We could have begun our story with,--We waited and we waited. It
got dark, and we still waited for my little brother to drive up
in the car, but he didn't. We had no horse feed, so we didn't
feed our horses. We had only one rope, so we staked Old Buck out
and hoped that Old Nancy would stay with him through the night.
She was tired from the day's work and fortunately she didn't try
to leave. Nor did the Jersey cow give any further trouble. I
know she was tired. There is no way a cow can run as far as she
had run that day and not be tired.
We had gathered firewood before dark and our fire was warm and
friendly in the cool of the darkness. It seemed that we should
be eating something in the light of the campfire, but there was
nothing to eat. I kept thinking that perhaps my brother would
show up yet. Maybe he had car trouble. Any one of a dozen
things could have happened to delay him.
Now, when a man is hungry, he can take a drink of water and go to
sleep in a warm bed and forget his hunger until morning. But we
had no water and no warm bed, and the night was too cold to sleep
without cover. We built a large fire but it cooked us on one
side while the other side froze. And I've got to tell you,
saddles make very poor pillows. In the movies I have seen
cowboys use saddles for pillows, but this was no movie, this was
for real. And furthermore, I was no cowboy, just a poor farmer
trying to pick up an extra dollar to keep body and soul together
while fighting my way through a wicked depression.
Again it looked as if the devil was after me for sure. But I
didn't really think he would stoop so low as to get my own blood
brother to help him. I didn't see how the devil could do this to
me, after all the things I had done for him. Just the thought of
some of the things I had done for him caused my spine to tingle,
and I moved a little closer to the fire. I wondered whether it
was the chill of the night, my fear of the darkness, or the
thoughts of my past that made me shiver and move closer. Anyway
the night was totally dark and cold and damp, and I was
completely miserable. In such misery the one best thing I could
wish for was daybreak, and when it finally began to push the
black out of the eastern sky, it was a welcome sight, and I was
glad.
We saddled up early and pushed on. Before noon we left the
highway and funneled the herd through a gate and out into open
ranch pasture. Still the Jersey cow simply refused to stay with
the others. On the highway she could only go forward between the
fences, but here in the pasture she could go all directions.
When we came to the next ranch house, we borrowed a corral long
enough to catch the cow and put one end of a rope around her
horns and the other end around the neck of a large Hereford cow.
That ended our trouble with the Jersey cow. Things went so
smoothly after that, we could hardly believe it.
When we got to the nearest corner of the Carriker pasture, it was
still a long way to the gate that opened into the pasture. We
were tired, sleepy, hungry, thirsty, weary, and almost entirely
angry at one little brother who had contributed so much to our
misery. So instead of making the long drive to the gate, we took
wires loose from the fence posts, tied the bottom wires down,
propped the top ones up, and drove the herd through the fence and
into the pasture. This ended our drive, but there was still one
little chore to do.
I wanted to cut the rope between the Jersey cow and the Hereford
cow and let them run free. The terrain was rough and almost
completely covered with trees and cedar bushes. I prepared my
catch rope and made one desperate attempt to rope one of the
cows. I threw the loop and it went over one horn of the
Hereford. I knew the herd would vanish into the brush before I
could get ready and try again. So I jumped to the ground and
tried to flip the rope around the other horn also. I had hoped
to delay them long enough to rush in and cut the rope between
them. But I had no such luck. My throw rope came off the one
horn and they quickly disappeared into the thick brush. They
were all gone, vanished into the bushes.
I looked for Old Buck and he was gone too. Then I looked for
Lester and he was nowhere in sight. I called to him and he came
riding up out of the brush. I asked if he had seen Old Buck. He
hadn't, but he rode off to find him. We found Old Buck working
alone and holding back a bunch of cows that were trying to run
away. There were two ways for the herd to escape. Lester had
gone one way and had tried to hold the cows back, but had failed.
Old Buck had gone the other way alone and had cut off the escape
route of the other half of the herd. Not a single cow had gotten
by him, but the two cows we wanted had escaped down the way
Lester had gone. I could write a book telling about the splendid
work Old Buck did for me while we were together.
Anyway, we fastened the fence wires back in place and were riding
toward home when night overtook us out on the highway. After
dark some men from our community drove by in their car,
recognized us, offered to take us home and we accepted. We still
had only one rope, so we staked out Old Buck as we had done the
night before and hoped that Nancy would stay with him one more
night.
Needless to say, when I got home I ate everything I could get my
hands on. I was hungry enough to eat anything that wouldn't
fight back and couldn't outrun me. And my bed was so much better
than the one that had tortured me the night before.
Early the next day when we returned to get our horses, Old Nancy
was not there. We searched for her but in vain. We returned to
the area every day for a week looking for horse tracks either in
the lane or in the pastures on both sides of the highway. But we
found no clue whatsoever as to where she had gone. Then finally
a thought came to me. Down in the valley of Texas there was a
woman I had heard on radio--I believe her name was Ethel Duncan--
who claimed to have aided many people in locating lost articles.
If you would send her a dollar she would answer three questions
for you. I knew it would be worth a dollar to me to have her
answer just one question. So we went to the telegraph office in
Rotan and I wrote my question on a telegram form, "Where can I
find my lost saddle mare?" The telegraph operator read the
question, looked at me, and shook his head just a little, as if
to say, "There's one born every minute." But money talks, and
since I had the dollar to send to Ethel and enough left over to
pay the man for sending it to her at McAllen, he took my money
and sent the question and the dollar.
About an hour later the following message came over the wire, "In
my opinion your mare is grazing along the right-of-way of the
railroad which runs into Rotan from Nugent, about three miles
from home."
The railroad ran beside the County road all the way to my home in
Royston. It would be easy to look for the mare, and we did look
all the way home. But there was nothing, no horse, no cow, no
sign of any animal of any kind, except maybe a few jackrabbits.
There were not even any horse tracks.
Well that was the last straw. As far as I was concerned, the
mare was gone for good. I gave up. I had spent too much time
away from my farming already. There was work to be done and I
had better get with it. I knew we would miss Old Nancy, but we
could live without her.
Then at home, while I was getting ready to get back to plowing,
some thoughts were running through my mind. I read the telegram
again.". . .along the railroad which runs into Rotan from
Nugent." I knew it didn't run from Nugent, but then it did run
to Rotan. I couldn't see anything wrong with that. But wait--
something still wasn't clear. I was trying to figure whether
there was something I was overlooking. I read a little further,
". . .about three miles from home, "THAT'S IT, HOME. Where was
my home? Was it Royston? Was it my house? Come to think of it,
neither of those places was mentioned in my telegram to Ethel,
Rotan was the only place mentioned. That had to be it, three
miles from Rotan. That would be about nine miles from my home.
I got back in my car and drove almost to Rotan. When I thought
Rotan was still about three miles away, I pulled up to a farm
house and asked a farmer whether he had seen a stray mare.
"How long she been gone?" the farmer asked.
"One week today," I answered.
"Nope, haven't seen her. Got one been here two weeks; couldn't
be yorn."
"Mind if I see her?"
"Nope, she's out in the lot with the other horses."
We walked to the horse lot and I looked.
"That's her all right," I told him.
"How long you say she's been gone?"
"One week today."
"Seems like she's been here a lot longer'n that. No, guess
not,--today's Wednesday ain't it? Yep, yep, that's right, she
come last Wednesday. That's the day I drove into town. She was
here when I got back."
I changed the subject, anxious to check on Miss Duncan's
accuracy. I asked the man,
"How far is it to Rotan?"
"Three-and-a-half miles."
"Do you happen to know where that little mare was about an hour-
and-a-half ago?"
"Yep, she was down in the back of the pasture."
"Which way does your pasture run from here?"
"Down that way toward town."
"How big is your pasture; how far is it to the back side?"
"A half-mile."
"Do you remember if the mare was near the railroad fence, or out
in the other side of the pasture?"
"Yep, she was agin the railroad. But why all these questions?"
Then I told him the whole story--the cattle drive, the lack of a
rope to tie the mare, our week of searching, the telegram, and I
let him read the reply. After he finished reading it he said,
"That's right, she was three miles from Rotan by the railroad."
So we finally got the mare back and we were happy about that.
Now there is still the question as to why my brother didn't bring
the things we needed. He had a simple answer: He didn't want
to. No further explanation, no apology, no feeling of guilt, no
regrets--just simply didn't want to.