Farming
The ground would usually be 'broke up' in the winter. We would use a 'turning plow'. One man would walk behind the plow and hold a handle in each hand. The lines, to control the horses or mules, would be tied behind
our back, there was a little tension on the lines. Your body had to stay tense, to be ready to jerk---side to side, to guide the team. The soil could not be to-wet or to-dry, or the plow would 'stick' or else come out of the ground. You guided and pushed down or lifted on the handles, to keep the plow point at a certain depth and in a straight row. On the front end of the plow, where it hooked onto the 'double-tree', there was an adjustment, also.
A double-tree hooked up two horses, or mules. A single tree, was for one horse. If it was real dry or rocky, the plow would jerk. You wanted to smoothly 'turn' a row of dirt to one side. That 'turned under' the dead stalks and stubble from the last years crop. Then another row and another.
Eleven rows a quarter of a mile long, three feet apart, was generally an acre. With a good fast team, you could get about 10 acres in a day, working from sun up until sun down. Some farmers couldn't get over six and a half acres.
One man with a team, two mules or two horses, could work about 40 acres of row crop. That was every day but Sunday, all the daylight hours.
A good team could be guided by 'chucking' or talking to them. That is where 'Gee and Haw' got started. A team learned that 'Gee' meant to turn right and "Haw' meant turn left. A team got good at pulling in a straight row. A farmer was proud of his straight rows. Going down the road, you always looked up the rows and admired them---or saw that they were not straight.
The metal point of the plow would 'wear off', and it couldn't be held down in the dirt. Rocks would turn it to the side and wear it quicker. You had to unbolt the plow point off the plow and take it to the blacksmith shop to be sharpened. The blacksmith had a hot fire, the better grade of coal made the fire hotter.
The plow point would be heated white-hot and laid on an anvil and the point beaten out to a sharp point. Sometimes another hot piece of metal would be laid onto the plow point and beat until it made a longer point, it was 'welded on'. The blacksmith quickly stuck it in water to 'temper' it. It made a hissing noise and clouds of steam, when the water boiled when it touched the hot metal. If it wasn't tempered right, it would be 'to soft' and wear off to quick. If it was 'to hard', the point might break when a rock was hit. Sometimes a new blacksmith would 'set the point' at the wrong angle. Then as the plow was going through the dirt, it might keep coming up out of the ground or it might keep 'angling' deeper down into the ground.
After it had been plowed in the winter, we would 'catch it just right' in the spring when it was drying out. We would harrow it down. A harrow was a flat scratcher with 'teeth' that raked over rough plowed dirt and leveled it. Then we would lay off the rows with the cultivator, for planting. That was all done while someone was walking behind, in the plowed soil. It was hard, walking in plowed soil. After the row was 'opened', a cotton planter was pulled over it, to drop the seed.
A 'plate' could be changed inside the planter and it would drop corn, a 'cornplate'. If it was soft sandy land, we could use a 'lister' instead of a turning plow. It made a big bed of dirt. We could plant on top of the ridge or make a furrow in it and plant seed in the furrow.
'Cotton plowing' got most of the weeds and grass. To many cotton seeds were planted, to be sure of a 'good stand'. Then, if it all 'come up', some of it had to be 'chopped', so that each cotton stalk would be eight inches apart. Walk along and 'chop' with your hoe between each stalk of cotton, that made it the right distance apart. You cut down any weeds or grass as you went along.
We all had a problem with Johnson grass, it has a deep spreading root.
It spread by it's seed or it's many jointed roots. If the root dried and it got a little water and soil over it, it would start growing, and crowd anything out.
We would try to get rid of Johnson grass out of the cotton land---before planting cotton. We would plow it in the winter and turn the roots up to freeze. Or plow it up, in the hot dry summer to let it dry out and die.
Some farmers plowed it in the 'light of the moon' to kill it.
A Johnson-grass field made good grazing. Then before it got dry and tough, we would cut and bale it. It made good feed for the stock in the winter.
Cotton was our 'cash crop'. Poppy rented land and we planted 60 or 70 acres of it. There was a lot of hard work to raise and harvest a crop of cotton. Everybody worked in the cotton 'patch', picking cotton. The 'cotton wagon' was set in the middle of the field when it was ready to pick. Each sack of cotton that was picked, was weighed and then dumped in the cotton wagon. It had tall sides to hold all the loose cotton.
Each family brought our own 'water jug'. It was a glass gallon jug, that had wrapped and sewed layers of 'tow-sack', gunny sack, around it. That was to keep it from breaking and you would pour a little water on it and keep it damp outside and cool inside. It usually had a corn-cob for a stopper. We set it in the shade and we all drank out of it. The kids were cautioned not to drink 'to much', we didn't want to 'run out'. And if a friend come along, we offered him a drink too. Weighing the cotton, getting a drink of cool water---it gave a short break from all that bending over, and pulling the heavy cotton sack. You could stop and straighten up any time, but then the others would get ahead of you. Most pickers picked along together. There was always one that picked faster than the others, they 'picked on ahead'.
There wasn't much talking, it slowed most everybodys cotton picking down.
We would stop putting cotton in the big 'cotton wagon' when we 'weighed up' 1500 pounds. A team was hooked on to the wagon and it was pulled to the gin. That made a bale of about 500 pounds of lint cotton.
That was after the seed was removed, it had been 'ginned'.
At one time there was two gins in Porum and one in Warner. The price was about the same, you couldn't afford to haul it far with a team. It would be 'pulled over the scales' and weighed and then a big vacuum tube would suck the cotton out. The wagon would drive over the scales again, to see how much cotton had been brought to the gin. Then the team would pull the wagon back to the field, to be loaded again. The bale of cotton was sold to a local buyer and would bring from 5 to 9 cents a pound. Sometimes the price would change---from one day to the next---the prices might 'fall out'.
I was with Poppy on a load of cotton, when Raimey, the gin owner, said it weighed 300 pounds short. That would be a loss of 7 or 8 dollars. Poppy finally told him' 'Your scales are wrong, or you are a thief." I thought there was going to be trouble. Raimey made up most of it.
The sale price of a bale of cotton was from 25 to 45 dollars. The sale of the cotton seed, would usually pay for the 'ginning'. That was the process of removing the cotton from the seed. The 'nut' in the cotton seed is deep yellow. It is processed for the oil and the rest of the seed is ground up for livestock feed. 'Cotton seed cake' is expensive. It is pressed into solid golden yellow bars, nearly an inch thick.
Cows gave more milk, and their butter is a brighter yellow, when some cotton seed cake is put in their feed. As a cow got old, her teeth got bad and she couldn't chew her food good. She didn't give as much milk. We would buy ground up 'shorts', sometimes we would wet it, put a little cotton seed cake in her feed and she would just 'lap it up' and 'give' a lot more milk.
Cotton grows in a round 'bole', small and hard at first, they are from 1 to 3 inches. They are hard and good for throwing. But you better never get caught at it. It wastes cotton, and you should be busy picking or hoeing it.
As it matures, the bole dries out and opens. If we didn't spray the cotton when it was in bloom, bole weevils would 'sting' the bole and lay eggs in it and hatch more weevils. Those boles would fall off. The fields 'get white', as it gets ready to 'pick'. The bole opens in a star shape and the opening points are dry and sharp. You reach your fingers inside the burr and pull the cotton
out and put it in your sack. You are grabbing fast. The points prick your fingers, they would get sore, sometimes bleed. Gloves don't work at all. You had to 'pick it clean', not leave any in the burr, nor leave a burr unpicked. Anyone could look back down the row and see the cotton that had been 'left'.
A hard blowing rain would blow the mature cotton out and sometimes string it down into the dirt. That was when the whole thing was put in your sack. It was called 'pulling boles', the farmer got a lower price for that cotton. It had to be processed more to clean it.You got less for pulling it.
I used a 9 foot cotton sack, The strap across my shoulder was three and a half inches wide. Some men used a 12 foot sack. I would 'get to the wagon', dragging 60 to 80 pounds in my cotton sack. You could 'shake the cotton down' in your sack, and pick further. It made a heavier 'drag' too. The underside of the cotton sack had an extra layer of duckin, heavy cloth, to make it last longer. When that wore through, the sack could be patched and later 'turned over' and the straps sewed on a different place. You didn't want to waste your 'cotton picking money', buying another cotton sack, until you had to. 'Weigh up', empty, and then do it again and again. Sometimes I would walk to the far end and 'pull back', to the scales. Some men would pick two rows, 'away from the wagon and three rows back', to the wagon. No one liked to pick where the cotton was 'skimpy' or 'scattered', you wasted time.
200 or 300 pounds in one day, was good picking. Most people never got over 200. Pulling boles, I could get 1000 pounds in a day. That was from 'sun till sun' (sun-up till sun-down) It was all bending over, and pulling the heavy cotton sack. If the cotton was real thick and 'good picking', some men bought leather 'knee pads' that buckled on. They crawled along on their knees, sometimes picking 3 rows at a time. There was lots of bragging.
It was all settled when they 'weighed up' at the scales.
Women would pick, when they had time. They would bring their babies and ride them along on their sack.
Their children that were to young to pick, would run along and play. Mamas made shorter cotton sacks for their older kids, they started picking young. Most cotton was ready to be picked about the middle of September. After six weeks, most of it would be picked and then school would start again. Children picked a big part of the cotton. For most kids, it was a happy time of the year, picking along with our friends and talking about the new shoes and winter coat, we would buy.
Boys would buy two pair of overalls, a dollar a pair, and they were expected to last until 'cotton picking' the next year. We didn't carelessly climb a tree and tear our overalls. We took care of our clothes, we knew that we couldn't get any more.
When we picked 100 pounds of cotton to get a new pair of shoes---we took good care of them. We did not 'scuff' our feet as we walked, or get them wet if we could help it. We put cardboard inside, when the soles got thin and leaking. Our Poppy tacked leather on the bottom, for 'half soles'. All shoes were leather, there were no canvas or plastic. One pair of brown oxfords lasted all winter, until school was out in the spring. We very seldom had another pair of 'Sunday Shoes'. And sometimes we had no shoes at all, in the summer. Some families had to use all the 'cotton picking money' that their kids made, to have money to pay debts, or to 'live on'.
We were watched that we didn't 'miss any', that we didn't put any leaves in our cotton sack. Sometimes there were so many green leaves on the cotton stalk, the big white fluffy boles would seem to hide. Later years when the cotton was ready to pick, it would be sprayed and all the leaves would fall off the stalk.
After the cotton was picked, usually there would be a little 'late cotton'. It would 'open up' along the low places, where it had more moisture. The woman would go out and 'scrap it'. When there was a 'passing', it was took to the gin, and the seed removed. Our Mamas and Grandmothers 'carded' it. A carder was like a paddle, it was held in each hand and the short wire teeth were brushed together, to 'work' the cotton into thin even layers.
This layer was quilted between a pieced 'top' and a seamless 'bottom' cloth, and it made a warm covering for our beds. We went to bed when it got dark. We were tired and the 'coal oil' lamps were not bright enough to do anything except necessary work. Cold rainey days, the quilt would be 'worked on'. Usually the 'top' was pretty 'blocks', all the same design. The blocks were 'pieced' (hand sewn) from little pieces of material left over from our shirts and dresses that our Mamas had sewed for us to wear. The combinations were very colorful, using just what she had, a light and a dark color, side by side. Any time a woman had time, she set down and 'pieced blocks'.
Favorite block patterns were 'handed down' or traded. Each quilt block pattern had a name. The most common was the 'nine patch'. Most all girls started that simple pattern for the first quilt, for their 'hope chest'. When she married, they would need quilts. It took 20 or more of the blocks sewed together, to 'make a top.' Other common patterns were, 'Grandmothers Fan', 'Wedding Ring', 'Log Cabin', 'Flower Garden', 'Road to Arkansas' and 'The Wild Goose Chase'.
A 'friendship quilt' was made by having friends or neighbors embroider their name and maybe the date, on a 10 or 12 inch block of white material. It was 'set together' with pretty colors and treasured. Some were very elaborate and colorful.
We must not forget the 'string quilt'. We would take a 12 or 14 inch square of newspaper and lay a strip of cloth, never over two inches wide, from corner to corner. Lay another strip face down over it and sew the edges of them together. through the paper. Turn that piece 'up' and lay another strip face down on it, and sew it, too. You tried to put a light color and then a dark color. Keep sewing, using narrow strips, until the paper is covered. Cut away the material that sticks over the edge of the paper, and there is a quilt block. The many colors always were so pretty together.
The strips are pieces that are to small, to use to cut the pretty pattern blocks.
Our Mamas used every scrap that she had, to make quilts to keep her family warm. There have always been blankets, but the ordinary family never had them. They were expensive and other things were needed more.
(The quilts that are made now, they are very different. They are made with new, specially purchased material, in colors that match. The patterns are more elaborate. The filler or batting is specially processed to hold together. The rows of quilting stiches, do not have to be as close together. No one has the time, need or desire to set for hours and prick their fingers and 'quilt', any more. It is harder to quilt, 'by the piece or around a curve. There are 'quilting machines' that do beautiful curving patterns and it is quicker.)
Then the quilt was 'put up'. Four screws were in the ceiling, with cords hanging down. Four one inch pine boards about two and a half inches wide, were used to tightly stretch the 'lining'(bottom) material,in the frames.
The cotton 'batting' was laid on next. It must be smooth and thin enough to put the quilting stitches through. The 'top' was stretched tightly and pinned, then it was ready to 'quilt.' That was making short stitches through the lining, batting and the top. Women 'prided themselves' on making short even stitches. Few women can make the perfect 'ten stitches to the inch'. It was hard stooping work. A 'full size' quilt was usually 75 X 82 inches.
The quilt was 'put up' in a room where you could 'get around it.' When you quilted as far as you could reach, you could roll one side up and reach another row. At night, the corners of the quilting frame would be wrapped with the hanging cords. That raised the quilt enough to be out of the way, usually from over a bed where someone slept.
When a quilt was 'took down' and hemed, it wasn't long before another one was put up in it's place. It was ready when our Mommy had a few minutes to set down and 'quilt'.
Sometimes a 'heavy quilt' was made out of the 'good pieces' of worn out men's pants. These were to thick to be quilted. They were 'tacked'. A long stitch of 'twine string' was made in rows all over the quilt, three or four inches apart. The string was cut between stitches. Then the quilt was 'tied'.
Our houses all got cold at night and we used quilts to stay warm in bed. Kitchens and living rooms were the only rooms with a stove. There was usually a bed in the living room, the ones sleeping in there were lucky. It was warm when they went to bed. It was cold for everybody to get out of bed in the morning. We all 'laid out' our clothes the night before. We put them on and rushed to the kitchen, to get to the warm stove that was cooking breakfast, and put our shoes on. That was the way it was at everybodys house. None of us knew anything else.
Most cotton was 'dry land' farming. A 'bale to the acre' was real good. Rain was depended on, to come at the right time, and 'produce the crop'. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't.
Some cotton, mostly in west Texas, used to be irrigated, sprayed on or water run down the rows. Water started 'playing out', under ground.
(2005, in west Texas, irrigation lines are laid 15 inches under the ground, so no water is lost. Cotton seeds are planted exactly the right distance apart. Two quarts of 'Round Up' insecticide are put-- to the acre. There are no weeds and no hoeing. Hives of bees are brought in trucks to the fields during blooming time, to pollinate. Big tractors, with radios and air conditioning too, plow many rows at a time. The cotton is picked mechanically.
Farmers are producing three bales of cotton to the acre !!)
Thelmer remembers, "We were all in the field hoeing. Our cotton was still small enough to plow. When it got a little bigger, the plow would not go over it, and it would be 'laid by' A little old thunder cloud come across, not real big, we were used to them. It was a mile and a half to the house, it would take to long to get there. We got under a tree at the end of the field, for a little protection from the rain. There was a straight up and down lightning strike. Thunder! and Noise! Dust flew! We thought our ear drums were gone, our ears rang for no telling how long. It didn't rain much and we went on back to hoeing. By the end of the day a big circle of cotton started withering. In the middle of the field, a circle---about 40 ft across, of cotton died. It just died.
It was unusual for lightening to not strike a tree. A close call for all of us who were standing under the tree at the end of the row.
When the corn got to big to plow, without breaking the stalk over, it was 'laid by'. Then we took a horse and plow, 'up the middle' and planted a row of beans or peas in the middle. They would grow and be picked before the corn was ready to be gathered. We planted a few watermelons along in the rows of cotton. When we were picking cotton in the fall and it was hot, it was good to find a ripe one, laying there in the shade. I would bump it on the ground a few times, 'to loosen up the heart'. Then bump it hard enough to bust it open, and pick up the whole seedless 'heart' with my hands--and eat it. And you won't ever forget it.
Drought and the bole weevil and the depression was bad in 1930. Cotton was dead, we never planted any more.
We would sew 40 or 50 acres of oats. They made good winter and spring pasture for our cows and work stock. We grew corn to feed the horses and mules and to make cornbread for us. We raised peanuts for feed and we liked to eat them too. Hegari (Hi-Gear) to thrash for grain and to feed green to stock. The chickens always pecked and ate everything they could reach.
Thelmer went to church at Pound's house, they were neighbors, about a mile west. Thelmer took a Starr girl home, "I sure thought she was pretty." I had rode a horse to church. When a boy took a girl home, they both walked and led the horse. If a boy took a girl up on a horse, to ride with him,
they would have run him out of town.
When we got there, she told me that she had to take me in and introduce me to her Daddy. He asked me what my Daddy's name was. He said he knew Marian and Bell---and Thelmer could come and see his girl any time.
I might have been 10 when Rex Pounds paid attention to me, he showed me the keys on the guitar. I would practice, so he kept showing me. He got me started to playing, taught me some songs.
"Once there was a little mule----His name was Simon Slick,
He would roll his eyes and back his ears
And how that mule could kick.
He would roll his eyes and back his ears
And greet you with a smile
He would suddenly telegraph his legs and send you--half a mile"
Wo-ah mule wo-ah-----wo-ah there mule I say
Hanner quit your foolishness and climb back in the sleigh."
I wish I had the words to all those songs.
Sylvia married Rex Pounds later. They separated and divorced after I left home. The family never did tell me much about it because they knew that I liked him. Sylvia and Joyce, their daughter, lived with Mommy and Poppy. Joyce called them 'Good Mama and Good Daddy'. Junior, my youngest brother, her uncle, was 7 years older than Joyce. They were playing and Junior wouldn’t give her the swing as quick as she wanted it. She got mad-'that Moore temper'. He lay down across the swing seat and hung onto it. She got him up from there--she bit him on the seat. She said, "I ought to have had a whipping, I knowed better."
We sold tomatoes for a dollar a bushel, until people quit buying them. Then they would go to waste in the field. Once me and Lawrence traded two bushel of tomatoes for an old goat. She had twin kids, I played with them every day. When they killed one of them to eat, it tore me up completely. I haven't ate a bite of goat since.
We had lots of Irish potatoes. We sold most everything else for fifty cents a bushel. We would take a wagon load of sweet potatoes to the tank and wash them. Dirt stuck to them worse.
Corn Smith was a neighbor, he would come by on his horse---like he was going to fish. He would walk in a corn patch about three rows and start gathering corn. Somebody got tired of it and brought him before the Judge.
The Judge made them ashamed of their self. "Don't you know that's all his family has got to eat." And the Judge turned him loose.
One of his sons was lost in the woods across from our house. He was about 5 and he had been gone all day. It was hot, everybody was looking for him. Thelmer remembers that he found him, and the boy was scared of him. "I hollered and Corn Smith come. He picked his Son up, him so hot and dry and gave him a whipping. I wanted Poppy to do something about it. Poppy said to let it go." Corn Smith had 26 children. He got his picture in the paper and a certificate,because he had more children than anyone else in Oklahom
The crops were 'laid by' in the late spring. The rain stopped and they didn't need plowing again. We were waiting to pick the cotton and gather the corn. We would go camping on the Canadian river or on someone's land that we knew.
We lived at Dewar and piled everything that we needed---on the truck that Poppy built the wooden bed on---and went fishing.(that must have been the very first motor home in the Moore family)
Mommy loved to fish, we all did.
Living back at Briartown, we went fishing in the wagon. Sometimes Poppy would ride one of the horses and go back home and take care of the work and leave us there fishing. One time it was hot and the mosquitoes were big. Us boys went out on the sand bar to sleep. There was a little breeze out there. A little rise come up in the night and water was lapping at us before we knew it.
Imogene remembers all the fun of going fishing, "Annie would let us kids cover her up---to the neck in the sand."
One fishing time, me and Lawrence had to stay home to keep hogs out of our corn patch. We were watching our corn patch.
I decided to bake a cake. I mixed it up and put it in the hot oven. I thought it might be done. I peeped in the oven door at it---and it was boiling. After that Mommy got to showing me how to cook.
Sure enough the hogs got in. A big old hog would straddle a stalk of corn and ride it down, and bite that ear of corn. Maybe just take one bite, and grab another ear for a bite. That neighbors hogs had 'run out' and fattened on other people's stuff. Me and Lawrence was mad about missing fishing. We set the dogs on them. Our big old bulldog would grab them by the hind leg, and hold them. We were mad about not going fishing,
We got our knives out, we cut their tails off and cut their ears. They sure did squeal, as they went home. The neighbor lived a half mile, he heard them squealing all the way. Blow flies would have started maggots on each cut, by supper time. He had to put them in the pen and put medicine on each cut. He had his work 'cut out for him'. He come to tell Poppy what happened to his hogs. Me and Lawrence were scared to death, we knew that we were 'in for a whipping'. We knew that we shouldn't have cut those hogs.
Poppy said, "Now, Jess, you knew that your hogs were getting in our corn. I asked you to fix your fence. Thelmer and Lawrence had to stay home from our fishing trip to keep your hogs out of our corn.I don't think we ought to blame them to much." We were glad when they moved out of the country.
There is a North and South Canadian River, they both start in the 'panhandle' of Texas. The Deep Fork runs into the North Canadian. The Little River runs into the South Canadian. The Canadian Rivers are big and wild, and flooded often, causing lots of damage, they joined near Eufaula. Forty miles on down, it runs into the Arkansas River.
There was always talk of a dam to control it. We all knew the place to put the dam---was between the two mountains, right where the dam is now.
(The dam was newly built. An old Indian owned the land below it. There was a lot of rain up on the watershed of the Canadian River. The Corps of Enginers come to see the land owner. They told him that they were going to have to open all the 'gates' in the dam. If they didn't open all the gates, the water would run over the dam. His land was going to be flooded, he would have to move his cattle. He didn't believe it would flood his land.
Some of his cattle were washed for miles down river.
Several years later he had his pit bulldog tied in his back yard. His ten year old grandson was visiting and the grandson fell out the window. The pit bulldog killed him.)
The mountain on the north of the dam has Bell Starr's grave on top of it. Just that single grave up there among the big trees. It didn't mean anything to us. We always knew it was there, none of us ever went up there or saw it.
Dock and Bill took their kids to see it in 1941. Over the years, souvenir hunters had chipped little chunks off of her tombstone. (It has since been replaced by a bigger, real nice six foot stone and a tight little fence built around it). Lorene, Norma Dean, Christene and James Val, thought it would be fun to send their Aunt Louise and Bennie Thel, a piece of that stone. Their Uncle Thelmer was in the army, WWII, fighting Germans in Italy.
(They needed a school teacher at their local school. School teachers were hard to get during the war. Dock wanted them to hire me. And me and Bennie Thel live with them, while I taught school there. They found one to hire, before they got to me. But it has always given me a good feeling, that I was thought of--- Louise Moore)
They mailed that little piece of tombstone to them in Texas.
Bennie Thel was two, he was playing on the floor with his Uncles' Eldridge, and Stanley, and Aunt Alicea.. He picked up that little hunk of stone with both his hands and 'gave' it to his Uncle Eldridge---right on top of his head. The little spot bled for a while.
(Forty two years later, Eldridge had been coming to 'The Moore Reunion' for many years. A bachelor, he enjoyed the visiting, the food and his great nieces and nephews. For NO, he said NAW. One year Ryan followed him, around looking up at him, trying to figure out---how he did that. He came as usual in 1994. On July 31, a month later, he helped a friend move. Walking back to his pickup, he fell dead. He was 65.)
A little above where the dam is now, we would swim out and catch a log. We would push it out into the currant and ride it, we didn't have to paddle. It went fast, where the river was narrow. In the water current, we hung on, it was dangerous fun. When we wanted to stop, it was a job to get the log to the edge of the water. Or sometimes we would have to turn the log loose and swim to the river bank. The Canadian River was dangerous.
Me and Lawrence and the three Kagel boys had us a swimming hole in the river. We had rigged up a diving board. We wasn't there the time that the older Kagel boy run and dived in first. The sand had washed up in under the diving board. He broke his neck. He ended up wearing a neck brace and never could turn his head.
I never liked to go in the water as much as Lawrence. He could beat me diving and swimming. Once I dived way down and rubbed my nose on the bottom---sorest nose I ever had. He liked to go under water at the cliffs at the Canadian River. Standing Rock was up around the old Hoos place, it is under water now. There was a place there---as big as a house, under water. Big fish liked to lay back in there. Lawrence would tie a rope around his waist and tell us to pull him out in 'so many seconds.' He sure liked to go under water and grope for fish---noodle, grapple, guddle, go hogging)
I didn't, I got hold of a big snake one time. He was the daredevil.
We didn't know what a game warden was.
We very seldom saw any kind of 'Laws', outside of Porum.
Joe Hicks' son, Ray was driving his Model T Ford to fast in the deep sand. It turned over and crushed him.
The Dawes Commission tried to register all Indians in 1890.Many wouldn't register-- because as a one-quarter Indian, they could not go into a saloon or drink whiskey or carry a gun or handle their own business affairs.
That all had to go through the Indian Agent. Indians around us were given land before I can remember. White men come from anywhere to get an Indian woman and land. Indians drank a lot. As far as I could see, whites drank as much, probably more.
About half the people around us were Indians. They had no Indian customs or clothes, that we saw. It never made any difference to any of us. Most of us were 'dirt pore.' Some of the older ones, mostly older women, stayed home when they could. They spoke Indian altogether, almost never where whites could hear them. We don't remember Poppy 'talking Indian.' We knew that he knew what they were saying.
Thelmer and Jim Hornet were fighting at school. They weren't mad, they didn't have anything to fight about. Someone would come up to you and say, "He said he could whip you, Do you think that he can?"
Thelmer remembers, "I was on the ground, flat of my back. He kinda got the best of me, he was fixing to 'beat the tar out of me'. He was trying to choke me. A finger slipped in my mouth and I bit it. Jim jerked his finger out and nearly all the meat come off. It nearly pulled my teeth out.
That Indian opened a knife, it looked a mile long. I was reaching---I managed to reach a pile of broken bricks. I grabbed one (a brick bat, a half brick). I hit Jim above the eye. Some of the kids declared that they could see his brain. They drove him to the hospital and didn't know if he was going to live or not. Jim had an older brother that was fixing to jump on me.
He backed off-------"Well, I guess he was afraid of them bricks."
Today if you see Jim Hornet, he just has a little bit of an eyebrow."
His Dad come to Poppy, "Let's not have any trouble over these boys.
It's not any thing for grown people to fuss about."
He was real nice, a full blood Cherokee.
Thelmer thought the fighters kinda stayed away from him after that.
Thelmer, "I liked Tommy Hornet, Jim's little sister, when she was small. Later she did everything in the world to try to date me. I would not.
Tommy was real pretty. When she was about 18 she was in an accident.
Her nose was smashed and you wouldn't have known her."
John Shetley was driving a truck and they all had their legs hanging off. It's a wonder that they weren't a whole bunch of them killed.
Lynn's had an old tank that we swam and played in. There was a barrel tied in the water. We would get under it and try to sing. Lawrence would dive and go all the way across. He would crawl on the bottom, just clawing on the mud bottom. When he come up, he was so muddy, you could see nothing but the whites of his eyes. We laughed a lot.
Thelmer was plowing with the old mule, 'Pete'. Mommy would watch until they got to the other end of the row. Then she would ring the dinner bell. Pete would come straight to the house, at the sound of that bell.
If Pete was in the middle of the field, he would turn around and cut across the rows. "We fought that old mule and never could control him." Mommy got to where she wouldn't ring the bell, when we were plowing with Pete.
We had a Boisd'ark tree, It has the hardest wood, not good for anything. Sometimes we used it for posts, the wood was kinda red like cedar. Most people cut down the little trees. The 'apples on it are worthless.
It was unusual for livestock to eat them. But our little red mule would chew on them, his slobbers would reach the ground. He would get real skinney, 'pore as a snake'. We tried to keep him away from them.
Pete Shoemake (very distant kin to Notchie) had a store in Porum. Whenever we, (Thelmer and Lawrence) would come into his store, he would hand us a thick slice of cheese and a handful of crackers out of the barrel. The crackers were loose in the barrel, he would twist the paper liner back over them. If we didn't have a dime, he gave it to us anyway.
We were talking about going bullfrog hunting. Our little boat would float down the creek. We would drag it over the shallow places. Bullfrogs made a distinctive sound, different from the other kinds of frogs. One of us would set in the front of the boat with a carbide light on our cap. Their white belly would shine. The boat would glide to them---they were blinded by the light. Then tap them on the back with the paddle and momentarily paralyze them. Have to grab them quick, you learned how to hold their hind legs. In a minute they start fighting and they would scratch the blood out of your hand. We would string them on a wire through the chin.
Mommy cooked anything that we brought home, and we always liked it.
Pete said he would like to have some frogs. We brought him some in a damp sack, He dumped them out on the floor. Those frogs started jumping. They jumped onto the shelves and started knocking cans over. We liked to have never caught them all. Then another would jump and knock more cans over. Pete thought the frogs would be dead.
We made our own fun. If we had a gallon bucket lid, we would find a limb with a T on it. We would push the lid and run and it would wobble
We would 'think like' it was a locomotive--rolling along rattling.
It was a thrill to find two tin cans to make stilts. I would nail each one on a stick and walk on them.
We liked to be out in the woods all day. If another bird got around a blue jay nest, there was always at least two blue jays to chase them off.
We would watch blue jays chase a hawk or a crow, get a hold and hang on. They would get them down on the ground and even whip a hawk and make him get 'high behind'.
Gather up little round rocks off the railroad tracks for slingshot ammunition. We would roll clay in little balls for ammunition. We would sharpen a stick and push the clay ball onto it. Swing the stick back; snap it forward with a jerk---and it would really go.
Jack Haygood would fight all the time. Beat him to death and he wouldn't 'give up'. 'Till the last dog died.'
I, Thelmer was working in the field by myself. A little storm come up, the wind started and I headed for the barn. I unhooked the snaps between the two horses and they run on to the barn. I couldn't walk against the wind.
I was holding along a rail fence. The wind blowed me over it and against a big persimmon tree in the hog pasture. I hugged onto the tree and thought it was going to be pulled out of the ground. I had some pretty sore spots where hail had hit.
That may have been the time that Mommy got caught out in the garden. She lay in the garden ditch--afraid to raise her head up--until the bad little storm blew over.
Me and Lawrence were on lots of school program. Sometimes we painted our faces and we were 'The Two Black Crows.' And we sang, "I come from Alabama with my Banjo on my Knee."