A Story About Little Alex

December 22, 1891 was a beautiful sunny day. Grandad was a livestock buying trip to Arkansas. Granmama thought he would be home before long. Mote was 22, Sue 15, Jenny 11, Oaksie 6 and William Alex was 5. Alex had a time with his ears. Granmama kept a small cloth bag three quarters full of salt on the warm hearth. Laying that on his ear usually helped the ache. She would put drops of warm sweet oil (olive oil.) Sometimes blowing tobacco smoke in his ear helped. Mote was plowing the little garden by the house, to be ready for spring planting. Alex’s ear hurt. Jennie took him to the creek to play. They tried everything, it didn’t work. His fever come up and he went into a spasm. Granmama called Mote to get the doctor quick. He unhitched the horse from the plow and rode to town. Whipping him all the way. The doctor wouldn’t come. He said there wasn’t a thing in this world that he knew to do. Mote rushed back home and Alex was dead. He went back to town to send a telegram to Grandad in Arkansas. A telegram come back that he had left there. Another telegram was sent and he wasn’t there either. The couldn’t catch up with him. We have the letter from the doctor telling that Alex just had to be buried. They just couldn’t wait any longer. Grandad come in from Arkansas before long. He went to the store run by Uncle Jo Lynch’s daddy. (They were the first to settle there. They come to Texas with their belongings in ox carts.) He knew that Grandad hadn’t heard about Alex. He told him, “Wait a minute, I’m fixing to go home and we’ll go along together.” On the way he told him about little Alex. When he got home they all just fell in the floor and screamed and bawled. One by one they would get up and go out. They made it up. “Let’s don’t talk about it any more.” And they didn’t. They had buried their 4th son. About 22 years later she told me and Fred for the 1st time, I believe.